Birthday Fun

It's hard to believe, but my "baby" is turning 3 years old tomorow, April 6.

Instead of doing a party this year, we decided just to do some fun family things. So on Saturday we started with our usual family breakfast of sausage, eggs, and tater tots. Then we headed out to the park to meet the other MOMS Club families for the annual easter egg hunt and some fun on the playground.
After that, we came home to play outside a bit with Mason's new bubble machine, courtesy of Baba and Grandpa from Orlando. Then Mason got to choose where we went for lunch: Chick-fil-a.

After all that morning fun, I thought for sure he'd take a pretty good nap, but it was not to be had. Sadly, I think Mason believes naptime is something for two-year-olds and no self-respecting three-year-old would be caught dead having a nap.

So since the weather was so beautiful, I talked Dave into taking us all to Carowinds with new season passes. We spent a couple hours in the kids area. His favorite ride was the kiddie swings... he rode it 6 times. On the way home he told us seat numbers he sat in and was exactly right. He also knew the number of the boat and helicopter he rode in. (It seems he has a knack for remembering numbers.)

For his birthday tomorrow, I will drop Mason off at school and come home to work on his birthday cake. He requested a "blue" cake, but I just can't bring myself to make one. Since his second choice was "brown and red", we'll go with chocolate pound cake with strawberries. I think I have Dave talked into taking the afternoon off, so that will be a nice surprise for Mason. But I don't think he'll care much once he sees the new truck he's getting for his present.

I'm a Big Kid Now

I think it's now safe to say (without jinxing it) that Mason is fully potty trained! He had been doing pretty well in pull-ups, but was still wet quite often, even though he would go to the potty several times a day. I felt like we stalled a bit, so we moved from pull-ups to underwear about a week ago. It ended up being just the push he needed. (Well that, and a bit of extra bribery with M&Ms and animal crackers.)

Underwear Day 1 was not much fun. For some reason, I started on a Friday (when Dave wasn't home) and we had 5 accidents. I spent my day taking Mason to the bathroom, cleaning up pee, or washing clothes. Poor Lauren was a bit neglected and she let me hear about it quite a bit.

Underwear Day 2 was a bit better. We went out to enjoy the nice weather and put Mason in a pull-up while we were gone, but he stayed dry and even used a public restroom. He only had a couple accidents that afternoon, but it mostly involved poop.

By Underwear Day 3, he was much better. By midweek, he was pooping in the potty. And he's even been coming to get us when he wakes up in the middle of the night and has to go. Usually, he wakes up dry in the morning. He's also much better about telling me when he needs to go, so now I don't feel like I have to ask him every 15 minutes. He's in underwear full-time during the day, even if we go somewhere, and we're just going to use up the pull-ups we have for nighttime until they're gone.

The only things we have to work on now is getting him to go by himself (which I know will take some time) and and having him pee standing up, especially in public restrooms (which I haven't quite figured out since he's too short to reach).

Ahh, my baby's growing up. I can't tell you how happy all this makes Mommy. And if you're a Mommy, I probably don't need to.

Potty Like a Rockstar!

We're singing praises over here because it finally looks like Mason is becoming potty trained. For the last week he's been peeing on the potty and staying dry for most of the day. Poop, it seems, is another issue, but I'm happy with baby steps for now.

I'm not sure what clicked in his little head, but one evening last week as Mason was getting in the bath, he saw Daddy go potty and he wanted to go too. So Dave got him out of the tub, put him on the potty, and off he went! He's been getting better and better every day. He even stayed dry at school yesterday! He's not quite to the point where he asks me to go yet, but he goes willingly most of the time when I ask him.

I still have him in Pull-ups and haven't quite braved going to underwear yet, but that will be the next step. I'm waiting to see how he does for a few more days.

After MONTHS of working on this off and on, I'm so happy to finally see a light at the end of the tunnel. My hope is that we get this done by his 3rd birthday (April 6). I'm not sure if that's realistic or not, but that's my goal.

A Few Random Updates

Some of the latest happenings in the Roszak household...

Lauren has recently taken to sucking her thumb. I'm rather surprised since I didn't encourage it, and I've never been able to get her to take a pacifier. It's cute for now, but I'm not looking forward to having to stop it later if this is something she keeps up.

The other day, Mason started calling me 'Mama' instead of 'Mommy' all of a sudden. I don't mind, but it's rather funny how these things change. He also started calling Dave by his name instead of 'Daddy' not long ago.

