Huge News!

Amanda had the kids tonight while I was in class.  Tonight was bath night and Amanda noticed Noah getting a certain look in his eyes while in the bath.  She seized the opportunity to put him on the potty.  He had to get readjusted a bit since he's been scooting way back to watch himself pee, but once he was centered he put a big ol' poop in the potty.

The plan right now is for us to go bowling in the late afternoon/early evening tomorrow (Wednesday).  We want to make this as big a celebration as possible as quickly as possible.  If anyone has some free time tomorrow it would be great if you could call to congratulate Noah.

Whistling

Noah surprised me yet again today.  I carried him on my shoulders as we took Lily to the bus stop.  It was very faint, but Noah was whistling.  I heard him say something about whistling and then he did it.

He may not be the most eloquent kid in the world, but he is pretty talented.  He can sign better than he can talk.  He can count to 10.  He knows his shapes and colors.  He still needs preschool so he can work on his social skills, but overall he has been pretty remarkable.  It's a good thing too.  Lily is doing math problems in her head now.  She's going to be a tough act to follow.

Celebration

Yesterday was a celebratory one, but not for the big reason we've been waiting for.  Noah took care of that business in his diaper at bedtime last night.  The good news is that he is keeping his diaper dry all night and is keeping his pants dry during the day.  He will get there.

It was celebratory because we had Uncle Eric's birthday party.  We started off with lunch at Z Pizza and finished at their house for ice cream and cake.  Noah spoke glowingly of the event.  Then later I dropped Amanda off at home so she could rest while I took the kids out.  We went to Sam's Club because we were completely out of a staple in our house.  Milk?  Bread?  Butter?  Nothing as trivial as these.  No, we needed ketchup.

Before Sam's I took the kids to the mall at the Streets at Southpoint per their request.  Lily really wanted to go to Crabtree because of the LEGO store, but I had to explain that was too far out of the way.  Noah just wanted to ride up and down the escalators.  The highlight for Lily was browsing at Justice.  She decided that all the knick-knacks at eye level were "tempting."  At least she understands how they are marketing to her.  I feel like that's a win.

More Waiting

I've had a morning with the kids today.  Amanda is at the small group leader summit at our church, so I got to take the kids.  So far it's been OK, though not without some hiccups.  Noah and I shopped at Trader Joe's a bit while Lily was at dance class.  Then we went to my seminary library, the grocery store, a hobby store, and home for lunch.  Lily finds creative ways to get herself into timeout sometimes, but overall things are going well.  We will meet Amanda at church this afternoon.

After lunch I had Noah sit on his potty seat for about 20 minutes while I played Pac-Man.  Still nothing.  He's keeping his pants dry, but not always clean.  We'll keep at it.

Still Waiting

It dawned on Amanda that until she went to church Wednesday night for a meeting she had not been out of the house since the previous Tuesday.  The snowstorm saw to that.  She took Noah out for a little shopping yesterday morning.  One thing she found was a suitable bribe for potty training.  She got valentines that look like a baseball, a basketball, and a hockey puck.  They're the kind of card that when you tilt them you see a different picture.  Kind of like something you'd get out of a Cracker Jack box, only much bigger.  He loves them.

This works well for when he gets up from his nap.  However, he still has yet to put poop in the potty.  He is likely to spend more time pantsless today until this happens.  You can be sure that phone calls will be made when this momentous event occurs.

My Turn

The great storm of 2010 continues to affect us.  Lily is off school today, which means that she has had 3 consecutive days off of school.  I heard about today's closure from a coworker through an email which I read during a break in class last night.  I dropped my Blackberry on the table which made a few people say, "uh-oh, what's up?"  We're all ready for her to go back to school.  She's actually been fairly good, but keeping her busy during the day can get old.

We continue to press on with the potty training.  We got the potty chair out yesterday.  Noah sat on it for about 45 minutes while I played various flavors of Pac-Man.  He smelled pretty bad, but still no poop.  Amanda said that he sat on it for a whole episode of Thomas last night, but still no poop.  He's pretty good about going potty when we tell him to except when he first wakes up in the morning and after a nap.  Today seemed a little better as it only took about 5 minutes to wait him out.

Meanwhile, it is my turn to be sick. I spent some time bowing at the throne last night around midnight.  Fortunately I didn't have the continued dry heaves like the kids.  I feel a little rough today from being generally weak and tired, but I think I'll be able to get through the day while working from home.

We're ready for this week to end.

Long Night

We had a very long night last night.  It started around 11:00 when I went in to see why Noah was crying.  I found him sitting in a puddle of puke.  We got him cleaned up and I put his bedding in the laundry to wash.  We brought him to our bed, but then he threw up in in our bed too.  That of course led to more laundry.

Amanda decided to snuggle with him in his room.  He threw up at least twice more before 1:00 AM and I got involved most of those times too.  Again, more laundry.  Amanda came to bed at 3:00 exhausted because she had not slept at all.

To top it all off, I responded to a poopy diaper at around 5:30.  It's good that he doesn't like to be poopy and in fact encourages me that perhaps Pull-Ups will work for him, but that's something we need to discuss.  At any rate, we had the usual battle for him to pee first-thing in the morning and then I put him back down.  Shortly thereafter he had more dry heaves.

I really hope that he and Amanda can sleep in a little bit.  It's 7:21 and Lily is still in bed as far as I know.  I'm taking today off so we can all recover as a family.

Good times, good times.  This too shall pass.