Grandma's House

Last week marked Kyler's last day at daycare. Grandma sold the daycare and will be taking care of Kyler on the days I work until the baby comes and I quit my job. I think he's going to miss his little friends. He's a fairly social kid and likes to play with other kids, and really looks up to the big boys at daycare (which is good and bad). But today was his second day at Grandma's and he couldn't get out the door fast enough this morning. She even spoiled him with pancakes for breakfast today - his favorite! Hopefully he will adjust well to not going to daycare anymore and we will have plenty of play dates and friends over to keep up the socialization. I'm excited to finally be able to stay home full-time with my babies here in a couple of months, although it will be quite an adjustment for me too.

Kylerisms: Monster

Kyler was telling me all evening that "there's a monster in our house, Mama." (He pronounces monster as "mott-mer" which I think makes the whole thing even more adorable.) I would ask him why the monster keeps coming and what does he want and Kyler would respond that he wants cereal. When I tell him we are out of cereal and to tell the monster to go to the store and get his own or go to Grandma's because she has lots of cereal he says "no" as in "that's so silly." I asked him what color the monster is and he is orange and I asked how many eyes he has and the response was eight. He also told me that the monster drives a monster truck, the monster got Baxter, the monster got Kyler, and when I stood up I was told that the monster was going to get me. Usually when I ask he is a nice monster but once in a while I am told he is scary. When we visited Grandma and Papa's house, they also had a monster but theirs was black and with black eyes. Like ours, he was also there for their cereal. I don't know where any of this has come from but it is pretty entertaining and imaginative.

Stay this Sweet!

Today as I was changing Kyler, I stood him up to pull up his jeans and he wrapped his arms around my neck and said, "I like my mama." Can he stay this sweet forever?

Kylerisms: Who Gave Me That and What'd I Do?

One of the things Kyler has started to ask a lot is, "Who gave me that, Mama?" He wants to know who gave him each of his toys and things. I can remember a lot of them somehow but there are some that I'm not sure on. It's kind of funny that he wants to know all of a sudden. I wonder why.

Another thing he says a lot is, "What'd I do, Mama?" A couple days ago I left him without a diaper so he could practice going on the potty chair. About 5 minutes after I scrubbed the bathroom floor he apparently decided to pee in the hole of the step stool rather than going on the pot. When I walked in he was saying "Oh no!" And when I looked down he asked, "What'd I do, Mama?" He also uses that expression when he bumps into something or does something a little silly that I laugh about.

First Ride on a Jet Ski

We went to the Lake of the Ozarks this past weekend with some friends and Kyler had his first jet ski ride. He liked it up until his dad got a little too crazy. I convinced him to go out one more time under the condition that they go slow! He is a little cautious which is fine by me... he gets really worried when Brett wakeboards. He tells his dad not to go in the water and to get back in the boat.

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Colorado Vacation

We took a short trip to Colorado over the weekend. We left Thursday afternoon and got back Monday evening.

Dad had to turn around and drive back to this sign since we missed it the first time for road construction. Hopefully Kyler will appreciate it as much as his dada thinks he will. :)

When we got to the high country Friday afternoon our first stop was at the Georgetown railroad in Silver Plume. We had been promising a train ride to Kyler the entire trip and each time we would stop he would ask if we were at the train. 

Here is a family self-portrait on the train. Okay, so who does this kid look like? 

The train ride was scenic and just the right length (about an hour round trip). Here we are going over a tall bridge.

The train whistle was a little noisy for our tired boy on the trip back up the mountain when we sat right behind the engine, but he still loved every minute.

It was great to be able to spend lots of quality family time together after all the evenings Brett has had to spend away from us working on the houses.

Sitting right behind the engine may not have been the best idea - we got covered in soot from the smokestack on the parts of the ride where there were big climbs.

We stayed in a condo in Winter Park but spent a lot of time in the Grand Lake area as well. We ventured out there Saturday in the late morning not realizing we would want more time there. We had to head back for the wedding Saturday afternoon. 

We were in a hurry to grab lunch and get back to Winter Park for the wedding but this little boy wouldn't leave his boat-watching spot on the dock at Grand Lake, even when we bribed him with the candy store.

Since we cut our time at Grand Lake short, we decided to go back on Sunday morning to take a boat tour around the lake.

Breakfast was awesome at the Bear's Den. They had the best pancakes.

 Later on Sunday afternoon we went to the ski resort at Winter Park and rode the scenic lift, let Kyler jump on the trampolines where he was suspended with bungees, and rode the alpine slide with him many times (but not enough in his opinion).

Kyler was making me a little nervous since he was not a bit afraid of the lift. He was basically hanging over the side part of the time looking down at everything. He made his dad proud.

Overall, we had a wonderful trip. I cannot tell you how great it was to have all that time with just the three of us and nothing (like work or housework or television or anything else) to distract us. It was our family "babymoon" - our last big trip as a family of three. Kyler was amazing the whole time, even on our long ride home on Monday. Our only regret was that we didn't make it a day or so longer.

