Seven Quick Takes

1. Potty training is going much better today. Yesterday was awful again (Alex got peed on 3 times just while I was at the doctor), but we started to see a little progress last night. And then Jack woke up this morning telling us he had to go. We have had an accident-free morning and I'm hopeful that we've turned the corner. It's certainly been nice not having to clean up pee all day today.

2. The 3 day potty training method sort of worked, but I'm not sure it was the best method for us. We kind of had to force him to go, which is very much against what the book says. We also discovered that the reward system has very little impact on Jack...he could care less about sticker charts or jelly beans, and that's the BIG thing in the book. I'm still glad I bought the book because it did have some good tips in it, but we definitely had to do things differently than her prescribed method in order to see any results.

3. The book did recommend getting a Baby Bjorn potty chair and I second that recommendation. We already had a cheap one that I bought at Toys R Us a long time and it's kind of terrible. It doesn't stay together and the pee goes into the bottom part, so you have to take it apart every time to clean it and dump out the top and bottom and it's just a headache. The Baby Bjorn is SUPER easy to clean up and is much sturdier. We were a little worried at first because Jack doesn't like to sit on it...but it turns out he doesn't like sitting on the either one of them, so the Baby Bjorn wins.

4. So as I mentioned the other day, I'm 36 weeks pregnant now. Which means we are at the point of no return. I am having this baby if I go into labor. So far, there is no indication that that is going to happen, but I always feel a slight panic when I reach this point in pregnancy because it all becomes very real, very fast. We could have a new baby today! It's an actual possibility! Maybe I should pack a hospital bag! And now I have extra things to worry about like, who's going to watch our child that's already out of the womb? I wake up worrying about this around 3 am every morning. It makes for a very restful night's sleep.

5. I got a Fitbit for Christmas and I'm really enjoying it so far. I really wish there was some option to let it know that I'm massively pregnant and not just a big, lazy couch potato, though. It's also been interesting tracking my sleep, because lo, I am inefficient at sleep these days. I think I'll like it even more after I've recovered from having the baby and able to exercise regularly again. Right now, I log in and laugh at how short I fall at all of my activity goals everyday.

6. You know what show I'm really into right now? Storage Wars. My sister-in-law watched it while she was here over Thanksgiving and now I'm totally addicted. We will DVR it and then watch 3 or 4 episodes in a row because I always want to know what they're going to find next. We've also started watching Storage Wars: Texas which has the added benefit of being in places we actually know. The first episode took place at a storage facility that Alex has been to. And they also went to the Cavender boots in Plano that we drive by often.

7. I think I'm going to take a nap now. I've been taking full advantage of Alex being home this week because I know my nap times will be short to non-existent here in a few weeks. Good night!

Blergh

So how was your Christmas? Ours was fine. I had a really rough time of it this year. I've been missing my grandmother A LOT and it just didn't "feel" like Christmas since we weren't in Louisiana. (Plus, I am just TIRED and BIG and ready to be done with this pregnancy.) Despite my difficulties this month, Christmas Day went better than I thought it would. My parents drove us (slightly) less crazy than usual and Jack handled everything pretty well. I think he definitely had a good Christmas and that was the most important thing to me.

But that's not why I'm posting. We decided that a good time to potty train was this week. It made sense BEFORE we did it because we're 3 weeks from the new baby and Alex is off of work. We're doing the 3 Day Potty Training method and as of right now, I hate it. We finished Day 2 today and it has been AWFUL. Like, really, really, really awful. I don't want to go into detail because I'd like for Jack to not resent me when he's a grown up for posting about his potty training experience on the internet. But oh man, do I need a vacation.

I have to leave Alex alone with him tomorrow morning for a good 2 hours or so for my 36 week (!) check up and I'm kind of desperately hoping it will click while I'm gone and when I come home, he'll magically understand how to go in the potty.

HAAAAAAAAAAAAA! I know! Let's hope we survive the rest of the week, shall we?

Advent

Hey! So it's been...6 months. What have I not told you? We bought a house. We moved to Dallas. Oh, and I got pregnant. Scheduled C Section on January 17th, so we're a mere 6 weeks away from becoming a family of four. Surprise! I could probably say more about this, but who cares? Let's talk about Christmas!

So I'm doing an advent calendar this year with Jack. I didn't bother with one last year because he was only 20-ish months old and I didn't think he'd get the concept. Honestly, I wasn't so sure he'd get the concept this year either, but I figured I should start NOW in order to set the tradition. It should be good practice for next year when he'll be 3.5 and hopefully really into Christmas.



And since this was just a practice one, I didn't go all out. I used yarn I already had. I bought Christmas cards from the dollar bin in Target and got some stickers and cheap markers. As you can tell from the photo above, there's also only 9 envelopes. This is because the blasted thing will not stay UP. Alex and I have had to hang that string up a bazillion times. It's beyond annoying. I think I've finally got it secured enough with 3 of those little sticky patch things on each side (Again, we already had these laying around the house. I was going to use push pins but, surprise! We can't find them.) I have since added bows to cover up the ugly patch stuff, but haven't tried adding any more envelopes. I also didn't want to string anything lower because I was afraid Jack would just rip it all down. Also? Let's be honest, he doesn't care. AT ALL.

Here's my list of activities. You'll notice that we have "Read a new Christmas book!" several times because I bought 5 of them from the Scholastic order form at his school and have been saving them. I tried to use those on school days when he'd already have a bunch of stuff going on. I also cheated and used his Christmas program and party for school as activities even though those were going to happen anyway.

1 Read a new Christmas book!
2 Color in a new Christmas coloring book
3 Read a new Christmas book!
4 Visit Santa
5 Make an ornament
6 Read a new Christmas book!
7 Shop for a gift for cousin Abby
8 Go to the Christmas program at school
9 Buy a toy and drop it off for Toys for Tots
10 Go to a Christmas concert
11 Go see the Christmas trains
12 Make a Christmas decoration
13 Read a new Christmas book!
14 Make a Christmas card
15 Go to the Christmas party at school
16 Watch a Christmas movie
17 Bake and decorate sugar cookies
18 Read the Christmas story from your Bible
19 Make a gingerbread house
20 Read a new Christmas book!
21 Make an ornament
22 Go on a car ride to look at Christmas lights
23 Drink hot chocolate and eat a candy cane
24 Open one gift tonight
25 Merry Christmas!!!

I'm probably going to change up the order on some of these, depending on how the day is going and if we need to mix stuff up. I have yet to procure a Christmas movie, so feel free to suggest something a 2.5 year old boy who can't even finish the movie Cars and hates Toy Story might enjoy.

So how has it gone so far? Okay. Day 1 was a total bust. He was tired and grumpy by the time we got to open the envelope and he refused to unwrap the book (this one). He wasn't interested in reading it AT ALL and flipped through it quickly. I'm hoping he'll be more interested in it as the month goes on. Day 2 (today) went a lot better. He has REALLY been into coloring lately, so I was hoping a new coloring book would be exciting. And it was! Thanks dollar bin at Target!