Grasping at toys and Halloween

Levi is 8 weeks old and about to grow too big for his bassinet. I re arranged our bedroom to make room for the crib and all we have to do is set it up. He is changing every day and is showing us more and more his beautiful personality. He's all smiles lately. He will smile over and over, and many times within a play period. It's so much fun and is totally adorable! The other day he seemed totally close to letting out a laugh, I could hear the beginnings of one in his throat. Oh I can't wait to hear that! I remember the unfiltered pure joy that is the sound of a baby giggle...awwww!

Whenever we put him in his carseat he smiles at his monkey mirror as if to say, "hey dude! I haven't seen you in awhile!" He will smile for several minutes at his monkey mirror. He now likes his playmat with the hanging toys. He hits them and tries to grasp for the toys. He also likes his attachment for his bouncy chair now, which has hanging toys to pull on. It is nice for me, because he will be entertained for 15 minutes or so, so I can go get some things done since now at the same time he is sleeping less. Kaylee likes his playmat too and thinks she should change Levi's diaper. I have been telling her this is a job only for me and not allowing it. It's been tough to deter her and I prefer to do the playmat more when she's not around, or is preoccupied since she is so enamored with the idea of 'changing' Levi.

Kaylee has been so funny saying a new thing all the time. At the end of sentences she is saying "or something." Like she will say, "I don't want my dinner, I want a cookie...or something!" She says it all the time and now Eric and I are wondering which one of us is saying this. Also she will add an indignant "What!?" when she doesn't like what she's hearing and mayyyybe doesn't hear what's been said (but that is up for debate.) So if we say like, "You need to eat some of your ravioli before you can have the cookie." She will look at us and say, "What!?" We can't help but giggle a little bit at this, and we are trying not to encourage the response even though it tends to be a little bit funny and is totally a two-year-old behavior.

Some of the parents who read my blog have been asking how we potty-trained Kaylee. Kaylee had been not showing the most consistent show of wanting to go potty at home. We had been telling our daycare provider how nice it would be to have her out of diapers with the new baby. She said she would go ahead and start pushing it at daycare. Then Kaylee used the sesame street lid insert on the big potty to go. Kaylee doesn't seem to have a problem going #2, she seems sort of entertained by it. She tells stories and chats it up the entire time she's "working on it." I think the mistake we were making at home when we started is that Eric and I thought she would respond with a "yes" when asked if she "had to go." She never would say yes. We started just putting her on the potty every so often, every time it had been about 1 1/2 hour since the last time, every time before had to leave to go somewhere, before going to bed and before sitting down on the couch. The way she does it at home is different than at daycare because she's intrigued that we also have a little potty, and enjoys pouring her pee out of the little potty into the big potty (she's actually not messy about it and I honestly don't care as long as she goes.) She wanted to used a lot of toilet paper and wipes, but I insisted that I be the one to wipe her (because she was getting a rash from not doing a good job) and then she gets one tissue to throw into the toilet. She loves, as I'm sure all potty-trainers do, to flush the toilet. She doesn't like to wash her hands, but has to and does eventually do it. A lot of times she wants to take all of her clothes off during going potty and then we have to ge them all back on after (a big pain). In the first couple of weeks of potty-training she wore just underwear or underwear and a shirt only a lot of the time. It's easier for them to feel confident about going if they have easy, quick access to their underwear. Now she is doing a better job with getting re-dressed (probably the cold weather - burr) and telling us that she has to go (though she is still inconsistent and we as parents have to be vigilantly tracking when the last time she went was). She has had an accident on the carpet and one on the couch. Our daycare provider has said that she is the easiest child to potty-train that she's ever had, and that she's easier than her own kids were. We love that she's potty-trained now! She's even woken up a couple of times after sleeping with a dry diaper. Though the last two days at daycare we were told she had accidents and so did her other toddler friend at daycare. So I'm sure the efforts will be continued on for the next few months until she's more reliable...tattoos were our intermittent reinforcement if you're looking for a reward for your child, FYI, in case you haven't read my old posts.

Halloween at our house was really fun. Early on in the day, I took the kids to see my family for breakfast. I dressed the kids up and it's actually the only time Levi wore his costume. They looked adorable. Kaylee practiced trick-or-treating at my parents door and then they gave her some goodies. She had a blast. Then later that night, Levi and I stayed home and passed out candy. He was perturbed to have his nursing/sleeping interrupted over and over again for the trick-or-treaters. He only cried a couple of times, but he wasn't a happy boy. People thought he was pretty cute and complimented him a lot and I received a lot of congratulations on the baby from the neighborhood's adult chaperones. Kaylee and Eric had a great time, at first she was scared and didn't want to go. But once she understood that Eric would be with her the whole time, she went happily. The neighbors across the street have 5 kids, and Kaylee went trick-or-treating with their two youngest. Eric said that Kaylee received tons of compliments on her pumpkin costume and that a few people asked if they could keep her (hell no!) She whispered a very very quiet "trick-or-treat" and wouldn't reach in the bowl. But they came back at about 7:30 after about an hour for hat and gloves, and I thought they were home for the evening. But then they headed out for almost another hour, I started to get worried about 8:15 thinking it was too late for Kaylee. Then Eric and her showed up just at that moment. She had a hard time winding down from all the excitement and didn't sleep too well, that and all that sugar! I will post some photos just as soon as Eric helps me download them.

Last night we took Kaylee to Chuck-E-Cheese's. We wanted to see what it was all about after all the talk after she goes there a lot with daycare. We saw what she calls the 'blue thing' and the 'mouse' she talks about. When I saw the mascot mouse I thought for sure she'd be excited to see him assuming she'd seen him before. She yelped "daddy" and ran the other direction. It turns out the animated anamatronic mouse at the stage is what she likes to watch...So now I know. It was fun to see her run all around and get excited that we were taking her as a family. She just couldn't believe we were all going to go together! It was really sweet. She loved riding on all the cars and animal rides (only one needed to be activated, for the most part she was happy just sitting.) She played a little ski-ball too, my favorite. Levi cried at first from all the noise, and then nodded off unhappily in my baby carrier. She won a bunch of tickets and I was surprised at the end all it got her was a slimy bug toy, but if memory serves I remember taking home my slimy bugs too...I liked the 'kid check' that they have at the door. They scan your hand and your kids hand and then check at the door to see if they match. To make sure that the same person who brought your kid in is you. That is nice since there were kids running all around without their parents being right next to them, and someday that will probably be Kaylee. We will definitely be back, maybe with one parent at home with Levi next time, she had such a good time!

Also, last week I started to keep Kaylee home on Fridays from now on. When I go back to work in about 2 weeks, I will not be working Fridays. I'm happy because I wanted to spend some of my maternity leave time with her too. It has helped though having her at daycare so I can focus on Levi, bond with him and give him the attention that I gave Kaylee during her maternity leave (reading, singing, playing, etc).