Attempted Independence

I guess it's kind of a big day around here. Lunchtime caught me by surprise (seriously? both kids are hungry right at 12:00? is that, like, a "thing"?), so Isaac went into the highchair with a handful of cheerios in front of him. Mainly because Mikayla is louder than him, and you know what they say about the squeaky wheel. Anything to achieve the sanity more quickly, I always say. Mind you, Isaac has never actually eaten cheerios before. We've gotten him onto those little dissolving Puffs things in the past week or so, but otherwise he is all, "Put it on a spoon, peasant." So the cheerios today was purely a move of "hey, he can at least throw them around and amuse himself."

Much to my delight, he seized upon the opportunity to refine his pincer grasp and CHOWED those things. Fast. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't searched his bib pocket and the secret hiding place in the corners of the high chair. So cool! My sweet Isaac is a little self-feeder now!

The backfire: He proceeded to reject all of his normal lunch foods, eating only when another handful of cheerios was dumped onto his tray. Even the sippy cup was immediately launched. I did briefly interest him in a graham cracker, but I soon realized that forcing variety for its own sake only resulted in a lot more crumbs to sweep up. Cheerios really are the perfect, bite-size baby/toddler snack, aren't they?

So Isaac had like three cups of cheerios for lunch. Can't wait for the old digestive process to grind to a slow, grainy halt over that one.

And then? Mikayla announced she was done eating and ready for a nap. Cue her insistance that she is capable of putting herself down for a nap all by herself. I'm all about less work (see above), so I told her to just come back down when she wakes up. She went upstairs, I heard her door close, reasonable quiet ensued. Then I remembered the whole potty/no diaper thing. Shoot. Mental calculations suggested inevitable naptime "incident" based on most recent tinkle. Also, I began to hear strange thumping.

My freshly reheated pizza snickered at me as I jogged up the stairs to intervene. Turns out, Mikayla had the same thought, and was in the process of leaving her room to go potty. I'm sure that would have gone well, but I was obviously happy to help. Various potty time shenanigans followed, but we eventually got her back into her room (Isaac was, naturally, wailing for more cheerios by now).

I only had to threaten spanking twice before she stayed in her bed for good. That girl knows the cards to play, too. Will her good Christian momma refuse to read her the Bible before naptime? Yes, yes she will. Don't judge.

It got easier from there, though. Isaac let me know he was finished with a hearty, "All done, momma!" (Waving his arms wildly and making Donald Duck-like sounds. The fine art of interpretation.) And he has spent the last 15 minutes while I've been writing this post, doing this:

That boy loves him some outside! He could stand at a window for...well, at least 15 minutes, until his momma interrupts his workflow to snap a poor-quality backlit phone picture.

He currently has located another window and is working on raising the blinds. It was going so well until he noticed the leftover cheerios on his highchair footrest:

I wish that had better lighting, because the sight of him next to the cock-eyed blinds, munching on old cheerios is really one of the cutest things ever.

So, self-feeding and self-napping. I might just go book myself a vacation because obviously my kids barely need me anymore!

A Day in the Life

Today, my daughter has been particularly humbling to me. I usually involve her in conversation just to keep both of us occupied, and her relatively engaged in what we are doing. More and more lately, though, she has actually had something to contribute. This morning at breakfast, for instance, we practiced Psalm 100 and she remembered most of the words to the first verse, and then we talked about God loving us forever and ever. We dialogued about the good news of Jesus, and at the end of it, she reminded me that he loves us forever and ever. Well, "ever, ever, ever!" I sometimes get weepy when her little heart overflows with joyful truth. My greatest prayer is that my children would have regenerate hearts, and any sign that Mikayla loves the Lord just staggers me with gratitude.

Later this morning, I needed to open a big five gallon bucket of laundry detergent in order to make a small batch with added soap. I sat down on the floor with my big bucket and told Mikayla what we were up to, as I began to pry with all the sinewy strength of my little chicken-bone fingers.

Me: Let's take the lid off of this 5-gallon bucket! Grrr it's so hard!
Mikayla: Screwdriver!      
Me: ....Yes, that would be a good idea.

My two-year-old totally schooled me on the physics of opening a giant bucket lid. True, she was probably only recalling what worked the last time Momma had to open it. But she remembered more quickly than I did that there was no way I could get that lid off without some mechanical advantage. Humbling.

Then, it started to snow like crazy.

Me: Mikayla, look at all the snow outside!
Mikayla: Merry Christmas!!!!!

She has only consciously celebrated one Christmas in her lifetime, so it seemed pretty cool that she connected the snow with the holiday. And it was hilarious that she barely looked out the window before making her exclamation with all the vocal enthusiasm she could muster. I'm telling you, she barely got the words out past the excitement welling up in her soul.

