Crazy Things My Kids Do

Anybody out there ever had this happen?? We have, more times than I can count. We have a lock on the bathroom door, but occasionally somebody leaves the door open, and the boys just CAN'T WAIT to get in there and throw everything around.

Potty Boot Camp: Conclusion

Well... I'm sad to say, we didn't make the monumental change that I had hoped for last week. The boys do great at home, but we can't stay home 100% of the time. I dropped them off at the YMCA child care yesterday while I swam laps. I even put the plastic covers over their underwear, thinking that if they did pee, it wouldn't make a huge mess. I picked them up an hour later to find Tez in different pants. They said he peed his pants and apparently the plastic covers didn't cover. They also said I'd have to put him in a pull up from now on, or they'd call me to come clean him up. This was actually the 2nd time they've told me this, they must have forgotten about the first time - it was a few weeks ago. I got home and discovered that Juan had also peed his pants, but they didn't notice it because he didn't have very much leakage.

*sigh.*

I really really really don't want to do pull ups anymore. I really don't. But it seems I either have to do it, or stop going to the Y for a while. I don't want to do that either.

The other bit of discouragement is nap time. I've been putting the plastic covers on them for naps, and almost every time, they've both peed during their nap, which is expected at this point. Yesterday I put a pull up on them for their nap, because I felt tired of wet underwear. They both stayed completely dry. WEIRD. Today, however, they both pooped in their pull ups. So I had to change 2 poopy diapers today, and I feel like I'm back to square one.

So, maybe I'll have to suck it up for naps and just keep them in plastic-covered underwear. It's really not a big deal to have to change wet underwear, it just gets kind of mentally draining. And maybe I'll only go to the Y twice a week for a while instead of 3 times like I have been, to limit the pull-up experience.


On the bright side... the boys are growing in other ways. Yesterday I had the girls doing tons of chores because we'd had a busy weekend, which equals an extra-messy house. Tez wanted to help, so he helped Sage carry the kitchen recycling out to the bin, and he helped unload the dishwasher by sorting the silverware. He did pretty well, except in true Tez form, he wanted to make each piece into a drum stick and just beat on things.

With the potty difficulties, it's nice to see them becoming more independent in other ways. Does anybody else struggle with the idea of wanting your children to grow up? Right now my girls are at such a perfect age, and I want them to stay there forever. In fact, they could have stayed in the 3-5 range forever. But I'm so worn down by the toddlers, that I have a hard time really concentrating on enjoying my girls as much as I want to. I really have a hard time with toddlerhood, and I'm ok with wishing it would go faster. I wish the girls would slow down, and the boys would speed up at the same time.

Potty Boot Camp: Day 4 Report

Thursday went extremely well. No accidents at all until I left the house for 20 minutes to get the kids pizza for dinner. Yea! We're making very good progress. I'm very surprised at how well Juan has done. He's the one who would rather wear a pull up so he doesn't have to bother going to the toilet. I guess putting him in underwear full time is just the motivation he needed, because he's had VERY few accidents all week - I think maybe 3 total? Pretty good for the 1st 4 days.
And here are a couple ways we've kept busy during these long, boring days of being homebound:

Fun with play dough

These tent/tunnel things are usually outside toys, but they've had so much fun with the tunnels at gymnastics, that I decided to drag them out of the shed. The boys AND the girls all had lots of fun with them yesterday. They're not as exciting today, but they have been in them some.

And after 4 days of NOT trying to stress myself out any more than necessary with potty training, my house is a complete disaster! The girls are off school today, so they're gonna help clean the house. I am super excited about all the money we'll save on diapers! Maybe we can add it to our date nite budget. :)

Potty Boot Camp: Day 3

Wednesday was very frustrating. Mostly because the boys were naughty, grumpy, and whiny. As I reflect over the actual potty training aspect of the day, it wasn't so bad. J pooped his pants at 8:00 in the morning, so that put us off to a bad start, but other than that, things went well. I'll spare you the rest of the details, but I will say that today has been infinitely better so far, in both the toileting and the general attitudes of me and the boys. I love this pic - Sage reading on my Kindle, D on his ipod. This is the technological world we are now living in. At that moment, Alyssa was watching a TV show on the computer (and probably texting on her phone at the same time) and I was taking a picture.

Potty Boot Camp: Day 2 Report (and some trains)

Day 2: Tuesday

The Bad:
~1 poopy pants (by T) (lucky for me, Derrick was home by then and took care of that one!)
~1 wet pants (also by T)

The Good:
~ J stayed dry and clean ALL DAY (except during his nap, but I don't really count that)
~ T stayed dry and clean til about 5pm (that's when the accident's started). I'm calling it success.

We had a really great day.

