Go big or go home

Mo has had, oh... I think two pee pee accidents in the past however long he's been potty trained. Well, last night, he had the accident that made up for lost time! We were outside of a restaurant after dinner and our little family was with nana, aunt Erin, uncle Matt, and six cousins. Mosey had climbed on a rock. I was the first to see the trickle. Soon enough, everyone had noticed and there was definitely an amused audience. Mosey peed until he was all done, and as we got him off the rock, he said, "I pee pee'ed on the rock."

Yes, sweet boy, you sure did. His little shoes were filled with urine. :0/

ow.

i sliced an onion and a tomato for our burgers and left them on the table while i turned my attention to doing a few other things. mosey had already climbed up to the table to sit in his high chair, and was waiting with his arms folded neatly in front of him.

then i heard his little voice say, quite undramatically, "ow."

i turned to see what happened, and he gestured toward the cutting board. one slice of onion had a large, neat, moses-mouth-sized bite out of it!

he sipped some milk, and recovered quickly. :)

sweet and sour

our son is sweet and sour these days. most of the time he is incredibly sweet, which is really fortunate. here are some examples:

• we were all sitting on the recliner together, and i mentioned to mo that he needed to get up and put something away. and he told me we all had to get up. and as he got off the couch, he turned around and told us, "look, i'm getting up," implying that he was setting an example for us! what? he's setting a good example for his parents!!
• the other day, mosey told me several times in the evening, "i miss my daddy." shane was at school, and wasn't going to be able to be home before moses had to go to bed, so we tried to facetime and look at pictures and everything. mo seemed satisfied. about an hour after he went to bed, shane came home and soon after he started talking to me, moses started crying. shane peeked into mo's room, and moses told him through many sad tears, "i need to say hi to daddy!" he missed his daddy so much!
• during dinner this week a couple of times, moses looked at me wilting, and he said, "you tired, mommy? go lay down on the sofa, mommy." :)
• he tells me he needs to snuggle with me these days. and i love it. 
• he tells me, "i love your hair, mommy," as he puts his fingers through it. these are the times we can really understand why parents don't want their kids to ever grow up. he's so sweet. 

on the sour side of things, moses had been having the worst tantrums. i mean, high-octane screaming and thrashing for 10-15 minutes for no reason at all (that we can decipher). we tried to care adequately for him, while pretty much ignoring the theatrics (banking on the theory that we don't want to encourage the behavior through attention because negative attention is still attention), and PTL, the worst of it seems to have passed within about half a week. tantrums still come, but more briefly and not daily. parenting by trial and error, guys. 

currently cute mo pronunciations:

• funder = thunder
• emineminem = M&Ms
• knock-ah-lers = binoculars
• braffroom = bathroom

love that kid.

potty trained

well, i think it's pretty official. i think mosey is potty trained. at age 2 years and 8 months. i'm so proud.

today is his seventh day in underwear, and he's had just one accident, and i think it was miscommunication on my part. he did say he had to go potty, but we got caught up in playing and getting ready for the day, and all, and then he hit his foot on a box, and there you had it. the first thing he said when he realized what had happened was, "mommy, i peed on myself. i have to get new underwear."

he also cried during naptime yesterday because he had to go pee on the potty, even though he had a pull-up on, he really insisted he had to go potty. so, after a nap, his pull-up was will dry, and he was pretty happy about that.

i still can't believe it happened. he looks like such a big boy now. love that kid.

potty training, verbal skills, and feelings!

moses has had some big things happen over the last couple of weeks.

• he's worn underwear the past two days and has had zero accidents!!!
• he's been speaking in clear, complex sentences, like, "look, that police car has blue, flashing lights!"
• along the verbal skills, he's been using words like: actually, probably, sometimes, later, and too many. and he uses them properly most of the time! :) 
• he's been super aware of where we're going. the other day, he knew we were going to daycare, and when i missed the turn, he let out a whoop, because he knew we missed it!!
• he's been super aware of feelings: he told his daycare teacher the other day that his friend hurt his feelings, that he didn't like it, and he wanted her to go talk to him. 
• he asks me to interact with him, saying things like, "mommy, talk me, please."
• yesterday, he ate a whole peanut butter and jelly sandwich without having me cut it or opening it and making a mess. he still calls it a "swamich," but he ate it like a big boy for the first time!

in not so great news, these past couple of days, he's also had mega-sized meltdowns, complete with screaming and hitting and bouncing off of furniture. wow.

lovelove,

me

"need to go potty, mommy!"

this past week, mosey has been periodically saying "need to go potty, mommy." and sure enough, he runs to the bathroom, pulls his pants/pull-ups off, scoots the stool up, lifts up the toilet seat, pees, and flushes. all by himself! actually, really by himself, because right after he says, "need to go potty, mommy," he also says, "no, don't follow me, mommy... you sit on the blue sofa." how specific.

anyway, i'm baffled. is he suddenly potty trained? i mean, i'm happy about it, but what? could it really be this easy? i haven't done anything to encourage this. i'm trying not to make any sudden movements to make sure that i don't spoil this good thing.

oh, also, he cried when he woke up from his nap (not super unusual), but when i went in to get him, he told me he was crying because he needed to go potty. maybe it's time to switch to a bed? yes, he's still in a crib, because why change a good thing? maybe because of the need to go pee pee in the potty.

in other news, our child is super compassionate these days. if he hits me mistakenly he'll tell me he hurt me and that he's sorry, and then he'll give me kisses. so sweet. this morning, it kind of went awry because he dropped a toy on the bathroom floor, and he said he hurt the floor. then he said, sorry floor, and started to kneel down to kiss it--bleck!!! i told him the floor was okay, and we shouldn't be kissing it. :)

also, in other news, i just noticed that mo has a new molar. maybe that's been one of the causes of so many meltdowns over the last couple of months. maybe.

lovelove,
me

turn the seat around...

can you hear percussion?

we turned mosey's car seat around this weekend. we thought we'd leave him rear facing for a lot longer (because they do up to 3-4 years old in Europe), but he was getting to the height limit, which was one inch below the shell of the seat. who knew.

pros:
* when i turn around to check on him, i see his cute smiling face.
* i can point at things (like police cars and trucks), and he can see them right away.
* i can hear his sweet ramblings more clearly.

cons:
* i can't sneak snacks without his knowledge. i can already feel the toddler drama.
* i feel like i'm not very good at buckling him in anymore, since everything is backwards and my hands don't know what to do.

i'm sure there are more, but this is what i've gathered from the past 1.5 days.