Fleece

Xander is quite possibly the biggest fan of fleece ever. I can't really blame him all that much.

When it comes to pants, he only ever wants to wear his gray fleece pants from Target. Fortunately, I bought him multiple pairs of the same kind. If all of his gray fleece pants are dirty, it can be a huge battle to get anything on his legs. I don't remember the last time that I got a pair of jeans or corduroys on this boy.

He's also stolen my own fleece blanket and claimed it for his own. I've had this blanket for over 10 years, and oddly, it's as good as new. He now calls it the "mommy blanket" and he absolutely needs it to go to bed at night. Boohoohoo, I want my security blanket back.

Potty improvement

I hope this post doesn't jinx it, but we've had two good days of major potty improvement. We went from refusal to sitting on the potty to multiple successes in a day. We're not anywhere close to claiming overall success, but it's a huge improvement on his willingness to go.

One thing that has seemed to make a difference is the location of the potty. Instead of taking him away from where all the action is, we brought the little potty out of the bathroom. Putting it in the living room or office where all the family activity is going on, he's much more willing to sit on it. It is not surprising to us that every time he is sitting, he is going. I think we are challenged to find ways to keep the motivation going, but the mechanics are there.

I think we'll really see how good or bad this improvement is after he goes back to school. Unfortunately, at school, they don't really have the option of moving the potty to the center of the action (that would be a major plumbing change). Hopefully, the success at home will be a positive influence at school time.

Hard time in juvi, man

Thanks to a Christmas gift certificate from Great Grandma and Great Grandpa T, we were able to get one of those new baby items that I had mentioned previously. We got this gigantic play yard made by Joovy. It's just hilarious to me that this little baby-jail is made by a brand called Joovy.

Anyway, it seems really easy to use and move. I like the big size. I hope that our little girl actually likes it, too.

Xander had to try it out for his own baby doll. He was nice enough to throw in a pillow and blanket for his baby.

NGram

I was reading about Google's NGram Viewer on GeekMom's Blog. It is a nifty little tool for view some histogram data for instances of phrases in books over time. It's just a fun little tool.

I found one interesting trend by typing in "terrible twos", "potty training", and "parenting".
Terrible Twos


Potty Training


Parenting


It seems like a pretty significant of explosion of parenting books might have started in the 1960s. That doesn't seem too surprising. It seems to match up somewhat to the trend of "women's education."


Maybe it's a stretch, but maybe there is something to the trend. The more mom's who can read, the more books about being a mom. After all, what mom wouldn't want to just look up the answers of parenting in the book....if only it were always that easy.

Full of adjectives

Xander is just full of adjectives these days. He likes to tell us about everything in great detail. It's not just milk, it's a BIG glass of milk. It's very important to acknowledge the adjectives or he will keep repeating his sentence to you until you do. Squishy, hard, sparkly, hot, warm, cold, big, little, wet, dry, various colors... We've got our own little "Richard Castle" in the making.

One of my favorites that he uses is floppy. I'm not sure where he learned this one to be honest. How he uses it makes me giggle. Sometimes, he asks me to warm up various foods in the microwave...really strange foods that you probably wouldn't consider putting in a microwave. For instance, he asks for fresh strawberries and sticks of cheddar cheese out of the fridge to be warmed. I generally put them in for like 10-15 seconds to bring them to room temperature. One day, I accidentally overheated the cheese and it came out slightly melted. Ever since, he reminds me to warm the food, but not too much that it gets "floppy."

The Peanut Gallery

I was so excited when Xander asked me to "make it loud, mommy" when 'NSync came on the radio in the car. I was thinking "yay, my boy will like to listen to pop music (ok maybe not CURRENT pop music) with me as opposed to Dolphin's weird music." I started singing along. Xander immediately told me "you don't do it, mommy, you don't sing." Awwww, man! Am I really that bad?

