Batman may just be the trick...

Dare I say that we MIGHT by rounding the corner in this whole potty training experience? I cringe to think that by acknowledging this I may be sabotaging the whole process, but I'm not really that superstitious.

Saturday morning Derek decided that Kyle is done with pull-ups (except at night for now). He kind of had the same reaction that I did when Katie was almost two and I woke up one day and said "enough, you are no longer wearing these!" Kyle had one accident on Saturday morning, but made it through the rest of the day. Then we went over to Jill's for dinner (thanks for having us!) and I figured since we were just across the street I would take my chances of having him in underwear. He actually came in from playing outside and told me he needed to go so we ran and tried, but he decided it was a false alarm. Then I forgot and about 20 minutes later I see him standing at the top of the stairs afraid to walk and I realized that he had an accident. It was contained in his underwear, so at least he didn't mess up their floors but those poor Star Wars underwear ended up in our dumpster. There was no cleaning that up!

Sunday he stayed home all day. Once again he had one accident which occurred while he was watching a movie. But he used the potty the rest of the day. Hooray!

Today he has used the potty all day and has been wearing his favorite Batman underwear. We decided to take our chances and leave the house for a trip to the mall. The kids wanted to play at the tree and have a carousel ride. So we played for a while, took a stroll through the museum gift shop and then headed toward the carousel. I told Kyle he had to use the restroom before he could ride and he did! Public restrooms have been a problem for us since Spring Break when he fell into the toilet at the zoo. I know, gross! But when we got home he went again and he said, "let me check and make sure I didn't poop on Batman, nope, no poop!" Gotta protect Batman...

He has already told me that he's ready to wear underwear to school again tomorrow and that he will go at school. So I am crossing my fingers that he remembers while playing with his friends and we have an accident free day at school tomorrow. I told him he is one day closer to his goal: a trip to Chuck E Cheese! If he makes it 5 days in underwear then we will be at Chuck E Cheese this weekend.
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update:
What was that I said about being superstitious? Ugh. We just said goodbye to Batman.

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Kyle's Cake

Several people have asked about Kyle's diet lately and how it's going, etc. I mentioned a few days ago that he was doing pretty good. But I thought I'd let you see for yourself some of the concoctions he comes up with. Tonight he asked for applesauce and cheese (a mini babybel). So I got out his divided plate, put the applesauce in the main area and then gave him the cheese to unwrap. I then added a few dried blueberries to one of the sections and asked if he'd like some grapes as well. In with the grapes were cheese cubes, so he asked for those also. I pulled out a few carrot sticks and when I got back to the table, he told me that he was making cake. See for yourself:



So as you can see, he added everything to the applesauce (dried blueberries, grapes, cheddar cheese cubes and mini babybel cheese) and ate all of it. I thought we were past the applesauce as a finger food stage, but I guess when you add in chunky stuff it gets to be finger food again! He didn't bother with the carrot sticks, but later ate a soy butter sandwich on gluten-free, egg-free bread that I baked last week and some peas. Mmm, yummy.

His diet consists of a lot of fruits, select veggies (peas, carrots, lettuce on occasion, and cucumbers thanks to one of his teachers), some meats - he ate a hot dog last night, tried some beef brisket today and will eat turkey and chicken if it is cut a certain way but he will not eat deli meat. Then of course he'll eat cereals such as corn pops, kix, rice krispies, and frosted flakes as well as some gluten-free, egg-free rice bars that we have found at local grocery stores. He loves marshmallows which apparently are not supposed to be on his allowed list but the ones made commercially do not contain eggs, only homemade marshmallows do. So that also adds in rice krispie treats. And last week I made him some brownies from a Pamela's mix that I found. I'm not nearly as overwhelmed by the whole allergy thing as I was about 6 months ago. We've found lots of work-arounds. If we go out to dinner I usually either make him a sandwich to take with us or order him fries and fruit or a corn tortilla quesadilla. And I found that Kroger has birthday ice cream cups that he can eat and Baskin-Robbins labels all of their products, so there are some ice creams that he can eat there as well. He's doing great as far as I'm concerned and is understanding for the most part when we tell him he can't eat something.

My friend Laurie also recommended this site that makes temporary tattoos for things such as food allergies. I bought my first set for the summer. I plan to put them on Kyle when he attends VBS and again when he starts school with a new teacher in the fall. What a great idea!

So while I was enjoying a triple chocolate mousse cake tonight that I had left over from book club on Friday, Kyle was enjoying his applesauce cheesy fruit cake with a smile on his face.

