Chris's graduation

My big brother graduated from Kenan Flagler Business School this weekend. He has been working his rear off with his regular job, his family and three kids and business school-- he's pretty awesome and I am super proud of him. 

His graduation was at 11 on Saturday morning.  Cal had a soccer game starting at noon, so Eddie took Cal to the game, and I took Andy with me.  It was at the Dean Dome, which is just such a cool building. 

Andy and I sat in the last row so we could scoot out to the concourse if need be (and, let me just say: it need be.)

Lala came with us to the service... just me, Andy and lala!

Entertaining this one in the back row:

My friend Andrea's husband graduated too! I snapped a quick picture of him walking across the stage.  Go Matt!

Then I spotted my brother! WOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!

After Chris waked the stage, Andy was a little antsy...

This was too funny to me.  Andy was repeating every single name as it was read out loud.  He was adamant about doing this and it just cracked me up. 

After all the names were called, we went to the potty.  Andy got MAD when the automatic sink shut off and I wouldn't keep holding him up to restart it.  The terrible twos meltdown that followed was nothing short of UGLY.  So we made a quick exit (with him over my shoulder hitting, screaming and kicking) and left before the reception that followed the ceremony.  I was sad to not get pictures with the grad, but I didn't want to push Andy any further. 


We headed to the parking lot and then caught the end of Cal's game. 

Congratulations, Chris! (He doesn't read this blog... he will never know I gave him a shout out-- oh well!

SUPER times

First and foremost...

he loves toilet paper!

This kid... has been accident free since Saturday morning (6 days!)! (and that accident was with a babysitter....so, totally understandable!).  I am kind of in shock and ready for a bomb to go off and urine to be everywhere.  Surely he can't be trained already.  I was DREADING training him.   Andy is strong-willed, and wild and stubborn... did we *really* just train him to go on the potty?

He is not going number 2 on the potty, so we aren't fully trained, I know... he will wait until nap time for a diaper, which I am fine with. 

I stopped asking him every 5 minutes if he had to pee... he started telling me.   I will still ask him if we are headed out somewhere, but for the most part, he is telling me when he needs to go. 

He went to school on Wednesday and I sent him with 4 changes of clothes again.   When I picked him up and he was in THE SAME CLOTHES I about freaked out.  His teachers said they were asking him pretty often if he needed to go since he wasn't quite to the level of telling them yet. But he stayed accident free!

At pickup on Wednesday, he told me he needed to go potty, so we walked in the classroom to go.  He said "I go potty and den we wash hands!" He knew the whole routine and as soon as he peed, he hopped down, squirted some soap on his little hands and started singing their hand washing song! I love it! Then he said "see mommy? d'you see?"

Enough about the potty... more about the super heroes! Cal was given a set of three super hero costumes for his birthday-- it included batman, super man and robin.  It is a one piece thing that goes over their heads and it has the shirt and then a cape in the back.  There are masks and leg guard things as well.  They were a huge hit! (you can find them on amazon )  Anyway, the boys have been dressing up in these costumes a ton.  It is hilarious! They were doing magnetic mazes together as super heroes in above picture and sharing stickers on the stairs in the other pic.  I love having boys!

I was backing out of my driveway Tuesday morning and noticed my backseat driver:

Cal has always been pretty obsessed with football-- he loves watching it and tackling people (sigh).  He has been requesting ESPN over disney channel now.  We found these shirts when Eddie's mom and sister were in town and had to get them-- too funny: 

After getting haircuts, Lala, piddow and blankie were in need of a bath.  Andy agreed to help me wash them.  He wanted to load them though:

And Tuesday night, after soccer, Andy did not want dinner.  He said he had a tummy ache (he needed to poop!).  All he wanted was an apple.  He took that thing in the tub with him and chowed down on it! How funny is he? 

Again, being a super hero in the car.... super proud of being accident free....

Andy today, a little boy from Cal's class came over for a playdate.  They got into the costumes almost immediately...

...and kept them on for most of the play date!

I love my little super heroes and I am having so much fun with them.  I feel like a lucky momma! I am, after all, SUPER protected around here...




 

Crazy Busy Weekend (and potty talk)

We had a VERY busy weekend here! Phew!

Starting Thursday...

chowing down on green beans-- Andy eats them like they are French Fries! He LOVES them!

Jake was protecting us.  

This was the Target run mentioned in the previous post.  I love when they are sweet...