Get the monsters

Another example of Xander's fun imagination is a game he invented involving playing with invisible monsters. In this particular video, we were practicing yelling at the monsters to scare them away. However, he does lots of different things with the monsters including:

1) Many times he has pretended he is scared and being chased by them. I think he just likes playing chase but has no one to play with.
2) Right before this video, he was hitting invisible monsters with T-ball bat and asked me to shoot at them with a TV remote. (Wi-fi must be deadly for monsters?) I taught him to yell at them to scare them away instead because I figured that was better behavior than violence. Plus, there's always something behind the invisible monster that gets hit with the bat. Dolphin thought he looked quite cute like "bam-bam" dragging the bat around though.
3) He recently added the concept of "saving" and "protecting". He carries something around like his Mickey Mouse figurine and protects it or saves it from the monsters. What a little hero!
4) Today, he made a picnic for the monsters. Put out food for them and served them invisible juice out of tea pot. Perhaps this was because I reminded him that monsters can be nice like "Sully" or "Mike Wizowski".

The invisible monsters seem to hang out a lot in the rooms that I would prefer Xander NOT go in. They are NEVER in his own room. I guess that is a good thing.

This boy SO needs a sister to play with. Invisible monsters are great and all, but a real sister is going to be so much better.

Heart breaking haircut

Before the haircut:


After the haircut:


There are rarely moments where I wish that I had to be at work more. However, today was one of those days that I wish I had been at work instead of vacation. Xander's 2nd haircut did not go an smoothly as his first.

He really was ok being at the hair salon because they had some cool toys to look at and play with. However, he made it verbally clear that he did not want to get his haircut. I really should've given up. I mean a haircut is not worth fighting about. However, for some dumb reason, I decided that we were going to continue with the haircut despite his tantrum.

In the end, it took 4 adults to get the job. Well, really just 3 and another adult who tried futilely to distract Xander with movies, candy, balloons, and bubbles. I had the task of using all my upper body strength to hold him in the chair. Another lady, held his head, and a 3rd somehow managed to cut his hair despite the constant wriggling and screaming.

Unfortunately, the end of the haircut didn't really end the battle. Immediately, Xander wanted to back to playing with the toy he had been playing with, but there was another girl playing with it. So, I managed to pay the bill with him screaming and trying to get to the toy. Then, he continued to scream outside, and in the car. After 15 more minutes of screaming in the car, I got him into his car seat so that we could go home.

Of course, once he was home, he was perfectly happy and fine. It really, really wasn't worth the battle. I fail to see any life lessons learned today. Next time, Daddy is going to have to take him to get his haircut because I'm not doing it again.

Hospital Tour

We took a tour of the hospital where I am likely to give birth to our little girl. This hospital was still under construction when Xander was born. It's also much, much, much smaller than the hospital where he was born. Some of the key differences in this new hospital:
- It's only 9 driving minutes away from our house instead 20 minutes (without traffic)
- The new hospital doesn't have a full time nursery. I remember at the old hospital the nurses seemed so keen on taking Xander away to the nursery, which I never agreed to. At the new hospital, it sounds like that is not even an option.
- The new hospital won't deliver pre-term babies. So, if we are pre-term, we'll get shipped off to a larger hospital. I guess this makes it more like a birthing center.
- The new hospital gives away free car seats with every delivery. How strange??? It makes me feel a little like going to a car dealership or something.

Some of the similarities:
- Both hospitals' tour guides spent a great deal of time talking about the security system. They seemed to drone on and on about how everything gets locked down if the bracelet falls off the baby.
- Both hospitals have much nicer labor and delivery rooms than postpartum. Dolphin and I really don't understand this. We only spent 3 hours in the L&D room but two boring days in postpartum. Shouldn't the room you spend more time in be nicer?

Xander came with us on the tour and demonstrated the difficulty of having small children in the L&D room. He wanted to touch everything, especially the computers and electronics. He was happy throughout the whole tour but just had way too much energy.

Now, that I've entered the 3rd trimester, we're starting to wonder about how we'll deal with Xander and the delivery. So far, my plan is just to drive myself to hospital and while Daddy takes care of Xander. Bad plan?

Happy New Year!

This is blog post number 626. Pretty crazy, eh? I'm certainly still enjoying it. I suspect that it may get a little more difficult to post for a while in the March time frame. I'll try my best to stay on top of posting. I'm sure that I certainly have more content fodder, but the capturing ability may be limited.