Thankful

So among all of my many other blessings, this year I am also thankful that Graham has not learned how to climb yet.

A Happy Thanksgiving

Well, we had a good Thanksgiving over here. We spent Thanksgiving with Jesse's family. I always feel bad when we don't have it with my parents. Growing up we didn't have family close by, and there were a ton of us, so we always just had Thanksgiving with our little family. As a result, as kids move away, my parent's Thanksgiving is smaller and smaller. This year I am the only kid in the area, so even if we did go over, it would have been a sad small little gathering. Anyway, it had been 3 year since we had spend Thanksgiving with the Markhams, so I thought we were due. Plus, there had been a turducken ordered. That's right, a turkey stuffed with a chicken and duck. It was actually really good, but hard to tell the meats apart.
We spent the afternoon with the family, and the only downside was that Graham would not take a nap, but he was a trooper none the less.
The big news is that he was taking a lot more steps yesterday. He has taken a few steps here and there in the past, but yesterday he was taking 4 steps together. He still is quite wobbly, and often just head dives to his target, but he has started taking steps. So that's exciting.
Today, despite the fact that I am sick as a dog, I went shopping at 5am. Jana came to pick me up, and we hit toys r us, which was way more crowded than I thought it would be. Then we went to Target to pick up a few more things. I didn't really get that much stuff, since I am waiting for Jesse to be able to come to do Nate's shopping, but I did get some 50% off deals. I agree with Jana that door buster sales on Black Friday are best for people buying big ticket items, not me with my, oh, it's $15, not $30. We did wait in long long lines at both places, but we didn't see any fights much to our great disappointment.
So now it is over. We all sit here, most of us a little sick. Jesse finally got his birthday present of basketball shoes today, so now he is going to head to the church with Nate to play a little ball. Graham and I will stay here and rock the Einstein.

prayer Time

So, Nate has gone through these phases of praying. He did it for a long time, repeating what we said, and he loved it. He also went through a phase where no matter what we said, what he said was "thank you for Nate." But then he stopped. He didn't want to say any prayers ever. He would listen most of the time, but he didn't want to participate. But then the other day he started again. This time around he can say them by himself. They don't include much, and tonight it was about how he had to go to church and be quiet and eat goldfish and juice, but he is excited to say them alone these days. It's nice, it makes me feel like maybe I did something right. So there's my little guy, I'm so proud of him that he is so happy to say prayers.

He's just so cute

So, Nate is nowhere close to being potty trained. We hit the weekend, and I never want to do something like that on the weekend, so it kind of stalled. But then today I put some underwear back on him, and he cried and cried for a while. (Of course, he was kind of in trouble at the time, so that contributed to it.) Finally I sat and talked to him, and pointed out that it didn't hurt, and it wasn't scary, and he stopped crying. Then I think he kind of felt liberated, and he's been dancing around all day now. And he's just so cute. He's so cute in his little monkey underwear, sitting there with no pants on. When he's grown up, he'll hate me for putting this on the internet, but hey, at least there are no pictures. Anyway, so I'm prepared to do it for the long haul this time. The only problem is that I have trouble with the whole, stay home and don't go anywhere thing, so it's going to take longer. Already this week I'm going to be at my mom's house tomorrow, so he'll only get morning practice in. Then we have somewhere we need to go on THursday afternoon, so that'll pause things. Part of me feels like I have plans on Friday too, but maybe that's just because I feel like I always have plans. But we're going to go out an rent Kung Fu Panda and maybe another movie and just sit and watch movies and hopefully sit on the potty the entire time. Then maybe when he has an accident, he'll be in the right place. Oh the joys of parenting.

Holy Cow! It's a breakthrough!

So our story today starts at Staples. We had to go to Staples today to finally get a new ink cartridge. I've needed one since mid-summer, but it was not until I was called into the RS Presidency and needed to print stuff out for "homework" that I finally got one. So we were checking out at Staples, and Nate saw these cute little frog and pig magnets displayed at the checkout. He begged and begged to get them, and it's possible that we would have since one of the things that I also needed was magnets, but they were like $5, and that's more than I wanted to spend on an impulse buy.
Flash forward to nap time. We were changing Nate's diaper, and he was not being as complacent as I would like, so I said it was time to get rid of diapers and go on the potty. He agreed, which he sometimes does. He said that mommy doesn't like to change diapers, so he needs to wear big boy underwear, and he needs to go wee wee on the potty. So I told him that if we went wee wee on the potty then we could go and get the frog toys from the store. He immediately wanted to go wee wee on the potty. So we got out the potty, and he sat for a little while. Nothing came, so he went to have a nap, and then I said that after his nap we can try again, and he agreed.
This is a major breakthrough. In the past, if I had said that he could have something after going on the potty, he would have changed his mind and said he didn't want it anymore. Not only did he want to sit on the potty, but the major breakthrough is that it was not met with complete terror and disdain. We're going to take this and run with it. That kid is not wearing pants for a week. Wish me luck. (Of course, he'll probably have totally changed his mind by the time he wakes up from his nap.)

File this under: more cute things my kids say

So today we were in the car, and we were talking about Graham about to turn one, and how he is getting to be a big boy. Nate argued that Graham is still a baby, but that he is a big boy. I then countered that big boys wear big boy underwear and sit on the big boy potty. (Nate has a very close relationship with his diapers.) So Nate starts listing all of his friends who wear big boy underwear, and then I say that I think that all of his friends wear big boy underwear. He then says, no, they're not my friends, only Mommy and Daddy and Graham are my friends. It was awfully cute when he said it. Of course, it could be that he feels betrayed by all of his friends for breaking their pact to wear diapers all of their lives, but who knows.
Then also, this morning he was watching a movie that had the Disney castle at the beginning of it, and he turned to me and said, look mommy, is that a Temple? It was pretty cute.
Well, I think that I hear Jesse's car outside which means it only took him 2 1/2 hours to get home today. Of course, it could not even be him, and he could be nowhere close to being home. Poor Jesse.

Another First

So one of the great things about the first year is that there are so many "firsts." The First step, the first word, the first foods, the first time crawling, etc, etc. We have experienced a first this week, and that was the first lollipop. I think that the pictures tell the story.

It's interesting how much more quickly "firsts" tend to come with a second child. I think that Nate's first lollipop was maybe less than a year ago. Of course, it is a food item, so that kind of explains it with him, but yeah, I didn't really think that Graham would have his first before a year old. Oh well.

Shortly after this picture he managed to suck through the stick, so he was not allowed to finish it, and boy was he mad! I guess I'll have to go the push pop route in the future. I remember when we went to Europe many years ago with Erin's little boy who was at the time 5 months old, and she took a push pop for him to suck on at times when we needed to buy a little time of good behavior. Not a bad idea.....