It's been too long since I've done a real kid update. And I have lots of pics to post along with it.
So, last time I did one of these developmental updates, I said Emma was fully potty trained. And she
was. The big potty chart even worked so that she only used the big potty.
For awhile.
Now, she's totally regressed. She keeps going in underwear or pull-ups. We mostly have her in pull-ups these days because I don't really want to deal with cleaning up poopy underwear. I keep asking her why she won't tell me she has to go. I know she gets caught up in playing, but really? It's getting ridiculous. One day, I asked her why she kept going in her pants. Her response? "Because it's funny." Uh, NO. No it is not.
I'm kind of at my wit's end here. I know regression is normal and all, but oh my goodness! It's soooo frustrating! I don't have the energy to do a lot about it these days, either. I'm tempted to give her time outs for accidents, but I think that would do more harm than good. She gets a sticker for every day she goes without an accident...since I started that chart, she's only gotten 2 stickers. And it's been up for like 3 or 4 weeks.
I know I should put her in underwear all the time, but I don't really want to clean up the mess. I know, I should just buck up and do it. And I keep meaning to. But I'm so tired, especially first thing in the morning, that it just doesn't happen most days.
Ugh. Please help! I'm sick and tired of changing a formerly potty trained child!
As always, most of the Emma updates are in the form of cute things she says. Here are the most recent Emma-isms:
- "I don't wanna break the counter."
- "What is that cute girl?" - while looking at a picture of herself
- "I close the door so you can go to sleep."
- "Hyrum's a little baby and we're grown ups."
- "We gotta do some paperwork, like Sully from Monster's Inc."
- "I don't like broccoli. Broccoli is like a vegetable."
- "There's snow outside still." - unfortunately...
- "You going to make fudge? For dinner?"
- "That's a classy one." - copying me while looking at Christmas lights
- "There's an echo in the back seat." - see above ^
- "I'm all covered in wet."
- "I had an accident at the crap store." - LOL, I love how she calls the
craft store the crap store
- "I'm all covered in chocolate."
- "Hyrum doesn't wear ponytails. Silly Mom!" - her response to me putting Hyrum's hair in ponytails pre-haircut.
- "The ketchup farts."
- "He's eating money." - Pooh eating honey
- "You making a cinnamon roll? With the blanket?" - I folded a blanket to put away and she noticed that it looked like a cinnamon roll on the side
- "You're writing it down? Cuz it's funny?"
- She said a prayer for her toy bear when she fed him toy spaghetti. Then she said, "take a picture of that."
- "My mouth is big." - she had food stuffed into her cheeks like a hamster
- Walking down the ice cream isle: "that one and that one and that one and that one and that one and that one" etc, all the way down the isle
- "It's baby Jesus." - she wrapped a bear in a dish towel
- "Hyrum turned the light on while I was sleeping."
- "I found Buzz Lightyear, Mommy. But we don't have that toy. We have to get it sometime."
- "I want my dad to do the dishes." ♥ ♥ ♥
- "She has circles in her hair." - talking about her doll's curls
- "I was pooping in the garden last night." - uh, random! Everything past is automatically "last night." But...she's never pooped in a garden. We don't even HAVE a garden!
- "We gotta move to Washington." ♥ ♥ ♥
- "I want this flower in my hair so it can be pretty."
- "He has a funny bum. It has a circle on it." - I was changing Hyrum's diaper...oh boy...
- "Winter time is over." - I wish!
- "I like coloring with you when Hyrum's napping."
- "Winter time needs to be over." - AMEN!
- "We don't eat spiders, but the snake eats spiders." - talking about a snake game we like to play together online
- "I like the critter books. We should get some sometime." - she is currently obsessed with the Little Critter books. We borrow them from the library all the time. We only have one in our personal collection. So far, anyway...
- "Please can I have some more, Mom? Maybe just a lot."
- "I want winter time to be over." - me too!!
For the last 2+ months, we've limited TV time to 2 movies a day. Some days she picks 2 long movies, some days she picks 2 short ones. But she totally understands that she only gets 2. She even turns the TV off when the 2nd one ends. Awesome! Some days she protests, but we stick with it anyway.
When Emma doesn't get her way with me, she says, "I want my dad." Ha. He's going to say the exact same thing as I do. But she still wants to talk to him anyway. Not that it changes anything, but the distraction of calling Daddy helps. She knows how to call him and has now started grabbing my phone and calling him on her own. Well, she can only do it when he's the last person I called (which he usually is). I don't really want her making calls without permission, though. We've talked about it...she only just started doing that this week, so it might take a few more times to sink in.
Emma is working on learning the lowercase letters. She had all the uppercase letters and sounds down before she turned 3, but the lowercase ones are taking awhile. She can write several letters and she can sound out a couple of words. She can spell Emma and cat.
We've also been working on numbers. She's awesome at counting to 20 (and sometimes a little more), but I'm trying to help her associate the printed number with the amount.
I'm not sure what else I should be teaching her academically at this age. I have no intention to send her to preschool; I can do all of that at home (and, uh, for free). The problem is, I don't really know what to do yet!
We're at the oh-so-fun fight over toys stage with both kids. Hyrum screams if he wants a toy Emma is playing with or if she takes a toy from him. Of course, this most likely occurs when I'm like in the bathroom or something, so I have no way of knowing what actually happened. I ask Emma, but I'm not sure how truthful she is in those situations. Ah, the sibling rivalry begins!
