Dexter's Batman birthday week

Dexter's birthday week was quite the rollercoaster with many ups and downs.

It started on Mother's Day when Dex had a low fever all day. He laid around when his temp crept up but would be running around like a madman an hour after taking medicine.

He woke without a fever on Monday but I kept him home because I wanted to keep an eye on him to make sure he was okay. He was sluggish but okay throughout the day. I worked from home and at 4:30 I heard screaming and ran back to the bedroom where he was napping to find him in a puke puddle, crying.

I moved his mattress to the living room and covered all surfaces in preparation for the next round. Good thing.  Poor buddy puked 10 times between Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning.  Not a very happy way to turn 3.  Dexter got another sick day to stay home with mommy on his special day. 

Trying to play but not really feelin' it.

By mid-morning the pukefest had come to an end. He took a very long nap and by the time Theo and Ryan came home, he was acting a little more like himself.  It wasn't long before Theo saw the small pile of gifts wrapped in Batman paper in our bedroom and started prompting Dexter to ask us to open presents.  He cheered up and his energy started to come back. 

The turning point: Revelation of the Lego Set.

See that sparkle coming back?

No YOU'RE the best.

Hurrah to feeling better!

Took one bite. 

The rest of the work/school/daycare week went okay. Dex still was having some tummy troubles and didn't eat well all week but no more throwing up.  Some really FANTASTIC news that came from Dexter's birthday week is that we ditched diapers!!  He woke up on his 3rd birthday in a diaper but hasn't had one on since. Not at home anyway. I'm not sure his sitter is quite as ready to move on as the rest of us are. I'm giving him a good, solid week or two before I tell her that we are officially potty-trained, day and night. We are taking him to the bathroom every night before we go to bed (around midnight) and he's doing GREAT!!  He's very proud of himself and so are we!!  Gooooo Dex!

Friday I worked a short day and went to Sam's Club when I was done to buy party food. I was excited to go there and take my time strolling around without the kids before I picked them up from the sitter. Got up to the register only to discover that I didn't have my Mastercard debit card. The only place I use it is in the ATM machine and at Sam's because they don't accept Visa. So on one hand, I was not too worried knowing that I must have just left it in the bank's ATM the last time I got cash. On the other hand, I was devastated that I just wasted an hour or more of my precious, limited time and now I was going to have to grocery shop with crabby kids in tow. And embarrassed to boot.

I did end up getting everything I needed and Ryan and I stayed up until 1am getting everything prepared that we could do the night before. 

Party favor gifts.

The day of the party was stressful, as they always are. The weather was iffy. It kept getting super cloudy then would sprinkle. It looked like a tsunami could let loose any second but it never did. It stayed nice enough that we could have the party outside, which was the main thing I was worried about.  However, I set up the food in the garage. I don't know what your garage looks like in pictures, but there's just no way to make ours look cute, regardless of how many decorations we put up.  I barely took any pictures because I was busy prepping all day. By the time the party rolled around, I took a couple pictures of the ugly garage and more or less tossed my camera aside and sat down to enjoy some time with friends.

For food, we had the following

 - fresh sliced strawberries

 - GoGo Squeeze applesauce

 - these Foster Farms mini chicken corn dogs

 - these baked beans

 - this crock pot turkey (on pretzel buns with provolone and/or pepper jack cheese)

 - pretzels, cheese puff balls, and chips & salsa

 - lemonade & sweet tea

 - cupcakes that Ryan's mom made (Dexter asked for strawberry - they were amazing!)

 - homemade chocolate chip cookies

  

Stickers from Zazzle.com

Grown ups and big kids played things like corn hole and ladder ball outside while the little kids played on the small slide and on the riding toys in the driveway.  We ate and then Dexter passed out thank-you gifts to his friends before opening his presents. 

Don't ask me why, but we made Theo and Dexter mini-versions of the gift bags we gave all the other kids. Ryan and I panicked at the last minute, thinking it wouldn't be a very fun birthday party for the birthday boy if he was disappointed and confused about why everyone else got the same thing and he didn't. The full-blown version contained: 

  - foil pinwheels

  - bubbles

  - Batman cup

  - mini flashlight

  - mini M&Ms

  - pop rocks (only for the big kids)

  - Batman punch ball balloons

Without a doubt, you can bet Theo was right beside Dexter the whole time, checking out the new inventory. 

Not a bad day, all in all.

