Wrapping Up the Week

Not much to say about this week. We're all back to our normal schedules. Our entire region has been impacted by flooding the past few days, after a long hard battle with snow, and it's the basis of almost every conversational topic these days. We live on a hill, but just a half mile away, people are being evacuated and/or are landlocked with no way in or out. I can see the emergency staging area from my house and just yesterday saw an emergency helicopter use our soccer field as a landing pad. It's all been a good reminder to me that no matter how safe you feel, anything can happen, even in suburbia.

I'm sitting here enjoying the quiet of the morning with my Polli-wog lap dog and a cup of coffee before Grandma Trish shows up for her Friday with Ian. It's been a few weeks since she's been on this normal schedule, so hopefully they have a good day.

Ian is still asleep and lately has been more than happy to do so as long as we let him. I'm sure having been sick is a big part of it, but just yesterday, I woke him and asked if he wanted to go to school and play with his friends, to which he replied "Crib & blanket are Ian's friends. Ian go naptime, please!" I know it was 5:30am and at that time of day my best friends are my bed and pillow...so I understand his motivation.

We played "run & jump", which essentially is Ian playing follow the leader and we run, jump, skip, etc. around the house for as long as he wants to. It includes many "mommy, sit here in the bathroom", "mommy, stand on one foot on Ian's stool", "mommy, turn around in circles", and many other commands. It is actually a decent workout and I think it zaps him, too.

Tomorrow is the busiest of our weekend days. We are going in the morning to the eyeglass place again so Shawn can help make a final decision on frame shape and color for Ian's specs. We've got to get those things ordered since they take 3 weeks. From there, we'll probably do lunch at Panera before zipping home for naptime. In the evening, my brother Rex is coming out to do our Christmas with him since he was out of town during the holidays. He hasn't seen Ian since his birthday party in April, so I'm excited to see what he thinks of his practically grown nephew and his night and day speech since their last meeting.

I can't believe I've left out the biggest event of all: We're starting potty training this weekend! Like actually putting him in undies and letting him figure out that big boy pants mean he has to use the toy-la-let. We put him in matching underwear to Shawn last night and he loved running around practically naked (he would be nude 24/7 if we let him). I got him some that match Shawn, and then several different character patterns so he can pick which he wants to wear each day. I think some days he'll want to look like daddy and others Lightening McQueen will be his big motivator. Next week, I'll bring about a dozen pair of underwear and a dozen changes of pants to school and hopefully they can get the ball rolling and I can reinforce at night. That's my hope... We'll see. I won't comment much on my reward strategy since I got an anonymous comment a few days ago saying that I buy him too much "stuff" and give him too much sugar...both couldn't be further from the truth... so I'll just say that I have it worked out so he has motivation to go. I'll update on our progress next week.

Below are a few pics from our week. Not much, unfortunately.

Shawn took some bath pictures on my "night off". This was my favorite.

He absolutely loves looking through Shawn's aquatic wildlife books. He knows some very long names of fish... but his favorites are Puffer fish and Sea Anenomes, or "sea enemys". I liked this shot. Reminds me of him at the aquarium over the summer.

Trying on his big boy undies for the first time. He loved them. We'll see what happens when they get wet. He might not love them so much then. Check out that after dinner belly!