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In the Lord's Army

Last week was Kyle's Spring Program. I tried to videotape it, but unfortunately he was behind another little girl so I didn't get much of him. He did a great job looking at his teacher (not the one in the picture below) who made the mistake of going behind the class to try to encourage them to sing a little louder. Kyle and three of his friends turned around to look at her...which is what they were supposed to do, except she was supposed to be in front of them. Oh well. It was cute anyway. And my class did a fantastic job if I do say so myself. Actually we had a few comments to that effect, so I don't mind bragging a little. It wasn't my doing at all. Our assistant is a fantastic singer and has a way of teaching those kids how to sing their little hearts out to Jesus.

I may never zoom over the enemy, but I'm in the Lord's Army! Yes, sir!

I'm in the Lord's Army, Yes Sir!


And of course, my class singing "Stories" by Go Fish. Go Fish is coming to concert at Trinity next month - get your tickets at Ticket Servant. It will be so much fun! As I said above, my class did a great job singing "These are the stories in the Bible, straight from God to you and me!"

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Cinderella...

On the way home today I was serenaded with:

Cinderella, Justin jello

Went upstairs to kiss Afella

Make a mistake and kissed a snake

How many doctors did it make?

 

At first I just heard the jello part and tried to explain that it was “dressed in yellow”, because I’m sorry but who wants to be dressed in jello?  For a moment she switched it to yella and tried to make it rhyme with fella, so I corrected her again and said, “it’s fellow, rhymes with yellow, means a boy.”  “No, Mom, it’s Afella.  Justin went and kissed a girl named Afella.”  “Justin? Who is Justin?”  And WHO IS TEACHING MY CHILD THIS RHYME???  Don’t even get me started on how many doctors they made…

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Formatting and Copying

So I noticed this feature on blogger the other day when I was supposed to be working and I thought I’d check it out.  You might actually see more posts from me if this actually works!  It’s email posting where you basically just email your post to your blog.  So, testing, 1, 2, 3, did it work???

 

I have been sitting at this computer for what seems like hours, actually it has been at least an hour and a half tonight formatting and copying and formatting and copying and formatting and copying over and over and over again.  You see, we have taken lots and lots of pictures of my class this year.  We tried to pull out the camera each week for our rotating centers, special projects and celebrations.  So I took on the task of making photo cds for each of the kids (well, their parents I guess).  Wouldn’t seem like that big of a deal, but the first hurdle I hit was that the computer in our room at school does not have a writable cd/dvd player in it.  So I had to ask the Administrative Assistant to copy our pictures onto a cd for me so I could bring them home and make the rest of the copies.  Turns out that the cd-r that she had only held 750MB and our photo file was over 1100MB, so it required 2 cds.  No problem.  She copied them for me and sent them home with my carpool buddy last Friday so I could work on them over the weekend.  I was really surprised she got to it so quickly because she has been busy creating slideshow presentations for the Spring Program and the Kindergarten Celebration as well as making programs, etc.  Got home, copied the 1^st cd and then tried the 2^nd.  Problem.  It was blank.  So she graciously made me another one on Monday morning which I didn’t pick up until Tuesday morning because I didn’t have to drive to school on Monday – hooray!  So Tuesday, I tucked it into my purse and went on my merry way.  Problem #2.  Got home last night and couldn’t find the cd.  I dug through my purse 3 times.  I dug through my car 3 times.  I dug through my purse again.  I emailed my co-teacher and asked her to look around for it in our closet and on our desk this morning.  No cd.  I could not even imagine having to go back and ask her to copy it again, so I decided to just let it go and figured it would find me.  It did!  I was at DSW using my latest $10 off coupon to buy a pair of black flip flops because can you really ever have too many pair of flip flops?  So, I was reaching into my purse, which I remind you I dug through 4 times last night, and out came the cd. 

 

After weeding through the photos I whittled the pictures down to 950MB and decided that rather than try to cut another 200MB I would just go buy some DVD-Rs capable of more storage.  So here I sit formatting and copying the 11^th dvd.  Only 6 more to go.  It takes about 10 minutes per dvd…I might just have to finish these tomorrow. 

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Shh...it's naptime

Okay, so I'm supposed to be working right now. Well actually I am working - it's naptime in my classroom and usually I am busily preparing next week's lesson plans or getting projects ready to work on, but guess what??? I only have 3 more days of class!!! And there's really not that much to add to my lesson plans. Let's see - review letters, review numbers, review shapes and colors. Play a few games, sing a few songs and have a party. I must be in a good mood today because my kids suggested that maybe it was time for new places to sleep during naptime...and I went along with it. Naptime in this room is sacred. I play and have fun during the day, but I expect complete silence during naptime and my class knows it. Not sure if we'll be keeping this naptime set up for the next three days. So far my two that usually sleep have fallen asleep and the rest are doing their best not to attract my attention so as long as they cooperate I suppose we will.