So then I promised her we would do some stretches on the exercise ball, since my bi-monthly exercise regimen is a far cry from the twice daily prescription of my chiropractor. But first we started a load of laundry, at which she gazed lengthily, since she had helped "make" the soap. Mikayla has a great memory. The second her toes hit the floor after she finished staring down the washing machine, she was asking me about "stretches" again. I explained that I needed to go potty because, as the song goes, "When you have to go potty, STOP and go right away!" (We take advantage of all the teachable moments we can find around here, particularly with the goal of washing fewer toddler undies on a daily basis.) When I had persuaded her it was a worthwhile pursuit for me to use the bathroom, she barricaded me into our powder room and wouldn't let me out.

Me, flushing the toilet: Mikayla, time to let Momma out so we can do stretches on the ball!
Mikayla: No, wash, Momma!
(Proceeds to not let me out of the bathroom until I wash my hands. Momma needs to be taught basic hygiene. Obviously I was just making conversation WHILE I washed my hands, but Mikayla couldn't be sure. Imagine persuading a toddler, through a closed door, that your hands are, in fact, clean.)

As I type, Mikayla is sweeping the living room carpet with a broom. I think my next goal will be to channel all this hygienic energy into some legitimate household chores. Too bad we don't have those cats anymore; my lifelong goal of having my children scoop the litter is THIS close to becoming a reality! Well, it's between that and my other next goal of patenting a process for bottling and selling toddler energy. Or using it myself. Not that she outpaces me or anything. Anyone who's seen me on a Sunday after church knows that I have all the natural stamina I need to wrangle a troop of caffeinated monkeys...er, my children...with no need of a nap or a bottle of wine or anything.

Why are you laughing?

Time for lunch and the daily nap swap, wherein I trade the one who doesn't make it to the potty every time for the one who lives to climb the stairs unsupervised and unroll all toilet paper, ever. Seriously, I am totally good on energy. Don't worry about me. I hope he learns to turn doorknobs next, I could use a good challenge!

Isaac Walks With His Car

This morning, as I was folding socks and underwear on the floor of the playroom amidst my two kiddos (the metaphor of brushing one's teeth while eating Oreos comes to mind, if you're wondering about how productive that endeavor was...), I suddenly noticed that Isaac was walking around with one of the riding toys.

Yes, you read that correctly. Walking. Pushing the car around like he was born to do it.

When did this kid grow up, again?

I think he now has most of the basic skills required for mowing the lawn. Joel will be so thrilled!

The Lord's Daily Provision, in Three Acts

It's one of those days when I feel like we should have our own TV show. 

First, I woke up at 4:30 a.m., again at 5:19, etc. and struggled to sleep much more after that. I'm not sure why, just one of those flukey things, but come 7:30 I was in that wonderfully sleepy place that surprises one after tossing and turning through the wee hours. The children were still snoozing, or at least quiet, a minor miracle considering big sister is no longer behind bars. After a week and a half of guys "working" on our bathroom "starting at 8" (meaning I have been up and dressed before that every morning. I think they were here at 8:00 on the first day, maybe the second as well. Since then it has been pretty come-and-go later in the day. Not complaining, just giving the background.), I thought perhaps I could enjoy just a wee lie-in, just this once, please? After all, I was exhausted, I was down with the upper respiratory crud, and there was only a 2/7 chance that someone would actually knock on my door at 8:00 a.m. It shouldn't have been any problem to milk it until at least 7:50.

So there was a loud knock on the door at 7:42. PERFECT. The nice thing about construction guys is they knock twice, then open the door and call a resounding "hello! plumber!" to let you know they are, in fact, on their way in, ready or not. It totally reminded me of my college days when a sing-songy "Man on the hall!" was considered sufficient warning at the crack of 10:30 on a Saturday morning. Anyway. I staggered to my bedroom door and croaked a terse request for him to hang out for fifteen minutes and then I sprang into action. "Sprang" is, of course, a relative term at this point. Anyway, all this to say, it is probably a good thing that I was forced from my bed then because Mikayla came tottering out at 7:53 and Isaac began to notice that he was hungry about thirty seconds after that. Providential act #1 - a stretch to call it that, maybe, but I need to redeem the experience somehow because my jersey sheets felt so stinkin' heavenly this morning.

Second, the dear, dedicated plumber who arrived so promptly was working away in the master bath when I walked downstairs and heard the sound of dripping water. Following the Great Deluge of Last Tuesday, I feared the worst and thought it was another flooding issue in our dining room.

