Brody and the Potty Training Scam

I recently discovered why Brody was so eager to potty train. It was part of an elaborate scheme to sneak his way into bed with mom and dad. I gotta give it to the kid - he will go to great lengths to get what he wants! I was a little slow to his plan at first, but after about four nights of Brody waking up somewhere between 2 and 6am and saying "Go Pee, Mom!" and then quickly saying (read: demanding) "MOMMY BED" before his last drip was out clued me into it. Of course I'm dead tired and don't feel much like fighting him, so instead I bring him to bed. And Brody does the evil laugh knowing his master plan was genius. Well played Mr. Brodeur. Well played.

Scoreboard:

Brody: 1

Mom/Dad: 1 (Because even though we sleep like sh*t, at the end of the day the kid is potty trained)

Holy Wind, Batman!

This damage occurred about 11am to the vacant house next door, also known as my "gym" because this is where we store the treadmill. It happened while I was on the phone with my mom. It had been super noisy outside all day and night with the winds and cracking trees. I happened to be on the phone with my mom when I heard an extra loud cracking noise and said "I think I should take the kids to a certain part of the house for safety, but I have no idea which part is safe?" Thankfully, we were in the right house so we were all safe! Although, this part of the tree is only a limb, so it has Aaron and I terrified that something may happen to the rest of the (much larger) tree that is located directly in between both houses, especially now that the tree itself is structurally weaker. The maintenance guys at Aaron's work were quick to respond and had the tree pulled off the house with a crane and boarded up by 4pm! Amazingly, there is very little damage done to the inside of the house.

Pure Michigan

Austin loves bike rides. He is just like Jacob and never gets tired of being outside:














We recently discovered the Betsie Valley Bike Trail and have gone on two bike rides this week! The first one was from Mollineaux Road to Elberta and back which is 10 miles. The trail is paved and goes along the river and through some woods and was just breathtaking. The bike ride was very enjoyable although somehow it felt like we had a head wind and were going up hill both ways! Our second ride was 6 miles from Beulah to Mollineaux Road along Crystal Lake. This ride was much more challenging since it is on a sandy gravel surface and you had to constantly pedal! The boys loved it as well and we let them burn some energy and run for part of the trail. We can't wait until they can ride their own bikes on it (especially since that means a lighter load for us)!

I love Northern Michigan in the fall :)

Beautiful, beautiful weekend

What an amazing weekend! It's been so warm and the leaves are just gorgeous.

Friday Jacob's school had a Fall Family Fun Night and 40th Anniversary Gala. I am on the fundraising committee and helped out making handprints on tiles the whole night, but it was still an enjoyable experience for me and the kids had fun too. Here are some of the treats I made before I painted the faces on most of the pumpkin cake pops.

Then on Saturday our good friends Kim and Peggy came up for the night and we had a great time that involved a trip to the beach, Jacob's soccer game, Spartans winning over Michigan, and Breakfast at Crystal Mountain. The weather was so fabulous that both boys stripped down to the underwear at the beach and Jacob even made quick dashes into the water a few times!

Brody's potty training has been going amazing. Jacob potty trained rather easily, I never, ever would have thought we would get so lucky twice. Brody tells us when he needs to go and I can't remember the last time he had an accident - I'm so proud of him!

Oh, and I dropped my camera in the sand (and then stepped on it), so these are the only two pictures I have from the weekend (taken once my camera finally decided to start working again).

Life with 3 kids

Aaron and I have been attempting to live more within our means which means fewer unnecessary trips to town (which is about 25mins away). So on the days that I take Jacob to preschool, I usually have a dozen different places to go and yesterday was no different. Of course, if I was alone I could probably fit in a bunch of stops in the short few hours of school. But because I need to incorporate potty breaks, diaper changes and nursing at what feels like every stop, I usually can only get 1 or 2 stops in. So yesterday after 2 craigslist related stops, the post office, the school, the library and the dentist I attempted to take all three boys to Target and the grocery store.

Target actually went ok. I love their popcorn and pop combo because I get a cold pop and my kids get popcorn which usually is enough to keep them quiet for a quick target trip. It was still quite a sight though because I had both older boys in the stroller (Jacob normally refuses, but he was tired and its easier to eat his popcorn in there) and Austin strapped to me on the bjorn, with me standing with straight arms to push the stroller because if I get too close Austin will steal my straw. Additionally, I can't let the stroller get too close to the shelves, because Brody will do a little shopping of his own then. I also have a reusable grocery bag around my arm that I am using as my 'cart'. So can you guess what happens? A lady talking on her cell, pushing an empty cart with no stroller has the audacity to come down the aisle I'm shopping in and ask me to move over so she can get through. Not because she needed anything in that aisle, nope. Just because she was walking through it. I'm thinking she was even a mom, too, since she was looking at baby stuff! You would think that a MOM would extend a courtesy here. And as if doing it once wasn't bad enough, she came through a second time. That time I didn't move and she rammed into the aisle. Seriously, what is wrong with people? We manage though, courteous people or (more often) not.