Today the boys have their last Gymnastics class at the Y. I'm taking them to it, with those plastic pants thingys over their underwear to keep them from peeing all over the gym equipment. Hopefully they'll just hold it, it's only a 45 minute class. Wish me luck!

And here are a couple train pictures for your viewing pleasure. I have a desire to photograph trains, but since they're usually moving, it's difficult. So I decided to start with toy trains. I like these. :)Ha, I just realized the pun of "trains" and "potty training." Totally didn't do that on purpose.

Potty Boot Camp: Day 1 report

I started Potty Boot Camp today. For months both of my boys have been going #1 and #2 in the toilet about half the time. Some days more, some days less. Sometimes they wear underwear, sometimes a pull-up, depending on my mood in the morning and how much we'll be out of the house that day. I've taken a very relaxed approach to potty training until now. I made the decision to crack down a few days ago when I realized that both of them CAN go on the toilet. They just sometimes don't. I'm sick of buying diapers. I'm even more sick of changing them. And I'm beyond sick of cleaning up poop, when I know for a fact that they are capable of telling me when they're about to go, and making it to the toilet. I'm not ok with cleaning up somebody's poop just because they're too lazy to bother going to the toilet.

Today wasn't perfect, but overall it went surprisingly well.

The Bad:
- Little T, who is usually very eager to go on the toilet, peed in his pants about 10 times. WTH? I have no explanation for it. It's like he knew what I was doing and was purposely going against it.

The Good:
- Little J stayed dry ALL DAY! He has more of a tendency towards laziness. He usually asks to wear a pull up instead of underwear. But he did amazing today, and I'm very proud of him. Hopefully it lasts.
- Both boys stayed dry during their nap.
- and the BEST thing about this day: ALL THE POOP went into the toilet. NO poopy underwear! Woo Hoo! And here are some pictures of my big boys helping out around the house. Not today, these were last week sometime. They're getting to be quite the big helpers.

My Bread Machine Every-Day-Bread Recipe

I thought I'd post my homemade bread recipe in case anybody is interested in saving money on healthy bread.

I use a bread machine because it cuts down on a LOT of the work. I used to try to make 4 or 8 loaves by hand, then freeze the dough. That worked ok, but when the frozen loaves ran out it would be a while before I had time to make a whole bunch of dough again, then I'd end up buying bread anyway. Once I started using a bread machine I haven't had to buy any bread. I make a loaf about every other day; more on the weekends because everybody is home from school and work and we go through it a lot faster. We are all turning into bread snobs.

This recipe is slightly modified from the whole wheat recipe that came with my machine:

Place in pan in the order listed:

1 egg, with enough water added to equal 1 cup
3 T olive oil
2 T honey
1/2 T salt
1c. bread flour (this is very important, it helps the dough rise)
2 c. white whole wheat flour
{at this point spread the flour around so it's flat-ish and covers all the liquid}
slightly heaping 1/2 T yeast (I use quick-rise yeast)

Put machine on "dough" cycle.
When cycle is done, take dough out of pan and flatten into rectangle (about 8" x 12") with hands or rolling pin onto lightly floured surface (I use bread flour here to give it a little more help with the rising, but that's probably not completely necessary).
Starting at a short end of the rectangle, roll tightly into loaf shape, squishing the ends with each turn to keep air out.
Fold both ends slightly under the loaf and place into greased loaf pan.
Cover with damp towel and let rise until the top of the loaf is about 1-2 inches above the top of the pan.
Bake in oven at 350 for 25-30 minutes.

A couple of notes about my bread making:

*Depending on the room temperature and humidity, rising time can vary. If it's been several hours and seems to be done rising, but still isn't high enough, bake as-is. It won't be as fluffy, but it's still pretty good. There are a lot of factors that affect rising. I find that if the dough is too dry or too wet it doesn't rise well. I don't always have the perfect rise, but I always have good bread!

*If humidity is high (in summer), use a little less water or a little more flour
*If humidity is low (in winter), use a little less flour or a little more water
*When I say "a little" I mean a LITTLE - tiny little. Like a teaspoon.

*Regular whole wheat flour is slightly cheaper, but the white tastes SO DELISH - my opinion, you could definitely use whichever you prefer.

*If you don't want to make your own, but want to save money on good bread, and can pick it up from me, I'll make it for you for $2.00/loaf. That's a pretty good deal, if you ask me.

Pharaoh and Bert

 A couple years ago we started doing a nightly "Bible story time." I had read a book called Living God's Story by Jana Hoober, a woman who has 5 children. As a mother of 5, I usually read parenting books with a bit of cynicism, thinking, "Yeah, you probably only have 2 kids. You don't really know how hard this is for me." I know, it's a bad attitude, but sometimes I just feel so overwhelmed with the demands of 5 kids, and I feel like anyone with less than 4 can't fully understand what my life as a parent is like. I apologize to my many friends who have 3 or less kids for my judgmental attitude. You're all very good parents, and probably even better than me. And for you who have more than 5... kudos to you. I don't know how you do it. People say that to me too. I guess we all just do what we can, huh?

