Potty Trained!!!

Yes, we now consider Norah "potty trained"! I'm sure it'll come with its share of accidents (in fact, we had one this morning). But yesterday she had a completely full, accident-free day and she had pooped on the potty two days in a row! She is completely initiating going to pee on her own and would like to do it all by herself if able to unbutton her pants and pull them down. She's taken to it so fast it's great. So last night we gave her her potty training reward - a princess castle! She had been so excited to get it and was very happy when Nate came home and she could get it.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed with it. According to the box, I thought it would be a lot bigger/taller than it is. But she seems to like it so hopefully it provides some entertainment for her at least.

Jack's favorite activities

If Jack doesn't have any bath toys besides a washcloth or two, he's completely happy. His favorite thing to do is take a facecloth and shove it in his mouth and lay on his back kicking his legs and flailing his arms as much as he can. What's even better for him is if he can then have a SECOND washcloth which he holds in his hand and waves around as he flails his arms around! It's very amusing to watch (would love to post a video but that may not be appropriate for the internet!!)

And I may have mentioned this before, but he LOVES the jolly jumper now. He gets quite animated in it and loves to jump. Then Norah likes to pretend he's in a swing and pushes him which isn't always the safest since she doesn't understand the concept of pushing him straight and not towards the doorframe and walls! But it's so much fun to watch him get as much air as he can and really just jump and be happy.

Here he is in mid-air!

it's been awhile

Yes, it's been awhile since I blogged before. Not sure if there wasn't much going on...well, the other thing is that this blog is for "positive only" stuff and I haven't had such a great attitude lately so maybe that's why it's been hard for me to find stuff to put on here.

Anyway, a few things about each kid. Jack is still in such a fun stage. He has no desire to move (ie, crawl), which really is fine with me. As cute as it will be, it'll only add more work for me (I'll actually have to vacuum and clean up more regularly!!). But he is sure exploring anything that he can possibly get his hands on. He'll reach as hard as he can to get at something and once it's in his hands, chances are very good that it'll end up in his mouth just as fast. Even if that means spitting out his soother to make room for said other object! It's so neat to see his fascination with things that we just take for granted. He loves strings and he has this hand movement he does to pat/touch things that's really almost gay looking, but still very cute...too bad I can't really describe it in words. And he's got such a cute giggle. His eyes and face just completely lights up when he sees his daddy come in the room. And Jack loves to play with him and Nate can get him giggling so easily. It's like Jack is just looking with wide-eyed awe and wonder at his daddy - so cute!

Norah seems so different in the last few days -maybe cause she finally napped a couple of times this week and maybe that's all it takes. But she's all of a suddent started using forks and spoons (I didn't think she'd ever get past eating with her hands all the time) and she's taken a new interest in potty training the last few days. She's got a couple of older girl friends who are all trained and sees them wearing panties and I do think that's a bit of motivation for her. Yesterday she stayed dry during her whole afternoon nap time which was such a huge, but pleasant surprise for me. Then today she actually pooped on the toilet which was great, since yesterday we didnt' get that far. So I'm happy with how things are going and I"m really hoping it's for real this time.

She's also lately gotten obsessed with Jay Jay the Jet Plane. Last week at our church's MOMs group, the kids watched that show and I guess she loved it. It's really quite sweet I think how she gets scared quite easily by kids shows. Even Dora occasionally scares her and she was watching My Little Pony at a friend's house the other day and that scared her, too. But this one she LOVED. So I took a couple of the DVD's out of our church library on Sunday and she has watched each one over and over and over. And then she wants to pretend we're airplanes. I get some major flashbacks of my childhood cause she'll tell me she's Jay Jay and I"m some other character and we have to chase each other around flapping our arms! or do some other thing that she sees them do on the video. This morning she said to me "you've got to be kidding". It was totally not in context and I asked her where she had learned that and she said from Jay Jay!

Panties

I just wanted to record a cute thing Norah said this morning. So Jan. 5th is the start of potty training. We get home from Ontario on the 3rd and then we're diving in right away. So we've started telling Norah that when we get home from Nanna and Poppa's there will be no more diapers, only panties. So today I said to her, oh, 2 weeks from today...what does that mean? And she knew what I was talking about and quietly said something like no more diapers. So I started chanting "No more diapers, only panties" over and over. Then she told me not to say that and said "it's not panty time yet". I thought that was so cute!

How Far we've Come

Just wanted to record how i've thought several times recently that I can't believe how far we've come with Jack's sleep. He's still not a perfect sleeper by any stretch of the imagination, but compared to what he was like as a very little baby....I was used to how Norah was as a baby. I could lie her down and she'd just go to sleep right from the beginning - no rocking, bouncing or anything. So it was a real surprise with Jack, who I had to fight with to get to sleep. But he has learned to fall asleep on his own and it's so amazing. Just now I lay him down in his crib on his tummy and put his little puppy beside him and immediately he lays his head down to go to sleep. This isn't always the case, but usually it is and it's just so amazing....and so cute!

He's learned to put his soother in his mouth on his own...if only he'd find it in his crib at night when he wakes up!

On another note...this one about Norah. Here's her latest that she was doing today. She found an old Walkman and an old Discman and then she'd want me to watch her "bideo" and dance. So we'd stand up in the family room and she would tell me I couddn't dance yet. Then she'd press the buttons on both machines which turned them "on" and then we had to dance. Not sure where her love of dancing comes from - sure not from my mennonite roots!! Oh, and along those lines, the other day and again today, she wanted me to go to the livingroom on the hardwoods and "spin like a pincess". So we had to count to three, then spin around on the floor as fast as we could. When I asked her where she learned that, she said "Agex and Janna's house" (Alex and Julianna's house). Guess when they were downstairs at their place the other day, they must have been spinning like princesses!!

Jolly Jumper Part 2!

Just wanted to quickly post a picture of Jack in the JJ again (don't have time for more - this is already the third post of the day!!). Anyway, he's figured it out now and loves it in there! Good for me to know - provides entertainment for a good long while!
(sorry it's going to be sideways again)

Christmas Prep

I am enjoying watching Norah with all the Christmas stuff this year. First we took her to the Santa Claus parade which she quite enjoyed. And then I picked up this little set of Christmas CD and two little Christmas books which were actually the words to two of the songs on the CD. Anyway, we have sung those songs and read those books MANY times already. She's got one almost memorized I think - it's very cute. And we've read some other Christmas stories in her Bible books, too. Anyway, Sunday we set up our "Kismas tree". She quite enjoyed it and was excited to help put the decorations on. And she thinks the lights have to be on ALL the time. We turn them off for night of course and this morning when Norah went downstairs she was quite perturbed about what happened to the Kismas tree and the lights. So Nate went and turned them on for her right away and then all was good.

I had put up my porcelain nativity scene Sunday during her nap time and forgot to point it out ot her. Well, this morning after Nate turned on the kismas tree lights, she suddenly noticed it. And was very excited! She pulled a chair up right away and got up to look at it and apparently told Nate "baby Jesus is sleeping in a manger" or something like that. Then she pointed at Mary and said something about "there's Mary - the baby's mommy". I can't believe how much she takes in so fast. Well, then throughout the morning she'd climb up on the chair to play with the figurines. She does have a bit of the details a bit mixed up. She thought Joseph was Jesus and that baby Jesus was Baby Bethlehem. But hey, she's doing pretty good! I saw a cute little kid friendly nativity scene at Superstore that I'm going to pick up for her tonight since she loves playing with all the figures now with the Christmas talk. And she loves singing Away in a Manger with us "really loud" - meaning in our opera voices.

It'll be neat to see how exciting Christmas itself will be for her.