I think Lauren has hit her three-month growth spurt because she's been waking up several times a night to eat lately. She went to sleep at 9:30 last night but was up at 1:45, 4:00, 5:00, and up for good at 6:15. It's not helping that I've had to lay off coffee because it seems to make her cranky. Therefore, I'm a bit sleep deprived. Yesterday, I went to the bakery to buy some bread and left it sitting on the counter. It's been about six months since I've gotten a good nights sleep.

This morning while we were watching inauguration coverage, Mason "called" up Dave at work on his toy phone and said: "I'm watching Obama and playing with Mama's eyebrows. Love you. Bye bye." He was right on both counts.

Potty Time or an Excuse to Get Out of Naptime?

It was just this morning at playgroup when the Moms were discussing our 2 1/2 -3 year old childrens' potty training status. Mason has peed on the potty several times, pooped once, but nothing recently. Usually when we try to get him to even sit on the potty, he says "No Potty!" and tries to get away. Sometimes he's willing to sit down, but nothing has come of it for awhile now.

So today, a little while after putting him to bed for his nap, I heard Mason saying "Change pullup!". I figured he must have pooped, but when I went up to check, there was nothing. I asked if he needed to go potty and he said "Okay." I hesitated because I wasn't sure if this was a ploy just to get out of taking a nap. (It's happened before.) But not wanting to discourage the use of the potty, I let him go.

At first, nothing happened. We went back and forth for awhile and after getting on an off a few times, he finally sat down and said "Go away, Mommy. Go see Lauren." I thought, we'll maybe if I just leave and let him sit for awhile by himself, he'll go. So I walked out in the hall so that he couldn't see me, but I could still see his reflection in the mirror. After about two minutes, he turned to look at me in the mirror and said "Hi Mommy, all done". And what do you know, the boy pooped! I believe it was the first time he's done something on the potty since I last blogged about back in September! We called Daddy at work to tell him the good news.

And of course Mason got a cookie.

Boys Love Trucks

I'm very happy our second child turned out to be a girl. We needed someone to even out the testosterone\estrogen balance around here. I've never been a girly girl myself. More of the beer drinking, sports watching type. Growing up I preferred hanging out with the guys, I played sports, I've never done very well with wardrobe choices, and I still don't really know how to put on makeup.

For these reasons (and others) I was happy our first child was a boy. I didn't think I'd know what to do with a girl. Not only did I get a boy the first time around, but it has become clear over the last few months that our son is definitely all boy. Mason is a big wrestler and can't wait for his daddy to come home in the evening just so he can tackle him. It's a struggle to keep him from wrestling with his baby sister. He'd play outside all day if I let him (which has become much harder now that it's getting colder and the daylight hours are getting shorter). And he loves anything that has to do with cars and trucks.

And here's the latest evidence we have a very boyish boy... his current favorite thing to watch on TV is an episode of Ultimate Factories from the National Geographic channel that shows how the largest dump truck in the world is made. Dave was channel flipping one night and came across it. Mason was glued, so we recorded it. Every single day since then he has asked me to "watch dump trucks, Mommy". It has really expanded his boy's vocabulary. He knows exactly what machining a rotor is for ("to make it smooth"), knows all about welding ("makes it stick together"), and knows when "they are making rubbers" (for the tires - we're working on a more proper way of saying that one). He can can identify the "engine block", the "dump box", and the "pistons".

So I'm very thankful we have a little girl I'll get to do girly things with someday. Having a boy is wonderful, but after all of the truck talk around here lately, I think it will be nice to learn a little bit about froo-froo dresses and Barbie Dolls. I'll probably even let her wear a bow in her hair when I take her to her first football game :-)

A Potty Breakthrough!

I bought Mason a little potty before he even turned two just so he could get used to the idea. I haven't really pushed him to use it, but he has peed on it several times starting back in April. Lately, he's been refusing to even go near it, even though I try to encourage him several times a day. But today, my little guy pooped on the potty! I've never been so proud of a poop in my life. I had a quick thought that I should take a picture of his work (like Kate from John & Kate + 8), but decided that was a little bit much. I figured that wasn't anything anyone but me would want to see anyway.

Now I just need to figure out how to make the clean up process a little more organized (if you have some tips, please feel free to share) and decide whether I should encourage this more vigorously right now just as the baby is due to arrive.