After Target we made our way to the grocery store and initially I thought it was going to turn out very, very ugly since 2/3 of my crew had fallen asleep in between Target and Toms (the grocery store). Thankfully they woke up fairly peacefully and we made our way this time with Austin in the bjorn, Brody in the cart seat and Jacob in the big portion of the cart (until I had too many groceries and he needed to walk. As we were exiting the store the boys decided to run through a bike rack made up of a series of arches. Brody clearly has the advantage here since he is still short enough to make it through without ducking. I watched the boys playfully run through and told them they could run through one more time because they were having so much fun. Then Jacob didn't duck quite enough and nailed his head on the concrete arch and I realized why playing on a bike rack isn't such a good idea. I went from thinking I was a great mom who slows down to enjoy their kids being silly free-spirited kids to the neglectful bad mom who endangers their kids by letting them play on something NOT designed for play! Ahhh, mommy guilt at its finest. So I comforted Jacob and as I was buckling him into the car I said "Next time we probably shouldn't do that" and he replied "but I want to do it again" so I said "but what if you get hurt again?" and he goes "Then I will just have to keep on trying".

The bike rack:

Austin is 9 months old!

Last week I thought a cold had landed on Austin and caused him a runny nose. On Thursday night, I was convinced it lead to an ear infection. Austin was up crying throughout the night and just wasn't comfortable. I gave him some Tylenol and Motrin but that just didn't cut it. I couldn't wait for his 9 month well (sick) baby exam the following morning because I was just sure that he had an ear infection. So Friday morning finally comes and I'm in the exam room taking off Austin's onesie when what do I see? Tooth #5 erupting on his upper, swollen gums. Poor guy was uncomfortable all night and I'm just blissfully ignorant to his painful, throbbing mouth just leaving the orajel in the medicine cabinet. Whoops! Austin made up for it the following night though. I loaded up his gums with some Nighttime super duper orajel formula and then tried to breastfeed him just before bed. THAT was a mistake. Little guy was too numb to figure out what he was doing and it was just a bit excruciating for me. PSA - Do NOT administer Orajel prior to nursing a baby. After nursing. Always, Always, Always After Nursing. Long story short - Austin's ears looked great. His might have had a cold or he may have just had the runny nose that you get with teething although they say that really isn't a teething symptom.

Austin's 9 month Stats:

Height: 27 1/4" - 20%

Weight: 17lbs 1.2oz - 7% Yes, at his weight we have to count the .2 ounces ;)

Head: 45.5cm - 55%

The pediatrician (and it was a different once from his 6 month) wasn't concerned about his weight either although he encouraged me to let him have tastes of things like mac n'cheese, mashed potatoes and ice cream. Austin had two pokes at this visit. One was for his iron levels which came out great and the other was a flu shot. He did great for both and only mildly complained about being held down. He was quickly soothed when I let him gnaw on the paper that contained his stats.

So Austin is doing good. He is almost crawling. He has forward motion and gets up on his knees, but it's not very pretty! I think he'll get it down here in the next week or two. He has just about 5 teeth. He eats like a champ. Loves to drool, never spits up (unless its a really inconvenient time to mess up my clothes). LOVES his brothers. Sleeps like a dog in his crib and not-so-great in the car. His all time favorite thing to do is suck his thumb while being held.

I guess that is about all for now, I'll add Jacob and Brody's 9 month stats tomorrow!

PS - Mark is doing well! His first night in the hospital was rough but they were able to get his pain managed and released him the next day. He has a slow recovery ahead of him, but so far so good.

Brody is potty trained?

Ya... I'm not sure quite how it happened though. We started off slow a few weeks ago with just putting him in underwear if he didn't want to wear a diaper. If he didn't fuss about a diaper though, I just kept him in diapers since I wasn't quite ready to deal with it yet. I kind of thought we were a few weeks off from aggressive potty training and then today Brody showed me he kind of has this whole potty training thing down. First, I didn't change his diaper right away this morning. It was about an hour after we woke up and we were eating breakfast. He came over stole my toast and put it on his plate then tried to tell me something and ran away. He came back extremely frustrated with me and I still couldn't tell what he was trying to say. I pointed out his toast to him which only enraged him more. Finally I understood a word - "PEE". Duh! So I followed him to the bathroom and removed his dry diaper and let him go pee. He then insisted on underwear so I went with it but completely forgot 10 seconds later. Luckily, Brody has this thing down and came to me 3 times during the day telling me either "pee" or "toots" and had no accidents! Amazing! Brody is so confident in his new skill that he protested greatly to his night time diaper. Poor kid! I'm holding my breath hoping this isn't a fluke... could it really be this easy?!?