Tea with Santa at the Ford House

Favorite things to talk about these days

Ghosts ("Gho!") when we see the ghost setups outside his school and when he looks at a ghost artwork he made with his footprint last week

Airplanes - He likes to look for things in the sky like the moon, birds ("bye bye, birds"), and airplanes ("plane!")

Bugs - I didn't know he knew what a bug was but when we were outside today he pointed at the spiders on his slide and was talking about all the bugs

Mine - his new favorite word out of all of them...

Snow - We've been watching halloween and christmas movies and surprisingly he likes Nightmare Before Christmas alot and when Jack the skeleton falls down the christmas chute into a pile of snow he says something along the lines of, "Uh Oh, he fell down! Snow!"

Open - He asks us to help him open things like the windows, the doors ("Outside?"), and boxes ("Bah-ux")

He has also been very lovey this week.  He wasn't feeling the greatest but I think he's also going through a hugging/kissing phase and is milking it to try to get to stay up longer or take longer to drop him off at school.  He will cling and wrap his arms/legs really tight around us when it's time for bed or school goodbyes, and he is kissing us and giving lots of hugs all day long.  I like it so I think I encourage it and that is making it worse in a way because he's been using it to manipulate us a little.
One of his teachers said "He's such a cuddly baby!" and that's probably true compared to some other kids.  He blows his teachers and the secretaries kisses goodbye when we leave school.

Late August through October photos

Some photos of the inside of his school...

 

 

 The art/craft and lunch room

One of the playgrounds, but there is also a huge open grass area with big kid playground on another area of the school, and they just installed a big track for riding toddler trikes on the left of this.

The gym they use once a day; twice a day if it's bad weather

Fall update

Since the last post Elliott has gone to school and so have I.  He goes every day for a full day and I think he really likes it!  His daily notes that he comes home with say that he is sitting better during storytime (which used to be really hard for him), he helps Ms. Stephie do the hand puppets and strokes her face to make her feel better when she makes a sad face during a song.  He likes to be her helper.  He is not doing very well with potty at school because he isn't as verbal and doesn't tell her when he has to go but sometimes lately he has, so it might turn around soon, we'll see.  Other things his teachers say are that he has a friend Mitchell who likes him alot, he likes to wait for his turn on the swing and will check back frequently to see if it's his turn yet, and he always independently chooses to take a turn at the easel.  He comes home with multiple artworks every day!

I can't keep track because he will repeat most any word he finds interesting, but some words he uses regularly lately (not necessarily new but ones that are in his "favorite" rotation) are: cracker (cack-uh!), moon, box (bah-ock!),  book (buh-kah!), out, where's dad?, pumpkin

He also recognizes people better lately, and will point out everyone on photos.  ie, "where's nana?" and he will point at the individual person and say"nana!"

Nighttime potty nightmares

The past several nights have been very unsuccessful using the wake-up method.  He would allow me to take him potty no problem, but for some reason, even though I cut off his liquids 2 hrs before bed, he still was peeing the bed every 2-3 hours.  After a few nights of this I decided to go against what we were originally aiming for and put a nighttime diaper on him.  I don't think it will prolong his ability to be potty trained because he is already fairly potty trained.  He must be too young/small to hold it and also when he sleeps deeply he just goes without realizing.  He used to cry out at night if he was wet in his undies but the past several nights he didn't even budge, so he must be in a very deep sleep when it is happening.  Tonight I plan on sleeping WELL.  And I also don't have to pop out of bed the instant I hear him wake up in the mornings, which means back to 8-9 am wakeups for me!  Woohoo!

Fake mama crying

Lately Elliott likes to play this game where he pretends that he is consoling me and will hold my face in his hands gently and make a tiny fake crying noise as he tries to hold back a real smile.  He thinks it is a very funny game and sometimes he will kiss me as well.  This started because when he hit me a few times I pretended to be sad and made him "apologize" to me.  Yesterday Jared asked him, "Where's mama?" to which Elliott replied by suddenly switching to a sorrowful look and making a little whimpering noise.  When I am giving him the stern voice he will sometimes get a mischievous look on his face and cross his arms and pretend to be huffy in an attempt to imitate what his impression of "stern mom" looks like to him.

Diaper-free life

Day 2 of the 3-day potty training went well, still had night accident(s) and 1-2 accidents during the day but overall he was pretty well trained by the end of the day.  He disliked doing #2's in his underwear but would still try to hide it.

Day 3 we went out in the morning for several hours and he did great.  He even went in the travel potty seat I brought to the park that he had never used before.  We are just doing toilets for the most part and he likes them so I wasn't sure he would use a potty seat even, but he sat down no problems in a private pavilion at the park.  He still had trouble with #2's.

After the training was over we have been just continuing with being watchful of him throughout the day but generally he is fine and I expect we'll get in a routine soon and he will get better at telling me when he has to go.  We still have wet nights but we are not planning to go back to diapers at all because it's not a big deal and this way he will learn to hold it longer and to better tell me when he needs to go.  I plan to get him up at midnight and 4 am for awhile just to go quickly and I think this will be a good schedule for us until we can phase those wakeups out.  He doesn't seem to mind when I come get him in the middle of the night and he goes back to sleep but there are always 1-2 times/night that he doesn't call out until after he's already gone so I think I should just wake him and get him in the habit of going at regular intervals.

And that's my too-much-information post on our potty training adventure!

Potty training

We started potty training yesterday and it went well.  He had many accidents in the morning but as the day went on he got better at it and at the very end of the night he asked to go to the potty and went in it on purpose!  Overnight and naps have been more or less dry...all dry naps and only 1 accident at night which was my fault because I didn't catch his cue.  Today he ended the day being fairly well trained.  I would even be ready to venture out into public places with him.  He had 2 small accidents the whole day but 1 was induced by violent sobbing when he realized he was with a sitter when he woke up from his nap.  The 2nd was in the morning when he was remembering the new routine and he stopped himself halfway and finished the rest in the potty.  So both accidents were not very notable, which was good!  He even asked to go #2 in the potty tonight.  He seems to get it and likes it!  I consider the hard part done and tomorrow, the 3rd and final day of the 3-day bootcamp method, I expect to just be reinforcing his good new habits.  We'll see how it goes!  Hope we don't have any major hurdles the next several days, or weeks...

Good job, Elliott!

More June and July

So many photos and so much fun in two months so I'll try to finish packing it all in this last photo post!