The Great Deluge, post-crisis situation (this should be a blog post of its own. Water was pouring through that hole, and down from the corner of the ceiling, with water pooling all over this side of the dining room. 

Pictured is bucket #2 catching water, and the mop I used to soak up the worst of it):

Turns out I hadn't feared the worst. No, the dripping sound turned out to be water running down through the ceiling tiles of our LIVING ROOM. That can't be good...so I dashed up the stairs to find our plumber buddy. He was able to drop everything and come investigate - apparently, the sink drain line in our *other* upstairs bathroom was never properly glued, and chose that exact month, day, moment to fall apart. Even another day this week, and there would have been no plumber here to intervene. My living room carpet may think otherwise, but God is certainly good to us! Act #2.

And finally, partly because of the way the morning unfolded, I was just dying for a shower but had to keep putting it off for another hour, and another hour. I was *so* thankful that the leaking ceiling was an easy fix, but it made me realize just how fragile is the ability to wash my hair. I decided not to take any more chances with my hygiene. The Wonder Pets allowed me a solid 12 minutes to myself before Mikayla realized I needed company. All clean, I even dried my hair and threw on some makeup amongst the carnival that is fixing lunch for a potty-training toddler and sleepy baby. Mind you, my goal in all of this was simply to feel somewhat human and to demonstrate to that poor plumber that the lady of the house does, in fact, possess some degree of dignity.

Imagine the sheer delight (well, sort of) that flashed through my heart when Joel called at noon and told me he was taking the rest of the day off! Unfortunately, it's because he isn't feeling well, but he sure has a clean, beautiful wife to come home to (in stark contrast to the miserable creature he kissed goodbye this morning, as I'm sure I uttered obscenities at being awakened "so early"). How thankful I am that I neglected my children in order to wash my hair and powder my nose. The Lord knew Joel would be home to appreciate it! Yeah, ok, maybe that one's a stretch, too.

So other than the plumber arriving awkwardly early, water leaking into the living room, and my husband possibly having Mikayla's stomach bug, can't you see how the Lord is providing for all our needs? How good to be His daughter, if only because His grace is sufficient for each day.

And for each pile of #2 I have to clean off the floor, but again, another blog post for another time...

Soli deo gloria!

She Goes For Her Driver's Permit Tomorrow

Today has been an incredible, red-letter day at our house. Mikayla went without pants in an intense potty-training regimen. Aside from not peeing all morning, which made the "training" process a bit underwhelming to begin with, it's been a lot of fun working with her on this. She totally gets the feeling of having to go potty, and the only miss was when the #2 came up on her a bit quickly (I think we can all relate, yes?) and there was a trail of two small poops clearly demarcating her path from the table in to her potty. But she got the concept, and and assured me she would make it to the potty next time. I choose trust over skepticism because I don't have enough ice cream in the freezer to help me through much more poop on the floor. Amazingly, she had no peeing accidents aside from a small false start in her big-girl panties, which she insisted on wearing during her nap. She woke up dry from said nap, but she happens to be a slow waker-upper like her Momma and about fifteen minutes later she wet the panties a bit. It did remind her, thankfully, to dash for the potty, and she finished a tiny bit there. As long as she was bare-bottomed, though, she remembered every time to run to the potty! 

Isaac is just along for the ride. He kind of wanders around and gets into general mischief while I focus on teaching Mikayla the sit/wipe/flush/wash/cookie/sticker routine. At one point I suspect he was licking the toilet bowl (from the outside...totally not as bad as you were thinking, right?).

Pro tip: If she stops to put toys away as she trots to the bathroom, or adjusts the angle of the potty, she does not, in fact, need to make a deposit. But if she waddles with her legs together as tightly as possible, we are in for a cookie and a sticker! I know you were wondering.
Also, in a second liberated/insane moment, I offered to move the toddler bed into her room. At first, Mikayla thought Khloe would still need it, but when I explained that Khloe was all done with it, she embraced the idea wholeheartedly! She played in her new bed, pulling the covers up over her little bare bottom (still potty training!) and pretending to sleep and wake up. Momma even snuggled in there with her for a few minutes. Mikayla decided it would be a great idea to put her crib away in Isaac’s closet, so she exuberantly helped Momma, again with the “stewstiver”, take the crib apart and carry it piece by piece into the closet. Is it me, or did this girl just grow up right before my eyes?

So for the first time in two years, there are no diapers and no crib in my sweet girl's bedroom. Is she ready for all this transition at once, or is Momma just slightly unhinged from the ammonia fumes wafting out of the diaper pail? Only time will tell. As of now, the plan is for Mikayla to sleep in her big girl bed without a diaper. Ask me again in twelve hours how I feel about that idea.