This past weekend Katie got to take a quick visit to Fredericksburg with Nana and Poppop to visit her cousins and Papa. I think her favorite part though was spending the weekend with her favorite dog, also named Katie. She adores Katie and loved having her along in the truck. But she is looking forward to going back in a few weekends to spend the night with Meredith. She was really bummed that she didn't get to stay overnight.

Derek and I spent Saturday working on the lawn (much overdue!) and cleaning out the garage (also way overdue). I love how clean the garage is and you can actually get in and out of my car's passenger side again. We had emptied the attic in the garage several months ago just getting rid of clutter and unneccessary items, but they ended up finding a resting place in the garage instead of moving on to new and better homes, like Goodwil. So we finally sifted through and ended up donating a bunch of stuff this weekend. It feels so nice to be somewhat organized again. I am looking forward to this summer when I can work on a few closets in the house as well.

Kyle and I got the playroom organized a bit more on Monday. The amount of toys in our house is out of control. We keep giving them away and they just get replaced with more. I ended up putting a bunch of Little People (the toys, not actual little people) in another attic to be taken to school in the fall so that freed up quite a bit of room. And I love how you can just move a shelf of toys from one wall to another and switch it with a play kitchen and that inspires a child to find toys all over again. It's amazing that just moving things around reminds them of what they haven't been playing with for a while.

Kyle's been doing pretty well on his diet lately, but it doesn't look like he's outgrowing his allergy. He snatched a mozzarella stick from Katie last week and well let's just say he paid the price for it. I think he remembers now why he is not supposed to eat wheat. Poor little guy and poor little bum! Other than that little slip up he's been doing great. He has even started eating meat that I cook at home! Hooray! Little by little he is trying new things and expanding his palate. I suppose I should have realized that most of it was age, but I was really concerned there for a while when he would not eat any meat. I'm not saying that he's begging for it, but he will at least take a few bites if I entice him with something else, like watermelon. I even got him to eat a few bites of roasted new potatoes tonight. Yes we are now to the evening portion of this post...it is no longer naptime, but bedtime. So goodnight!

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Can you tell it's May?

I'll tell you how you know it's May in my house...you will see only one or two posts on this blog for one thing! This month seems so busy. Last Saturday we had t-ball pictures and a game, a cheerleading birthday party, gymnastics Olympic Day and a visit with Grammie and B-bop. And the whirlwind of activity does not seem to have slowed down since then. Sunday of course was Mother's Day. I had a great day with my own family at church and then headed over to visit my mom for a few minutes. Monday was a full day of running around and appointments, then t-ball practice. Tuesday I worked and of course we watched the Biggest Loser finale...and then recorded the last hour when we figured out it was 3 hours?!?! And then against my better judgement I answered my phone when it rang at 6:15 this morning. The guilt of turning down someone for subbing last week was churning in my head so I actually called my boss back and told her I would sub today. It wasn't too bad; my usual class plus 9 more monkeys. They were pretty good for me but I'm exhausted. Since I subbed, we missed Kyle's last swim lesson. Luckily I was wise enough to email the instructor this morning so she fit us into a later class this afternoon. He's doing great!

I'm off to work again in the morning but I was wise enough to ask for an extra day of MDO this week for Kyle, so I (fingers crossed) will have Friday to get my errands done...if my co-teacher's daughter is well enough to come back to school. Although I think I have lessened my guilt from turning them down last week so I will probably be fine with saying no to another day of subbing this week.

We have the preschool Spring Program this weekend. Kyle will be singing (as well as my class). I can't wait to see him singing "I May Never March in the Infantry." Then the following week is the Kindergarten Celebration. I can't believe Katie is almost done with Kindergarten! She has grown up so much this year.

Here are a few shots from last weekend's activities:









Enjoy May, if you blink, it will be gone!

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Jumping Off

Dare I say that I am finally jumping off the weight plateau I've been on since Mid-January? Or is it just a fluke? I'm going with hooray, I finally seem to be heading in the right direction! I almost skipped weighing in today because it's just been such a let down lately and I didn't even bother posting last week. I was about to get into the shower and I decided just to take a peek and shock! I am down 2.6# from last week. Woohoo!

I haven't been shredding as diligently as most of the group, but I did pick it back up last week and worked out twice. My schedule just does not allow for me to do that workout on Tuesday/Thursday at all. By the time I might be able to do it, the kids are asleep and who wants to take the risk of doing jumping jacks on a wood floor? So I have been trying to fit it in here and there and it's still a great workout, I just think it will take longer to see the kinds of results that everyone else is getting.

Last week's weigh-in: 1_9
This week's weigh-in: 1_6.4
This week's loss: 2.6#
Total loss: 3.2#

It's far from the 10# goal I set myself, but at least I am heading in the right direction again.