Hyrum has learned SO much in the last month! He's still not walking, but he took his first 3 steps 2 weeks ago. The best part is, he toddled to Emma ♥ He will now hold our hands and walk around everywhere. We have this gender-neutral walk n ride toy (
this one). I can sometimes get him to push it...but he prefers to walk around pushing Emma's doll stroller instead...
Hyrum knows lots of signs. He can sign: light, please, more, fish, milk, all gone, hat, bath, and thank you. He sometimes likes to do the signs on John and I. So funny.
He's been saying mama, dada, and Emma for awhile. In the last month, he picked up bubbles (buhbuh), banana (nana), and ball (bah). Not at all surprising, since those are all things he
loves.
He frequently finds a little tube of bubbles, brings it over to me, and says, "buhbuh." He signs more when he wants me to blow more bubbles. He also tries to blow bubbles himself.
Every time we go grocery shopping, he gets super excited about the bananas. When I put them in the cart, pretty much the rest of the shopping trip consists of Hyrum trying to reach back and grab the bananas, all the while saying, "nana, nana, nana, nana." It's SO cute. But...a little frustrating. It's not like I can just give him one in the middle of the store. They kind of need to be weighed first. And of course, I hit the produce section FIRST...with our favorite store's layout, it makes the most sense.
He climbs on the couch ALL the time. We used to have an old banana chair blocking his access to Emma's dollhouse. Now that he can climb over it, we decided there's no point in having it take up the floor space. And oh, did he climb over it. I put it in the kids' closet today. Thankfully, he has yet to climb onto the dining chairs. He tried really hard today, though, so I know it won't be long. I'll enjoy it while I can.
Hyrum can reach way too many things. He can reach the table (and has knocked over Emma's cereal on multiple occasions), the desks, dressers, and even the kitchen counter. Nothing is safe!
I already posted the picture of this, but...he discovered crayons. Which I discovered by his artwork on the wall. Thank goodness for WD-40. We're trying to teach him that we only color on paper, but it's slow-going. He's more interested in coloring on NON-paper surfaces. He got my forehead when I dozed on the couch one day...
Hyrum figured out how to make noise out of Emma's recorder. When he doesn't have luck making the actual sounds, he hums into it instead. So funny. Emma does/did that too. Both kids love to play "drums" these days. They take any 2 random stick-like toys and drum-like box/container/pan/bucket etc and play drums on them. Emma always says, "I'm making music" when they do.
He recently found the little suction dart gun John got for Christmas and tried to put the little suction dart in. So funny!
Hyrum is still obsessed with food. I don't see that changing any time soon. He crawls over to the cabinet where we keep the baby food and snacks and pulls out the food he wants. That's his favorite way of telling me he's hungry.
Both kids now have the same bedtime! It took us WAY longer to try cry it out with Hyrum, but we finally did and he goes to bed at a decent time. Some nights are rough, though. When Emma is hyper and playing when we put them down for the night, she makes it hard for him to fall asleep. We give her time outs for it and it helps.
His crib is near the door of their room, next to the light switch...and he now turns it on. He did it non-stop the first few days he discovered he could. Since then, he doesn't do it as much.
He's at such a fun age! Frustrating at times, but definitely very fun. I love watching him learn. He's a smart little boy. He still likes to pull books and DVDs off the shelf, but we're working on curbing that behavior. He's picking up on so many words and signs these days! I love it!
My kids are just so cute and smart!
And what is a post without pictures?
Our up-to-date Project 365 pics:
January 20
Emma being her goofy self.
January 21
I made some flower clips! Some are for Emma and I, some are for Kimi (per request).
January 22
Emma: I wub you Hymum!
Hyrum: Get outta mah face!
January 23
We played Monopoly City after the kids went to bed. SO fun! Gotta love clearance + gift cards :D
January 24
Emma put Hyrum's PJs on...small much? I love that the tag from the pants sticks out the front.
January 25
My handsome husband ♥
January 26
Fun face that Emma drew.
January 27
Silly Hyrum! He was being SO goofy!
January 28
Emma closed the door on Hyrum's hand. This is right after it happened. He had a matching line on the other side and bleeding under the skin between each finger. It got really swollen. We took him to the doctor and then to the hospital for an x-ray. Thankfully, nothing was broken!
January 29
She was watching a movie while I tried to get good pictures of her.
January 30
In her pretty new dress (thanks Mom!) while playing with blocks.
January 31
She kept walking toward me as I took the picture...
February 1
My kids just LOVE the fridge!
February 2
We made a fairy house. I couldn't find my craft popsicle sticks, so we used construction paper instead. I made it exactly the way Emma asked me to. We made little fairies to go inside, too. She loved it!
February 3
Victoria's birthday!! We went to a party at her place. It was fun :) Her roommate has the EXACT SAME BIRTHDAY - even the same year!
February 4
The kids and I made valentines (or, bawentines as Emma calls them). Nothing fancy; just construction paper, crayons, and stickers. We were out of red, so pink, purple, and white it is!
February 5
Emma and I went to a baby shower. Emma LOVED the treats ;) I love the whipped cream goatee she's sporting here.
February 6
Hyrum got ahold of John's mouse...
February 7
Eating a banana. This kid is obsessed with them.
February 8
Dreaming of summer...well, mostly just being cute. She wanted to wear her sunglasses.
Oh, and a super-cute video. Hyrum loves to copy his big sister :)