As I type, Mikayla is marching in place on top of her potty/stool because she just pretended to go peepee in the potty again and is ...oh great, she pulled out a wipe and is experimenting with wiping her own hiney while standing on the stool. I should probably go supervise. Whatever crayons Isaac is eating will just have to be mourned another day. Though I suspect he is pleasantly full from all the crackers Mikayla just shared with him a few minutes ago while I wrote this post. You wonder why I don't blog more frequently!

Journey of a Baby Brother

Poor Isaac. At this point in his life, he must feel like little more than a tagalong, an afterthought, that cute, chubby face in the background of his big sister's photos. So much of my day consists of me setting him up with something fun to play with, and then taking care of household projects or something more involved with Mikayla. So he spends a lot of time crawling around after us, pulling U-turns because he arrives in the kitchen after we've already left again, etc. He's getting pretty quick at it, actually. Factor in Mikayla's opposition to him having any manner of fun with his (which she believes are her) toys while she is present, and the guy seems to have quite the dull, if not slightly oppressive, existence.

(Don't feel too bad. Every female he encounters just drools over his big blue eyes and flirts endlessly with him. He doesn't have it so rough.)

Such was life this morning. We had just finished breakfast, and Mikayla was in dire need of a diaper change. I'll spare you the details. I plopped Isaac down with his shape sorter fire truck in the living room and headed upstairs with the little lady. Leave a ten month old unattended? Yup. We are so baby proof around here, there is nothing he can reach that could possibly hurt him before I'd hear what was going on. It is no sweat. Worst case, he does a lap around the house and I have to hunt for him for a few seconds when I come back. So I thought nothing of it when I left him to his own devices for 3-5 minutes depending on whether it was a 2 wiper or a 4 wiper. Moms, you know what I'm talking about.

Imagine my surprise when his voice suddenly sounded louder than it ever had before. Strangely close, as though he were approaching the....holy smokes!! I ran to the stairs and sure enough, there he was:

Go, buddy!! Thankfully, these stairs are so much more baby-friendly than the ones at our old place - the stairs that you had to literally turn your foot sideways as you went up or down because they were so shallow/steep. I am actually a-ok with Isaac climbing these, though perhaps not without a little company or a big pillow at the bottom. They're not steep at all, and his center of gravity is really comfortably low as he climbs all sprawled out. Do I sound defensive? No way. I don't feel weird or guilty at all that my son made it up seven stairs while I was on another floor of the house. Mom of the year.

Isaac is so fearless and bold though, such a boy. Another recent case in point you might find amusing, while I am actually here blogging: I don't do this often, but the other day I showered while Mikayla was napping, and brought some toys into the bathroom for Isaac to play with. Mikayla, when she was his age, used to get bored with her toys, and would come stand at the end of the bathtub, pull the shower curtain back, and wind up with a wet face and arms from talking to me while I washed my hair. Isaac? Straight to the middle of the bathtub side, flailed both arms wildly until the entire shower curtain was outside of the tub, and then stood there squawking at me while water drenched both his entire body and the floor. Banging his arms on the bathtub, too, of course. I had to wrap it up quick or risk flooding the place. Little dude definitely knows how to compensate for being the often-ignored baby brother!

I love this kid. He is so much fun, and astounding us every day with all his grown-up tricks!

Oh, and I can't wait for his big cousin Elijah to come and spend some quality guy time with him next week (!!). I have a feeling Elijah knows all about standing up to a big sister and can give him a few pointers. Can't wait to see you, Kayes!

Mikayla Turned 2!!

Wow, I haven't blogged since the apple sauce? I know things have been busy around here, but that seems ridiculous. If I may be such a wuss as to blame teething and holidays and a two-year birthday for my writing sabbatical - please don't judge me. Today, I am blogging only because we hit said two-year mark and there are milestones and updates to be memorialized. Also, Isaac is in the worst, most clingy mood ever and discovered he can climb up the stairs. This might be just a teensy bit of avoidance as a coping strategy, as my kids are watching Care Bears and I find myself with some actual space to breathe and recuperate from my gig this morning as a human jungle gym and baby wrangler.

More importantly than all my excuses, though, happy 2nd birthday, Mikayla! If you're on Facebook, you've seen most of these, but I like to formalize events into an actual blog post for posterity.

 Mikayla baked tuptakes for her birthday. What color? Pink, pink, pink, of course!!



When she woke up on her birthday, I entered her room singing "Happy Birthday!" and gave her the sparkly birthday headband she had picked out at Target. Naturally, she wore it for breakfast.

