Potty Training

We haven't started any kind or hard core training here yet but C has definitely started showing interest. In the fall he started saying "Eww eww" when he had a poopy diaper. When we were in Indiana he said it before he actually pooped and sat down on the adult potty once or twice but nothing big. Now he tells us "Eww eww" for any kind of diaper that needs to be changed - wet or dirty.

The past few days he has been interested in actually sitting on the potty - but has no desire to take his pants an diaper off before hand. In fact tonight he was quite upset to take off his diaper even though he really wanted to sit on the potty. He did finally decide to take off his pants and diaper but did nothing except sit for a few seconds, get up, run to the kitchen for a cracker, come back and sit some more. Most people seem to use M&Ms or something sweet to aid in potty training... Apparently C would be happy with just crackers.

Random update on a 21 month old

I haven't had much time to actually blog, but I do want to take a quick minute to post about little things that Colin is doing if for nothing else so that I can remember as I go back and read through my posts in the future.  It has ended up being a choppy disjointed post, but enjoy learning about where our "baby" is these days.

Colin has finally started talking - don't get me wrong, he has always been a babbler but now we can actually understand things coming out of this mouth.

• "More", "milk", and "mine" sound very similar.  Mike even asked me tonite how I could tell what he was saying...  it's hard and it usually has to do with the context.
• "More" actually means just that he wants something.  He hasn't quite put together that more usually applies to something he already has or has recently finished.
• "Choo choo" is a very popular word and he can pick out trains on our cups (what can I say, my husband works for the railroad so we have cups with trains on them) and in books.
• Something that is very different but sounds very similar is "shoo shoo" - I'm not convinced he isn't saying the same thing.  Funny enough, he does know the difference between his tennis shoes, "shoo", and his rain boots, "boots".  He does, in fact, tend to say the word twice for some reason.
• On the note of shoes, to Colin, socks are also called "shoo".  No matter how many times I help by reminding him that they are socks, not shoes, he still calls them "shoo".
• And on the note of saying things twice, when he's hungry he says "eat eat" and walks to his chair at the table.
• While Mom and Mike were visiting he picked up on the word "plane" and looks up at the sky any time he hears them wherever we are.
• Because we still live in a construction area, there are lots of trucks.  He tries to say the word truck and does OK, but it's not the most recognizable.
• Whenever he hears the trucks in the neighborhood backing up with their beeping signal going, he says "beep beep" followed quickly by "bye bye".  The only thing I can think that makes him connect the two is that Mike's work truck has the signal whenever he goes in to reverse, but otherwise I have no idea why the reverse signal means "bye bye".
• His newest word that just came about of the weekend is "outside".
• He says "baby" and points out babies that he sees.
• I think that he has learned "Elmo".  We don't watch much Sesame Street but somehow he has learned Elmo.  We do watch Mickey Mouse Clubhouse more often and I noticed today that he pointed to Minnie and said "Elmo" this afternoon so maybe it's just that it's the character he has seen on TV?

The energy that this boy has is absolutely never ending.  Colin would live outside if he were allowed to.  The cooler weather isn't any deterrent at all.  He also climbs on everything.  For Christmas he is hopefully getting an outside play set that will be big enough for him to get some good climbing energy out on.  The poor animals are the newest target of his energy, specifically the tails of the cats.  We are working hard on redirecting and encouraging gentle touch but doesn't always help.  Oliver in particular gets the brunt of Colin's energy.  Also, because Oliver tends to jump on the kitchen counter a lot, Colin hears us tell him to get down quite frequently so he has now started yelling "down" out of nowhere.  More often than not, there is actually no cat on the counter, just a toddler yelling "down".  He also likes to tell Trucker to "go" anytime that we do during dinner (since Trucker normally is as close to Colin's feet during any meal or snack).

He climbed out of his bed a few weeks ago so we changed his crib to a toddler bed.  The first night he cried as we left his room and ended up sleeping on the floor.  The next day was better both at nap time and at bed time.  The following day, however, he was up and about for the entire hour and a half of nap time.  I checked on him once and saw he wasn't in bed but it took me probably half a minute to see his shadow from behind the curtains.  He didn't see me so I quietly closed the door.  About 45 minutes later I went back and he still wasn't in bed but this time he did see me checking on him so all bets were off about going to sleep at all.  It seems that if you are a 21 month old boy then watching trucks and bulldozers is much more fun than napping.

He makes us laugh every day and is always picking up on something new.  For instance, today I found him attempting to put deodorant on (first, I'm not sure why it was somewhere he could get to it and second, the cap was on so he wasn't actually putting it on).  He loves to hear himself talk, scream, or sing.  Usually we love to hear it too but I must admit the screaming is a little bit much sometimes - it's seriously high pitched!

Most of our pictures are on my phone but here's a recent one to tide everyone over until I can get more uploaded:

In the woods in the backyard - almost 2 months ago

Summer 2012

We have had a good summer with the highlight being that we finally moved in to our house!  But before more about that, we'll do a quick overview of the rest of the summer.