Showing off his new underwear....!

Thursday's soccer practice was picture day... 

FRIDAY...
First of all, Andy went to school on Friday in big boy underwear, per his teacher's request.  I emailed her on Thursday and gave her a brief overview of the past few days and she said it's best to keep him in "training mode" but to send in several changes of clothes. This is what he was wearing when I picked him up...

 NOT what he was wearing when I sent him to school.  Nor was it one of the three back up outfits I sent in.... he went through every article of clothing I sent in and was wearing lost and found clothes.  Yup.  That was my boy! (Cal had a similar experience with having to wear lost and found clothes too when he was training). 

I took flowers to his teachers at pickup.  They were either going to be "Thank you!" flowers or "I am so sorry" flowers.... as soon as I pulled in and saw him, I knew they were the latter.  His teachers could not have been sweeter and were so so encouraging. 

To say I was discouraged after that would be putting it mildly. 

However, he did not have one accident the rest of the day!

We went over to a friend's house Friday night for pizza and I was totally paranoid.  They just moved into this new house and I did not want my son to "christen" the floors...

 But he did great! He went on the potty twice while we were there and had no accidents!

 Cal loves the ladies!

Saturday morning, we had a babysitter come and Eddie and I went to the football game.  We had to send the family the game day pic...

I got to see my sweet friend Julie at the game.  She makes me happy...

I was worried how Andy would do with the sitter on Saturday.  I wasn't sure if he would tell her when he had to go or if he would agree to go when she asked him.  He had a small accident while they were playing outside, but he went the rest of the day without issues-- yay!

We got home from the game exhausted and I wasn't feeling great.  I woke up with a sore throat on Saturday and I was feeling achy all over.  We got the kids fed and in bed and I was in my bed by 7:45.  I think the sleep did wonders for me! I felt fine on Sunday morning!

Sunday, we woke up ready to play and Andy was ready to go in his big boy underwear...

The boys did some playing and snuggling while I got myself and things ready for church-- my niece, Margaret was being baptized that morning!

I was worried about the church service and being in a different church than ours that it would be hard on Andy with training-- so I put him in a pull up and he did great! No accidents! (well, that I know of...).

The boys both wanted to wear bow ties to church...

I can hardly even believe that these sweet, wild, crazy boys call me mom.  How lucky am I??

Crazily enough, I could not find shirts that fit them-- try to ignore the fact that these are so small on them... I am going shopping soon....

The boys sat IN church for the service-- and it was a LONG service! For the most part, they did really well! Cal and jackson were next to each other so Cal did whatever Jackson did- ha!

The service was long (have I mentioned that) and I think by the time we took pictures and got in our car to go home it was 1:00-- so Eddie and Andy went home for naps and I took Cal to the family brunch. It was delicious and he was really well behaved-- always a bonus!

Family pictures...

Sweet Catherine spent some time on my lap so we had to take a selfie...

Speaking of selfies, I got one with Margaret too...

Cal had a friend's birthday party at 2:00 on Sunday, but we were still in brunch so we ended up missing that one.... but that was okay, because he had another one at 3:15! PHEW! We raced home after brunch, changed out of our church clothes and were off to the next party!

Brad was at this party, so you know Cal was excited...and wild...

Trying to get a group pic...

 We left the party and headed home, exhausted! Cal was yawning in the back seat and I was pretty spent too.  It was a busy weekend!

Hank was sick of missing out on all of the fun, so he jumped up in my car while I was unloading... just to make sure he didn't miss anything else! (those are not all my diet cokes in the car.  i swear.  that's embarrassing though...)

As far as potty talk goes... Andy has done REALLY well today-- and yesterday too! We ran a ton of errands today and he did great- zero accidents (knock on wood!).  He came close to an accident in the parking lot of Cal's school-- he started saying "oh no, peepee! peepee!" so I snatched him up and sprinted over to the edge of the parking lot and told him to pee on a pine cone.  This was his first time standing up to pee, and I think he thought it was awesome.... hahahaha!

I am proud of my little guy... let's hope he continues this....especially on Wednesday when he has school-- he owes his teachers a little! hahahaha



 

it's about that time.

y'all just prepare yourselves.

I feel like I was JUST writing posts on Cal potty training, and I believe in one of them I wrote "in no time I will be training Andy...!" Well.  Guess what.

Home boy is ready.  