When Momma got home from Young Ladies' Bible Study, we made pizzas for lunch, one of Mikayla's all-time favorite foods. Mikayla looooves to help me in the kitchen these days. She usually wears her apron, and she always stands on the ladder. I can't tell you how often she runs into the kitchen saying, "Help momma! Ladder! Aprons!" and proceeds to try to drag the ladder to the counter, and forces me to put on my blue apron while she wears the little half-apron up under her armpits. She is so proud of her work, too!

We made two pizzas, one pepperoni and one white chicken and spinach. Apparently, my white chicken and spinach pizza didn't live up to the standards set by our local Dominos. Usually she devours it, but this time she stuck to pepperoni. You can't win them all, eh?

And for dessert, of course, the pink cupcake. I think Joel got video of the candles and singing, but here is our big girl with her birthday treat.

We followed up the birthday celebration with a visit to a new doctor for Mikayla's two-year checkup. Our old doctor was just too far away for me to load up both kids and get over there for every checkup and illness. We saw Robin at our new family doc's office, and she confirmed that Mikayla is one tall girl! She was 36" tall, and weighed in at about 29 pounds. Robin said she would have guessed Mikayla is 3 or 3 1/2 based on her height.

Robin was also super impressed with Mikayla's verbal skills. She about died of the cuteness when she asked to look inside Mikayla's mouth and she responded with a "No, pease!" Just for tracking purposes, and because I am super lame when it comes to maintaining the baby book, I'm going to note some of her verbals here. She knows the words for most items in our house and readily learns new one, so nouns are a breeze. She uses lots of verbs with -ing to talk about what she's doing, and she recently started with past tense as well. Her possessive pronouns are sharp, though we are working on "mine" instead of "my's" (because we say "yours", right?). She is excellent at listening to and completing multiple tasks; for instance, "go to the playroom and get your doodle. Bring it back, and we'll draw a hand!" She can answer catechism questions 1-8 and is learning number 9. The most precious is to hear her say "Made me and care of me" in response to the question about why she should glorify God.

Mikayla's favorite songs are "Fishers of Men", "This Little Light of Mine", "Holy, Holy, Holy" and others from church. She asks for "Praise God" and the "Glory Be" and we often hear her going around singing "Holy Ghost, Amen!" She requests momma's "Night Night Song" (Come, Thou Fount) and "Jamma's Song" or "Sunshine" (both refer to "You Are My Sunshine"). Also "Table", which is her name for the 23rd Psalm because she apparently remembers the last verse about having a table prepared before us. In church, (where we "worship Gog!") she sits beautifully and participates in worship up through the offering. She stands and holds our hands most times when we are singing, and she loves to flip through the hymnal and pretends to sing from it. She prays when we do, and we whisper-pray with her during the silent confession of sin and explain the Lord's Supper each week. It has led to really cool conversations with her about sin and Jesus outside of church - one day, she totally connected that Jesus died for her sins because he is perfect. Be still my heart! She reads her Busy Bible or draws during the sermon. I am so blessed by her desire to participate in worship, and how few "corrections" she requires (every so often Dadda has to take her out and, er, remind her to obey).

Potty training is ramping up, though I am still not pushing it very hard. But we had an awesome Sunday morning - Mikayla went potty at home, and then was dry after Sunday School when I usually change her. She pottied at church then, and stayed dry through worship! She didn't want to use the potty again afterward though, so that ended the winning streak. Still, I am optimistic that perhaps soon we can start this in earnest and get her out of diapers. She usually tells me when she has to go #2 but not with enough warning to, you know, do anything about it. We'll get there.

Overall, Mikayla is super obedient and responds well to discipline. When we do have to correct her, we talk about God telling us in the Bible that we must obey momma and dadda. So then we ask, "Who must you obey?" and she gives us a tearful "Momma Dadda". It is so precious. And after discipline, she is usually all smiles pretty quickly and ready to go try again. While there's no such thing as the perfect toddler, her little heart really loves her family and friends and harbors so much creativity and humor already. I am hard pressed to complain very long or loud about her behavior because she's just so darn sweet!

And don't even get me started on little brother. His post will come, but yesterday he ate his first cracker (I had nothing else to give him at the doc office!) and today I found him halfway up the stairs. Good grief!

In closing, precious baby girl, you continue to bless our lives with so much love and laughter. I watch you play, and you have so many ideas and opinions. Everything about you just makes me giggle and want to eat you up. Right now you are vigorously rocking on the horse you got for Christmas, in between watching Letter Factory and imitating the letter sounds. There is so much that a simple blog post fails to capture about you. But know that your Dadda and I love, love, love you! As soon as I hit the publish button here, I'm gonna gobble you up with a big tiss!