Anyway, the point is, when I read a parenting book written by a mother of 5, that means something to me. She gets what my life is like. She is living the same overwhelming chaos as I am. And this thing that she's writing about, works for her. Maybe it will work for me too. The whole idea of her book is teaching your children the Bible, and the main thing is actually READING the Bible with your kids.

So we began with a laid back, go-with-the-flow structure, to have "Bible story time" that coincided with regular "story time" right before bed time. We kept it up for several months. Then Derrick got his job at the railroad and spent 6 weeks in Georgia for training. And I dropped the ball. And I was ok with it for the time being. When he came back he moved to 3rd shift and then to 2nd, making it impossible to have any regular family-together-time. I certainly could read the Bible to my children without him there, but I want it to be a family thing that we are both involved in. So now that he's moved back to 1st shift, we have re-instituted Bible story time. Only now we're doing it at the dinner table. It's a little easier since everyone's already gathered, rather than having to re-gather everybody a couple hours later. We are now at the beginning of Exodus (we couldn't remember where we left off, so we just started at Exodus), reading about the Plagues in Egypt. The other night Sage wanted to read, and she read about 2/3 of a chapter. The only words she needed help with were "Pharaoh" and "sorcerer." She's a genius. Look at her with her cute glasses.

And on a much lighter note...

Parents: Do you ever find a random toy (or object) in your house and have no idea where it came from? It happens here from time to time. This little Bert guy was on my dining room floor this afternoon, and nobody in the house knows where it came from. As far as I can remember, I'd never seen it before. WEIRD. 

My Kids and their Coolness

Yesterday's post was all about my youngest, and I didn't want to leave out the others, so here they are, in chronological order of when the pictures were taken. :)

Jayna is in a gymnastics/dance combo class. Here she is showing off "the Bridge" after her first class. She asked me if I could do it, and I very confidently said "Yeah, I can do the bridge!" So I got down on the floor, put my hands all backwards by my ears, and...  I got my back about two inches off the ground. I COULDN'T DO IT! I'm sure the last time I tried, I could do it easily. Another proof I'm getting old.

Cuddling with the doggies. So cute.

Welcome to high school. Alyssa has been shocked at how much work high school is compared to middle school. After a rough start last semester, she's determined to crack down and do better. We're proud of her.

I found a website the other day called "Let the Kids Dress Themselves." I do, all the time. And sometimes the results are pretty fun. This is how I sent her to school today. It blows my mind that this is our perfectionist rule-following child. And she dresses like this frequently. (please ignore my terrible window-plastic-tape job).

Crazy Things My Kids Do

Hello, 2012! I was thinking it would be fun this year to do a series on "Crazy Things My Kids Do." It won't be every day, and it won't be every post, but whenever the opportunity arises, I will do it. Which means I have to remember to run for the camera during those crazy moments.

Sometimes I feel like I live at the zoo. This past year has been full of lots of poop, and I'm really hoping to see a LOT LESS poop this year. The youngest two are in the (very slow) process of potty training, so by the end of the year I'm hoping they'll both be doing their business on the toilet, and cleaning up after themselves (read: wiping their own butts!). But even without the poop, my kids still do crazy things. And admittedly, it's mostly the boys. Mostly the one boy. So here goes...

This first picture is from last Wednesday. Somehow Tez got a hold of a brand new tube of toothpaste. He had pooped his pants (here we go with the poop), and I was in the bathroom cleaning him up, and I think he must have grabbed the toothpaste on his way out the door without me realizing it (I was a bit distracted from cleaning the poopy underwear - man, just can't get away from it). I sent him upstairs to get clean clothes, and I went up a little later to find him like this, along with little squirts of toothpaste all over the room. I'll be honest, I had a mommy meltdown moment.

And, this is from today. It's fish food. An entire jar of fish food dumped on the floor, rug, and of course, the bat cave. I guess Tez thought batman was hungry? I don't know. I have no good story that goes along with this one. I was in the kitchen making myself some lunch. The boys were being good and quiet (a dead giveaway), I went to check on them, and this is what I found. I did not have a meltdown this time. But I was frustrated.

I took the boys to their first gymnastics class at the Y this morning. Tez LOVED it. Juan was ok with it, but I had to very strongly encourage him to try everything. He just wanted to run around. But they had a good time, and I think they'll do better the more they go and get used to what everything is. I was hoping it would be a way for them to burn some energy (especially Tez), but it's a pretty laid back class and not too physically exerting. Maybe next time we'll do swimming.