His mother? Not so much:

I mean, I am ready to be done with diapers and man-sized dodo in diapers, of course.  But I am not ready for the rest of it... the accidents in public, the meltdowns that follow when he doesn't want to stop playing to go pee, the battle of the pooping on the potty, the sitting and waiting...and waiting...and WAITING. The crying:

A while ago he started expressing some interest in the potty.  He would announce when he went-- totally normal stuff.  He had never peed on command or gone in a potty for that matter.  He had pooped on the potty a few times (we gave him a suppository to help with a stop up and he ran to the potty to go...tmi? sorry.  go read another blog).

This week, he has been more into the whole *potty* thing.  He was telling his teachers every time he went and then got so bold as to remove his diaper himself once he soiled it-- thankfully just with pee. 
At soccer on Tuesday night, I was telling a few other moms that I thought potty training was right around the corner for us and out of the corner of my eye, I spotted Andy, pants down around his ankles with his diaper waving in the air.  He said he peepeed and didn't want his diaper on any more.  

We came home diaper-less and he immediately peed on the floor.  Eddie and I had a brief team meeting and decided to do this.  It is, after all, a joint effort and both of us had to be on board.  That being said, I had a party Tuesday night and left just after feeding the boys dinner (hehe- sneaky, right?).  I wasn't at the party for 4 minutes when my phone rang Eddie's ring tone.  I stepped out to answer it and Andy was on the phone "I peepeed in the potty, mommy!" And so it began. 

He went to school Wednesday where his teachers told me he told them that he had to go, but didn't make it to the potty (he had a diaper on).  We went out for family night at the club last night and he told us over and over (and over) again when he was going.  A friend of mine observed this and said "you are crazy- that boy is ready to train! Why is he in a diaper?!"

And so, after another team meeting, Andy was put into big boy underwear today when he woke up.  He thought these were amazing.  They had Mickey Mouse on them and he was pumped. 

I decided to go about my normal day and I would just pack a bag of extra clothes to take with me wherever we went. 

He peed on the potty four times before 7:45 this morning.  Every time he did it, we would cheer and he loved us cheering.  I was SO excited! This was the confirmation I needed that he was ready (as if both grandmothers and teachers telling me wasn't enough).

We went to the gym and I took him to the potty as soon as we walked in.  He didn't go. 
I worked out for 20 minutes and then came to the childcare room to see if he needed to go, he said yes, so I put him on the potty and he didn't go. 
After I finished my workout, I went to the room and sat him on the potty again-- still nothing. 

Crazily/bravely, I took the boys to Target.  I walked directly to the bathroom (I might start a chart to see how many bathrooms we hit a week), and he was kicking and screaming the whole way.  He did NOT want to go potty there.  I told him he didn't have to try, but that me and Cal really had to go.  We both went and then without asking, I dropped his pants and hoisted him on the potty.  He kept saying no no no no, so I said under my breath "I will get you a cookie if you peepee." His little ears perked up and he said, "a cookie??" Then proceeded to pee like a race horse on the potty. 

I was so proud! He got himself a cookie and we finished up our shopping list!

After target, we were supposed to meet a kid from Cal's class at chick fil a to eat lunch and play.  I was nervous about taking andy, because I feel like no kid would ever stop playing to go to the bathroom.  We walked in and went straight to the bathroom (where is that chart of mine??) where he peed again and then ate lunch.  Both boys were done with lunch quickly and went into the play area.  Our table was right next to the door so I could watch them.  Andy came running over to the window and banged on the glass and said "I PEEPEED!!!!!!" while pointing to his crotch.  I told Cal to stay put and hoisted Andy under my arm and hauled rear to the parking lot to change him.  I explained that it was okay he had an accident, but next time we would try harder to go into the bathroom.  He agreed (like he knew what I was saying).  I feel like that accident was totally my fault, though.  If we had just gone home, he probably would have gone on the potty.... so I take blame for that one. 

We left after a few more minutes (and Cal's friend not being able to make it) and went home.  I got ready to put Andy down for a nap with a diaper on and he shouted out "I need peepee!" I took him to the potty and he peed like crazy! That's got to be something, right?

We have soccer practice this afternoon and we were going to go to dinner afterward.  Pretty ambitious for our first day of training... we may be setting ourselves up for failure.  But maybe he will surprise us...?

Two things I do know...

you've got to wash your hands....

and stick together...

wish me luck....and wine!!!