Here are some highlights from February:
The little man started spelling his name like a champ. Sorry if I already shared this video somewhere. It's been too long since I've blogged, obviously, and it's all a blur. I love hearing him spell out his name. So cute! And let's face the facts - we gave him a special spelling, so it's probably a good thing he is learning to spell it early. He will be correcting people the rest of this life, unfortunately.
After coming home from church one day and finding Dodger "stuck" behind the gate on the lower level, we learned that Dodger has apparently learned to face his fear of jumping from heights and was jumping through the railing to the couch below. Then he was stuck. For who knows how long.
This became annoying really quick. Even
when we were home, he would toss his toys or a sock down to the lower
level, jump through, then whine for us to help him back up. SO
obnoxious! We still haven't come up with a real solution. We have talked
a lot about turning that railing into a half wall. I know it would
close things off - which would stink, but at the same time, I think it
would help define the different spaces. Besides, with it being a
railing, that whole section is useless upstairs. We can't put furniture
there or anything. Any thoughts? In the mean time, we have blocked the
railing off with cardboard. Super classy.
I finally let Pierscen ride in one of the truck grocery carts and he loved it. Of course. Now it's the only one he wants to ride in, but at least he has been good if I tell him no. They are a pretty big pain to steer. Worse than most carts.
The biggest adventure of the month was losing our water. The temperature dropped down to the -20s for about a week solid. The first night it happened, we woke to find we had no water. We did everything we could to try and fix the problem ourselves, but it turned out that it was the water main that had frozen - nothing inside.
Trying to find someone to fix it was a nightmare. Ryan called about every company in the city and there was only ONE that was willing to try. Mostly because no one has the equipment needed to do it. The city thought that they could help, but when they came out and realized that it was frozen somewhere between the street and house, they said, "Good luck."
As luck would have it - and three days without water later, we finally had a company come out (on the weekend - so we had to pay emergency rates) and went to work. It took them almost four hours, but they were finally able to break up the ice and get the water flowing again. When they did, the water came through REALLY dirty. Their guess was that this may have actually resulted from some road work that was done out in front of our house a few months ago. It's possible that a dirt clod - turned ice chunk, lodged itself in our pipes. No way to really prove it, except that they weren't able to get our water flowing again until they trying clearing the pipe leading out into the street. THAT's when it finally broke free and we got water again. So yeah, it's probably the construction companies fault. Nightmare. Anyway, it was a relief to have water again.
Until two days later... when it froze again. ?!?!?!
This time the city and the plumbing company came out together to tag team clearing the line to our house and the line out in the street. Once we had water flowing again, we left a faucet running 24/7 for probably close to 2 months. No risking it. It was better to pay for the water than for the cost of the plumbing company.
Lessons learned and the miracle behind it all: Water really should be part of food storage! I know they talk about it, but I don't know about you - but I don't think about it that often. Thank goodness, Ryan purchased a 50 gallon drum last summer that we filled. We used that to flush toilets and dishes primarily and then I bought some drinking water. Yes, we could have used the drum water to drink, but it tastes pretty plasticy. Anyway - have water on hand guys! You never know when you will need it! Secondly, we received a tax refund this year and when it came down to it, it was almost to the penny what he had to pay for the plumbing. So not what we had hoped to use it for - but I am SO grateful it didn't come out of our pockets!
Discipline has been an adventure - trying to find something that Pierscen understands and takes seriously. Time out seems to work the best. I had to snap this picture though just to show his personality. Even in time out he is trying to show who is boss. "I may be in time out, but you can't make me look at the corner." Hahaha. Thankfully, he isn't in that corner too often. He has put himself there for reasons unknown, but he is a great boy most of the time.
Of course, I can't post about February without mentioned Valentine's Day. Ryan told me to stay in bed for a bit while he went to get Pierscen out of bed. When P came into the room, this is what I saw:
Isn't that the cutest thing ever? He brought me a card, half an orange (he ate the other half before he could make it to the room) and the flowers - yes, they were in his mouth just like that! So, so cute! I love my sweet, thoughtful boys.
The pictures below are just showing off his blue tongue after getting a sucker at Home Depot and also showcasing the puppy "mask" he made in nursery. Pretty cute.
It was a good month with lessons learned. Hopefully we never have our pipes freeze like that again, and if anyone has suggestions on what to do with that railing, feel free to comment!
And here's our fearless little man! We put his training toilet on the 4th stair just to prevent him from trying to jump from there. The height isn't the issue so much as the distance is. I don't think he could clear it. Sometimes I think this boy will give me a heart attack, but I also love that he is willing to try just about anything.
January was a month of outings and projects.