I hope Dexter enjoyed his third birthday festivities, even if his entire week wasn't as great as it could and should have been. I can't believe my baby is 3!

xo,

~C~

laying low and potty stuff

Wow, it's already been 2 weeks since my last post.  I keep thinking it's been awhile but never seem to find the time or the inspiration to come here and write.  I don't know why. The boys have been super cute and fun lately.  I haven't been taking many photos either...lame.

They are so smart. I'm surprised every day by something they say or do.  Theo just seems so OLD lately. He's still super obsessed with Legos. He just loves taking the guys apart and mixing and matching their bodies. We build whatever came in the lego set and then he takes it apart and attempts to rebuild it. He's pretty good at it!  What I love the most, though, is his creativity. He builds his own little ships and guns and I literally don't know how he comes up with this stuff.  So neat to watch him.

What's not so neat is that he is also obsessed with pee pee and poopy.  Like, the words. Not the things.  He thinks it's soooo hilarious to call people "poopyface" or "fartface."  I guess it was funny the first time, but now it's just pretty obnoxious.  I'm not sure if it's just his age or something that he's picked up from school.

Dexter, on the other hand, might turn out to be our goody-two-shoes.  A lot of the time when Theo is trying to get Dex in trouble (by telling him to say or do something inappropriate), he'll say "No Tee-o, we don't say that."  He's got a little conscience on him. Theo is starting to tell white lies, denying that he did something or blaming things on Dexter.  He's not a very good liar.

Speaking of peeing and pooping though, for the longest time Theo wore a diaper to bed just because we were so paranoid that as soon as he started wearing underwear, we'd be back to the newborn days of getting up 5 times a night.  Before he wore underwear to bed for the first time (on Nov 2), he had NEVER in his life woken up dry in the morning.  I was curious if he was just peeing when he was awake because he knew he could or if he was actually peeing in his sleep.  We've pretty much figured out in the last three weeks that he CAN NOT and will not make it through the night unless we wake him up to take him to the bathroom before we go to bed (about 3 hrs after he does).  We've experimented and he always has an accident in the middle of the night if we don't take him. Sometimes he'll have 2.  So, what do you do?  Do you wake him up every night (a nuisance for everyone) to start teaching him or do you blow it off and let him keep sleeping in diapers?  For now, we're taking him to the bathroom at midnight and celebrating successes every morning that he wakes up dry - which is the majority of the time.  I figure he's going to be four in a little over three months...we've got to get a handle on this. Right?

We've been lazy with Dexter's potty training.  We need to be more consistent but here's the thing. He consistently pees on the floor almost every time he wears underwear. He has some GREAT days, but he has some bad ones too.  I know that's too be expected. Does it make me a bad mom if I just don't want to clean up pee off the floor or risk him peeing on the carpet or the couch?  Yeah? I kinda thought so. We've got a little time with him - I'd like for him to be trained (at least for the daytime) by the time he's three...still six months away.  Dexter is more than happy to tell you after he's gone but very rarely asks to use the potty before he goes.  I think with more consistency on our part, potty training him will be easier than it was with Mr. Stubborn Theo.

That was a lot of potty talk, considering I didn't even know what I was going to talk about.

I think that's all for now.

xo,
~C~

breaking: everyone in my house has pooped in a toilet

I was pretty shocked to get a text from our babysitter last Friday that simply said:

DEXTER POOPED ON THE POTTY!!!!

Um?  He just peed on the potty for the first time about a week before that. Or was it last Monday. Gah, life is a blur.  And also?  He just turned 2 three weeks ago.  Anyway, he's dropped the Browns off at the Superbowl 3 times since then so apparently we aren't going to have the same trouble with him that we've had with Theo.

Remember this prank?  The little jokester has only pooped on the potty 1 time since April Fool's Day.

But today is not about the jokester, today is all about this kid:

As promised, we took Dexter out for ice cream tonight to celebrate his accomplishment.  He is very proud of himself, as are we.  Theo is actually very excited for Dexter too.  It's pretty cute. 

We went to the park across the street after we finished our sweet treats. 

Dirty ice cream face kid.  Eh. Sue me. We left the wipes in the car.

Well, hello there.  Theo actually spotted this squirrel and wanted to take a closer look.

My little heart melter.

Dexter's favorite thing was running/falling down the hill.

Theo had fun playing tag with Daddy.

Pretty perfect night, all things considered.

xo,

~C~