Big Boy #2

Guess who is diaper free?

I tried to replicate this wonderful photo of Trenton from his potty training post 18 months ago. Chase wasn't quite as cooperative. Smiles for the camera are harder to come by with this busy body, but he is still adorable. We love this boy so much! 

He had been able to use the toilet for a couple of months, probably because he has watched his brother do it a thousand times. But I noticed him starting to refuse using the potty—insisting instead that he be "changed"! His attachment to his diapers seemed to be growing, so before he could dig in his heels anymore, I hid all the diapers and told him they were gone. 

Even now, if you ask him what happened to his diapers, he'll give you a forlorn, "Gone." 

Surprisingly, he didn't put up much of a fight after that. :) 

I have been so lucky to have had two great potty training experiences so far. (Knock on wood!) I honestly enjoyed it with both boys. Once again, we stayed home for a couple of days, wearing barely anything (the boys—not me!) and drinking lots juice. Trenton, who participated fully in Chase's potty training, thought it was awesome! He was over the moon about the abundance of juice! They each got a paper to put stickers on after Chase went potty, but T was definitely more excited about his sticker chart than Chase was. :) 

Eventually we ventured out to friends' houses and preschool. We showed Chase the toilets wherever we went, just so he would get the idea that everyone has one. :) He would usually say "M-K" (I'm okay) when I asked if he'd like to try, but it only took a few days before he was comfortable using toilets other than our own. 

For the first couple of weeks I had Chase go out of the house commando-style. Having no underwear and loose-fitting shorts helped him remember he wasn't wearing a diaper. Those loose-fitting shorts gave me (and my girlfriends also at the park!) many a view of that cute little crack. :) 

He is an underwear-wearing pro now, with a pull-up at night. Congrats, Chase!

*Thanks for letting me use this as our family journal and for reading far more potty details than you  probably wanted to hear! 

A Day in the Life

A couple of things to note about this video:

It is the green dump truck on top of the fridge that is causing all the mayhem. Sharing is hard! I remember my mom putting toys on the fridge when Rachel and I couldn't share. Now it's me doing it for T and C.

This is our house in all its lived-in, loved-in glory. I'm in the middle of unloading the dishwasher and reloading it with breakfast dishes. You may also notice a big circle of potato flour on the rug in the living room. I'm trying (quite futilely) to soak up a water stain in my new jute rug.

And no, Trenton doesn't hit me very often at all. And yes, this video ended with me putting both boys in separate rooms for a nice, long time out!

I'll laugh at this someday, right?

Happy belated Mother's Day to me!

Old Photo

I was going through some photos on our computer and ran across this little gem: 

Apparently I painted shorts on Trenton at some point???

He was such a little ham! And Ryan looks so happy, wet shirt and all.

First Taste of Summer

I think it's safe to say we're having our first taste of summer right now. It'll probably cool back off, but today's high is 78, and for here, that is pretty much summer. :) 

We initiated the complex pool last night. We won't turn on its heat until the very end of May, but that didn't faze these boys!

I think I might actually be tinge sad when Chase is potty trained only because I will miss seeing those legs in a swim diaper! It gets me every time!

Easter Egg Hunt in the Park

A bunch of friends and I thew an Easter egg hunt this morning at the park for our kids. We all brought some eggs filled with candy and threw them in the grass while the kids played on the playground. Simple as that. :)

I told the boys yesterday, and they were SO excited. They even went to bed without a peep last night, knowing the Easter egg hunt was in the morning. Chase has told everyone we have seen (or even talked to on the phone!) for the last day and a half—"Ee-ter. Hunt! Eggs. Park!"

 T and his best buddy Colton, with proud we-got-the-most-candy smiles!

Sweet Presley flanked by two handsome little men.

All of the kids together. It's amazing we got so many of them to look up from their candy!

(As a funny aside, I asked a mom I didn't know to take a picture of all of us moms and kids together. She thought I was asking to take a picture of her kids, so she posed her kids and told them to smile in another language. I felt too awkward to tell her, "No, I don't actually need a picture of your kids. I was hoping you'd take one of me and mine." So I just snapped a picture of her kids and ran away! Haha, she probably thought I was so weird!)

Reason #52 that holidays are even better with little kids.

Happy Easter!

Photo Shoot for Three

My wonderful friend Angelica captured some fantastic photos of the boys and I in our recent mini-shoot on the hillside at our complex.

It is normal to be insanely excited about family pictures, right?? Now I just need to print some and pin them up so that I can look at them any time these little cuties make me want to pull out my hair!

The fact that Angelica got so many great ones when Trenton was growling like a raptor half the time and Chase was determined not to smile means she has talent! Thank you, girl!

Because I am just that crazy, you can see even more pictures at Let Why Lead.

Chase at Age 2

• Chase isn't really stringing words together yet, but he says a ton of words—enough that I almost always know what he wants. He likes to drop off the end sound of words ("Why bother when Mom knows what I'm talking about?"), like "Me!" (short e sound) instead of "Mess!" Tonight in his crib he was saying "Ki!" I was busy tucking Trenton in and had no idea what Chase kept saying until I looked over at him, lying down in the crib, and saw he was rapidly patting his mouth with his hand, meaning he wanted a good night "kiss." 

• About a month ago he decided to be afraid of everything. If he sees the mail truck parked 50 feet away, he is suddenly terrified and will not move an inch until I pick him up, even though we're only a few steps from walking into our home. He suddenly acts like he's terrified of the indoor hallway at our complex, and he repeats "fall" under his breath when we ride the elevator. Don't get me started on the vacuum! All of this only means that I have been lugging our two-year-old chunker around a lot more than I used to. :) 
• Sorry in advance to bring this up, but the poo poo (as we call it in our house) is out of control! For the last couple of weeks I have very often changed four stinky diapers a day. I will be asking our pediatrician about that at his upcoming checkup! He is stinky so often that he's taken to calling it "ma foo foo," meaning, "more poo poo." It's always "more" since he does it so much! 
• He looooves bridges and tunnels right now. Our drives are narrated by him describing everything our car encounters or does—bridge! up high! down! hill! tunnel! (even if it's just a thick grove of trees that feels like a tunnel)

• He loves trains so much and ALWAYS knows when we are near the Caltrain tracks. He even always knows which side of the road they are on. It's a sixth sense! Sometimes he is so insistent about seeing a train that we just go to the nearest train station and wait on a curb until we see a train go by. 

• He certainly has his moments, and he can be finicky about funny things (like sun in his eyes), but he is generally a pleasant, easygoing little guy. I would say that where Trenton's personality tends to shine more (and has more ups and downs to go with that), Chase is just generally pleasant. (I'll probably remove this when they're old enough to read, but for now, we'll leave it in. :)
• He will give hugs to almost anyone we tell him to. And he loves to dance.  

     

I love his eye color. They're dark enough that you might not notice them, but I admire them every day. They're a cross between deep gray and green.

BIG smiles like this are kind of hard to come by with this little guy, unless you're tickling him, so I was delighted to catch this one, even if it is a bit blury. That's a mint in his mouth, btw, not a overgrown tooth :)  

Trenton's update will be coming soon!