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Pajama Time

I started singing Pajama Time to Kyle at 6:55pm tonight. For those who haven't heard it, the song goes, "Pajama Time, from my head to my toes to my nighttime clothes (repeat)." For those who have heard it, sorry to have it stuck in your head! He was in the bath and I was trying to encourage him to finish up. He kept insisting, "five more minutes, I'm playing in my pool!"

Eventually I encouraged him out of the bathtub and into his nighttime clothes and we proceeded to head upstairs. It's now 8:38pm and he is FINALLY asleep. I think we are going to have to rethink his bedtime. I have started to notice a pattern. We used to put him to bed at 7:30pm and he'd lay down ever so sweetly and drift off to sleep after about 3 minutes. Well in the past month, he's realized that if he says he needs to go potty, then we let him go. Three times. That is the limit and he usually somehow manages to get something out three times. Then in the past week he has figured out that if he opens his door and asks for a hug and a kiss, Mommy will usually oblige him because who can pass up a request like that? Add in to that, a usual request for "cold ice water", yes it has to be cold ice water instead of just ice water or heaven forbid, hot ice water. I usually remember that one on the way up so it rarely comes up anymore, but every so often I fail to bring it up. He also has decided that our little song ritual includes song #2 which we have dubbed "Lullaby" even though I don't think that's the name of it and song #3 which is "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" on his cd. So I usually end up staying for those two songs (after our three trips to the bathroom) but before the request for a hug and a kiss. So our 7:30pm bedtime has somehow stretched to 8pm when it used to literally be 7:35pm.

And then tonight he decided that he's just not tired. Oh and there was too much stuff in his bed. And he's going to sleep in Mom's bed. And well, he's just not tired, so he's not going to bed at all. Ugh! Daddy tried laying down with him. No luck. Then I went in there just plain mean and said "if you don't stay in that bed, you are getting a spanking. It's not your choice to get out of bed. Once we go to bed, you stay there!" So I sat down in his rocker after I tucked him in because I figured I'd stay for a couple of songs and see if he settled down. The next thing I know he is getting out of bed, AGAIN. "Do you REALLY want a spanking?" "No, Mommy, I want to rock-a-bye." Aww. My little guy wants to cuddle up and be rocked to sleep. Two songs and he was down for the count. But I think we're going to have to move bedtime to 8pm from now on.

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Pig nonsense

So we all know what's going on and if you don't, it's the pig allergies (see post below) I'm speaking of. Well yesterday while trying to wake up I was listening to the news on the radio and they were talking about school closures. It was 5:30, I was groggy and I made the mistake of thinking, "why can't it just be my school?" as I had no desire to get out of my bed and go to work. Then I was horrible and repeated it to someone when I got to school. Of course I was joking, but I shouldn't have said it.

Then we got a letter home from the school yesterday giving the precautions and what you should be looking for. The basics of it were that if your child has respiratory distress and a fever, keep them home and take them to the doctor. Hmm. Both of my kids came down with a killer cough the night before. I gave them both cough medicine last night in hopes of them getting some rest. But, at about 2am I felt this hot little body snuggle up to me and I thought, oh no, he has a fever. It wasn't hot enough for me to get out of bed and take his temperature (which I usually do) but he definitely had a fever. When the alarm went off, he was still running about 100.6 which is when my mind went into overdrive.

My first thought of course was that they have the swine flu. I ran upstairs and felt Katie's head. It felt hot to the touch, but she was only at 99.1 which could have just been because she was just waking up. However, I was still groggy and not thinking clearly. Second thought is, I brought this on myself because of what I said yesterday. Third thought is, I need to call my boss and let her know because what if they need to close the school? Really, I did think that. And yes, I'm embarrassed by it.

But even worse than thinking that, is the fact that I called her...at home...at 6:30am to tell her that even though I don't work on Fridays, my kids are both sick. Luckily she's a very level-headed woman and she just said, "okay honey, take them to the doctor and call me when you know what it is."

Well you can probably see where this is going. I waited two hours, called the doctor to make the appt and didn't get in until lunchtime. By the time we actually went to the doctor, both kids were begging me to let them play outside and neither one felt the least bit sick. Yes, Kyle was still a little warm and yes, both of them were still coughing, but they were running around the doctor's office like it was a well-visit. And after being examined, it basically was like a well-visit. Katie looked like she was getting over whatever it is, but will probably continue to have a cough for a while. Kyle looked like he was at the beginning of it, but basically there's not much they can do. It's your run-of-the-mill cold/virus. Humidifier, cough medicine, liquids, etc.

My kids have been playing all day. Kyle did fall asleep on the couch (I was already taking a nap), but other than that he's been fine. Katie enjoyed a day off and spent most of it with her daddy running errands. And I spent most of the day realizing how much I over-react to things. These little piggies are just fine!

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