Potty Training - Take 2, and 3

We had tried potty training for about a day back around Easter when Kyler got his potty chair and some underwear. At that point, it became obvious that he didn't understand how to "turn it on." He would sit forever and not go and then be playing and oblivious to the fact that he was peeing.

At the beginning of June after he turned two, and had been showing signs of discomfort when he had a wet or dirty diaper. So I thought we would give it another shot. First I tried a method I read on potty training in a day where one of the things you do is run back and forth 10 times from the spot they had an accident to the potty chair saying "no potty on the floor, potty on the potty chair." This did catch his attention but he thought it was funny and didn't take it as a lesson. In fact, the second accident he has was when he was bare bottomed and he was smiling as he peed right in my kitchen. So I decided enough was enough and ended up scolding him and making him sit in time out. I know you're not really supposed to do that but I was pretty confident he knew exactly what he was doing.

At that point I decided to go back to the method I had originally tried around Easter. I basically tried to pay complete attention to him and look for signs that he needs to go. Once you do this, it's fairly easy to tell but you don't have much reaction time. I showed him his options for using the potty (his little one or a stool to stand on to hit the big toilet). He wanted his shirt off so he could see his equipment. Before I knew it he was running around in the nude... I figured whatever I am getting frustrated and tired at this point. He would stand by the door, then start saying "potty chair potty chair potty chair" while running to the bathroom and sort of pretending to go. He did this probably five times. I thought he was still thinking of me running back and forth with him. I was in the kitchen getting some stuff out for lunch when I looked over and he was standing up on the stool peeing like a big guy on the toilet. I got super excited and praised him like crazy, gave him his two jelly beans, and ran outside to get Brett for some additional praises. I continued to remind him anytime he would stand still for more than five seconds to go potty and poopy in the potty chair. He sat on the potty chair quite often and it would take a while but he would eventually go occasionally. He never did poop on the potty chair though, only once in the dog water bowl. We got busy once again (bought a house and moved) and weren't at home enough to reinforce this so ended up back in diapers.

In July, I took his diaper off one day to see how he would do. First thing that morning he peed in the potty chair on his own twice and then he pooped in it. We were so excited and he was very proud of himself. He kept asking for a diaper on though because he didn't want to be bare bottomed. I put underwear on him but every time I did that he would have an accident because he would forget that it was underwear rather than a diaper while he was playing. Day after day though, he would be accident free if he was bare bottomed. We sent him to daycare one day with underwear and they said he would not even go near the potty chair. Bummer! I also realized that I think he knows what he's doing when he wets his underwear because he would wait until I stepped outside or something like that before he would have an accident, and it would be right after I asked if he needed to go. It may just be a sign that he's not quite ready to make that big boy step yet. I think we'll give it a little more time and see if he's ready again.

Mama's Boy

Kyler has become quite the Mama's boy for some reason. It's been making me a little nervous with little brother or sister coming since I won't be able to always be the one to help him or read to him or cuddle with him. He is always wanting Mama to do things and it is sort of a challenge to convince him that Dada can do it too. It became very apparent the other night when Papa asked if he wanted to spend the night. He really really wanted to but then every time Mama and Dada would say goodbye he could get upset. He wanted us to stay the night too. Eventually he decided he just better come with us. I think we'll have to do some trial runs staying the night there before December hits.

There are also a couple more cute things he's said and done over the weekend. It's so fun that these moments are becoming more frequent. I have always enjoyed kids at this age with their big imaginations and expanding vocabularies. I was sitting at my computer while he was off playing when Kyler brought in a toy from the nursery. He didn't even look up at me. He just set the toy on my tummy and said "Here you go, Baby Pat." I held it there for a minute before setting it on my lap. He didn't like that and put it back on my tummy and moved my hand there to hold it. It was the sweetest thing and made me think he really is understanding this baby to be thing. The other funny thing was while we were watching Olympic diving. He saw one athlete dive and said "That was ahh-umm." I didn't even know he knew the word "awesome" before that.

Kylerisms: Not sure where that came from...

I told Kyler the name of someone who was at our house doing some work because he kept asking "What's Somebody doing?" A little later he comes up to me and asks "His name is Helmet Tractor?" Um, no. His name is not Helmet Tractor you little weirdo! Then after a bit he again asks "His name is Tractor Pull?" I have no idea where he came up with this stuff. There was not a helmet or tractor in sight at the time. One thing I can tell you is that we won't be taking his advice when coming up with baby names for his little brother or sister.

At breakfast today I asked him what he wanted to eat. He wanted macaroni and cheese. (He ended up settling for toast.) When he sat down at the table for lunch he told me "I want birthday." When I asked him if he said he wanted it to be his birthday he said, "yep, I want motorcycle." Apparently he thinks I am going to throw him a motorcycle birthday party every quarter. After I gave him his sandwich for lunch he was pretending to eat something else off the table. He sees me staring at him and says "that's worms." Awesome, you are eating worms.

Again I have to ask, where does he come up with this stuff?!?!