We did a little bit of camping this year.  Unfortunately, it's not like Denver where no matter how warm it is in the city, just a little bit away you'll get to cooler weather.  When it's hot at our house, it's also hot where we'd go camping.  And since we currently don't have an AC in the camper, we were only able to go a couple times at the in the spring.  Colin had a great time and I had fun getting to play with my camera.

We had a busy weekend just before Memorial Day.  We got to show off our new "hometown" to Stu and Allison which also included showing them the framing of the new house.

Our first out-of-town visitors to our new home

The next day we went to my grandparents' farm in West Virginia.  It was quiet, serene, and we got to see family that we hadn't seen in a very long time.  Colin also got to enjoy his first chocolate sandwich cookie.

Resting on the way to Great-grandmama's

Yummy Oreo

Just like his cousin, always has a stick in his hand

We took an impromptu trip to the beach in New Jersey.  Colin did not like the idea of the ocean at all but did really enjoy playing in the sand.  After some coaxing we did get him to spend a few minutes in the pool, too.  Between now and next summer we'll do swimming lessons, I hope, so with any luck next summer will give us more time in the water (and he'll enjoy it more, too).

Pick me up!!

Getting tired after an afternoon of playing

We also have started going to Little Gym.  Colin loves to climb anything and everything so he has really enjoyed getting to climb on all the apparatus.  He's not too sure about he following directions, but he's getting there.

And of course, the most exciting part of the summer has been getting to move in to the new place.  We have been here just over two weeks, all our things were delivered out of storage last Friday, and amazingly we have made a good dent in getting things organized and put away.  Living without things for 10 months shows you how minimally you really can live, but also how nice it is to have some things.  Colin has adjusted fairly well but there are definitely times here and there that he gets mad - but who's to say that's not just because he's 18 months....

I'll do a more detailed post about where Colin is these days - there are things I want to write down just to not forget.  He makes me laugh every day and he really does amaze me each day as well.  He is a very smart, inquisitive, loving, energetic boy who we are thankful for every day.

Haircuts

Colin has had 2 hair cuts. I didn't think we would need them too frequently considering this is what he looked like at just about a year old:

Feb 9, 2012

But around my birthday when we went to the beach, we (and by "we" I actually mean Mike) decided that he needed to get his precious curls cut.  It made me a little sad because I feared that the cute curls wouldn't grow back (which was a well founded fear it turns out).  But we started getting more comments about how long his hair was getting, so alas, we went to a kid's hair place (45 minutes away since our town has nothing of the sort) to get a haircut.

June 2012

Colin did well for his first haircut.  Initially he didn't want to let go of me but once he got a handful of lollipops he was better.  He didn't eat any lollipops but did enjoy playing with them.  And he sure did look handsome in the end.

Watching himself in the mirror

And today, we had to do it again.  We went to the place the Mike goes to and Colin did OK despite the fact that he was hungry and tired and is going through a very mommy-clingy phase right now.  Today, he did eat the lollipop and appeared to enjoy it.  The stylist was awesome and definitely skilled at quickly cutting a toddler's hair.  I was very impressed - the salon is closer, I liked the cut better, a little cheaper... we'll be going back again.

Patiently waiting his turn while reading a Sports Illustrated - his hair grew fast in the past two months

Yummy!

Where'd the little boy go?

I was comparing pictures today - one from April and one from yesterday. How could he look so different in just a couple months??

Colin month by month

I have downloaded pictures and finally gotten to start organizing so I though it'd be fun to see what Colin looked like month to month in his first year.  Here's the result.  It's incredible how he looks like himself and looks nothing like himself all at the same time in the earlier pictures.

Our house!!!

Why does it always seem that we are starting a post with something like "I know, it's been a month (or two, or three)" but alas, I'm working to get caught up.  I finally have a computer desk set up so it will be a little easier to keep little hands away while I'm trying to work on things like blog posts.

We are still living in the apartment and the walls haven't closed in... yet.  As things stand right now, we'll be in the house near the beginning of August.  Here are a few pictures of what it looks like over the past month or so.

April 27th - broken ground and foundation walls

We thought it looked smaller than we were expecting... until we saw what Mike looked like in the basement

May 13th - the start of the second story going up

May 18th - we could finally walk around the first floor and see the floor plan again

Our first family portrait!

Our backyard (currently torn up for the septic field, hopefully grass will grow soon after we move in)

View from the master bedroom

May 23rd - All the windows (except for one above the garage apparently) and doors have been installed

Luckily the house is 5 minutes from the apartment and only slightly off the trip from daycare to home so between the two of us we drive by multiple times a week.  I know once we get past the big things like walls going up and (hopefully in the next few weeks) the exterior going up, it will seem much slower but I'm so excited that we have a move in date (knock on wood).