We took Pierscen sledding at the park for the first time in almost a year. He LOVED it! I think we each went down with him once and then he wanted to do it all on his own.
I loved how brave and independent he was. He'd reach the bottom of the hill, roll out, grab the sled and start marching back up.
Eventually we decided it was time to go. (P just wanted to go down the snow covered slides). Someone was NOT happy about leaving. Haha. At least he had a great time.
Always bit by the improvement bug, I decided to try out a new accent wall color for the front room/piano room. I wasn't ready to commit, so I just bought a sample. (The wall behind the piano is still green.) It was really hard to get a feel for how the room would look with the green still surrounding it.
So I started priming all the other walls white. I'm not sure what color I would go with for the other walls. Maybe an off white or something. Or tan. Thoughts?
Priming the surrounding walls made a big difference. I was having a hard time imagining the blue while it was still surrounded by green, but it looks pretty nice with the white next to it. Anyway, it's been 5 months and I haven't really committed yet. It definitely grew on me after I primed the other walls.
Our other major project was our master bed and bath. The walls were all cracked in the bathroom. We looked around and Ryan finally found that the situation is called "alligatoring" because it looks like alligator skin. The only way to get rid of this is to sand, prime, skim coat, prime again, and then paint. Long, difficult process. We sanded down the walls and then turned our attention to the ceiling in the bath and bedroom.
The first thing we needed to do was figure out how to get the ceiling fan wiring inside the ceiling.
It took some ingenuity, but after cutting several holes in the ceiling, Ry was able to bore holes through the rafters to snake the wiring through on the inside.
Below you can see the beginning process of removing the popcorn ceiling. So much fun! ;)
Pierscen was anxious to help, so we stripped him down and allowed him to pose for a few pictures while we worked on re-texturing the ceiling.
At long last, the new texture was up, the ceiling fan was down, and the wiring was all inside. I love having a handy husband!
Below is the new fan (brushed nickle instead of gold and a more updated look). It is beautiful!
Notice the wall in the background? That's the accent wall behind the bed. Ryan was all gung-ho about painting it a different color since we were already up to our eyeballs in paint anyway. I was dragging my feet just because I wanted to do things in phases.
Well, the weekend before we were getting ready to move everything back in, I decided that yes, I wanted it painted. I found some samples, narrowed it down and let Ryan pick. Now I just have to say - the paint is actually GRAY. I think it was called Dorian Gray. But for the life of me, every picture I took made it look tan. It's not. I know our bedding is brown, but it actually looks really good with it. So if you really don't believe me on the color, you'll just have to come visit. :)
Anyway, the color turned out totally gorgeous and we love it! I am sure Ryan would have preferred that I not decide to do it last minute, but that's okay. At least it got done. Haha. Some day down the road, we will replace the counter top/sinks in the bedroom and the carpet and it will be a whole new master suite!
Now, I do not have a picture of the bathroom... but let me just say this: skim coating is a pain in the rear! It is such a hard process! First of all, sanding existing paint just doesn't work very well. We did what we could. Then we primed. I remembered reading that you could prime, then mud, then prime, or you could skip the initial priming. I do not remember why we decided to prime, but I am guessing the perks outweighed the extra time and product. I hope. Next, we took the mudding compound and watered it down a tiny bit. The idea is to then spread it over the whole wall in a nice smooth fashion. It sounds SO easy. And it is SO hard!!! Holy cow. Seriously. I don't ever recommend this. On the other hand - what are your options? Leave it cracked or replace the dry wall? Ugh. Just hope you don't have to. It took forever! Then we had to sand. And skim coat. And sand. And skim coat. And sand. We finally got it where we wanted and primed again. And then finally painted for real. I guess I could still add a picture of a plain white wall - cause that's what it looks like now. There are a few places where it didn't get sanded down quite well enough (I'll blame my impatience) but it looks SOOO much better than before. No more alligator scales. It's awesome! (And just so you know - it helps if you paint using the right kind of paint for a bathroom. I think that's why it fractured in the first place - not our doing! Wrong paint and high humidity = no bueno.) So now it is bright, white, and crack free. It's awesome. Another project checked off the list.
To end the month, we were able to attend the baptism of a cute girl, Adrianna, that I helped teach. Well, I went with the missionaries a few times anyway. Her step-mom was supposed to be baptized that day as well, but she had a few set backs. She is still working with the missionaries and going to church. It was a great experience and it was really awesome to be part of that process. I didn't serve a mission, so I have loved being able to go with the missionaries and help out.
It was a busy, and messy month, but it was good. Hurray for more projects under our belt!
Pierscen has been talking about using the big boy potty for a while now. I have let him try it a couple of times, and by dumb luck, he has even been successful once or twice. I know that interest in using the potty is the first big hurtle, and he was definitely interested... but I was the one dragging my feet. I have been told time and time again that most boys aren't ready to potty train until they are 3 or older. So the fact that P just barely turned 2 had me nervous.So about a month ago we went and purchased a training toilet. He thought it was fun to sit on, but we didn't do anything that would be considered real training. Just let him sit on it when we felt like it (mostly before baths.)
I asked around for advice and saw lots of people mention some type of three day boot camp training. There are a few different methods on this and all involved buying a book. The books were inexpensive, but I still tried my best to just ask other mothers what the general plan was, and then we decided to wing it.
We started on Presidents Day, just a couple hours before bed. We stripped Pierscen down to the buff and kept the potty right next to us. It was actually pretty funny at first. When we stripped him down, he acted rather shy and embarrased. He didn't want to move and was completely untrusting of the fact that we told him he could go play. Trust me, I was nervous too. No one wants a naked little boy running wildly through the house. But that's the first part of the three day camp. You let them go totally naked so they recognize the feeling of needing to go - and knowing there is nothing there to stop it.
*Pause for just a moment please. Just as an FYI, the little training toilets are NOT great for boys who want to sit and pee. Yes, they have a cup to try and keep things in the bowl, but it doesn't really work. I am positive other parents have had success with it but I thought it was worthless. That being said...
On a whim, we decided to show Pierscen that he could stand and pee into the training toilet. Dangerous? Sure, but it worked! He was so excited about it that within the first half hour, he had at least trickled in the toilet 8 times! We would just have time to wash it out and put a sticker on the chart and he would go again.
He was so proud of himself! We cheered like crazy, did a lot of dancing, and celebrated like it was the final touch down in a tied game each time he made it to the potty (even if it was every 30 seconds.) At this point, we didn't offer any incentives other than a sticker, and he really didn't need it.
Just before bed, we let him try on some big boy underwear just so that he could feel the difference. Unfortunately, that's when we had our first accident. It really does make a difference to have them run bare bottom.
We did two more full days of bare bum. On the second day, I showed Pierscen that he could use the training toilet as a step stool and pee in the regular toilet. Now that's all he does!
Going number 2 in the toilet was a bit harder. He pooped on the floor the first day. Gross. I didn't get mad at him. Just made sure he knew that it was supposed to go in the toilet and that I was kind of sad about it. After that, there were a couple of times that he said he needed to go and we would go to the toilet half a dozen times without results. Of course, then he would finally go in his underwear when we both got doing something different. He felt horrible about it. He would come to me crying an saying "Oh no! Oh no!" I was sad that he felt so bad, but also kind of happy too because that meant he was getting it!
Well, on about day three we made it to the toilet. Thus the "BIG" star. I told him that he would get a sucker if he went poop in the toilet. I also started offering a sucker when he reached the end of a row. I'm not sure why I did it, since it's not like he needed the motivation, but oh well. He really loves suckers. Hahaha. I started off having him poop in the training toilet, but now he just uses that as a step stool and then turns around and sits on the big toilet. I kind of love it because he's not afraid of the big toilet at all. In fact, flushing is probably one of his favorite things in the world. I am curious to see how much water we have used in the last two weeks.
When Ryan came home that day, we told him that Pierscen had gone poop in the toilet and they proceeded to have a party. :)
The other big thin that helped motive P to make it to the toilet was that we told him he couldn't wear his Thomas underwear if he pooped in them. He really loved Thomas right now and is SO proud to wear his Thomas undies. :)
No, he is not picking his bum in that picture. He was just trying to show the camera his Thomas underwear.
Really all it took was about three days. He has done so well! I still put him in diapers for nap and bedtime. I have become a bit more brave with going out and about with him now. The first day we went to church after this, I put him in a diaper and then just took him to the potty multiple times. He stayed dry, so that's a good thing, though I got "yelled" at by Nicia for putting him back in diaper. Haha. Now when we are out running errands, if he needs to go, he will let him know. Then he will usually want to try 4 or 5 more times just for the fun of it. It's frustrating, but I also don't want to risk it in case he really does need to go. It is getting better though.
Those two sticker charts are a week worth of "training." We finished the last row, and then I made him another one. However, he doesn't really care about the stickers as much now - unless it's a "BIG" sticker for pooping. Going potty is just what we do. :) That is a relief to me because I wasn't sure how we would transition away from the rewards once he got it. I am sure we will still have some accidents now and again, but he has done so well. I am so grateful that he has caught on so quickly and that he had the motivation to begin with. This made for a great first experience! I'm so proud of this little guy!
