The Potty Incident

Ever since Molly was born, the one piece of potty-training advice I've heard over and over again is, "Don't force the process until SHE indicates that she's ready." For that reason, I haven't even thought about potty-training, especially since Molly is not the most verbose toddler. I suspected it would be at least a few more months, if not longer, before she'd be anywhere close to ready.

Well, today we had an incident that in its own pitifully hilarious way, indicated that we may have to at least start thinking about the process. We spent the afternoon outside in the "Flower Power Pool", which is something we've been doing a lot of this week since temperatures have been in the mid-90s.
After playing in the pool, I stripped Molly naked on the porch before going inside. Once inside, Molly started pointing "down there" and babbling in her Molly language. I didn't think anything of it, except that she continued to very persistently point and babble. I asked her if she had to go pee pee and was surprised when she responded with a very emphatic, "UHHH" (a sound that's hard to translate into written language, but that we've learned means an affirmative response in Molly-ese).

I figured there's no harm in trying so I sat her on the porcelain throne, but she seemed scared that she was going to fall in so I quickly rifled through her closet and grabbed the potty seat we received as a shower gift before she was born. She was enthralled with the froggy potty and thought sitting on it was super-fun, but that's all she did---sit---for 10 minutes. She'd stand up, turn around, stick her foot in the potty, sit again, clap her hands, babble, squeal, laugh, point, and babble some more. But no pee pee.

I thought, "Eh, no big deal. We gave it a try. She's not ready. Perhaps I mis-read her." No sooner did I get her up off the frog potty and she started to walk toward the livingroom, then she stopped and peed right in the middle of the floor. It actually seemed to startle her. She quickly jumped back. Then she ran forward, directly through the newly-formed puddle and, swoosh, her feet flew out from under her and she landed flat on her back, you guessed it, right IN the puddle. It was a cartoon-character, banana-peel kind of fall. I tried not to burst out laughing, especially since she was definitely crying.

Needless to say, the whole episode ended with a rinse in the tub and a scrubbing of the floor, but who knows? We may have to go check out some potty-training books from the library. One thing's for sure: Molly has a new favorite seat---her froggy potty :-)

And a special thanks goes out to GG and Pop for both the pool and the potty. At least one of those two things will get plenty of use this summer . . . maybe even both of them!

Ian---Movin' & Groovin'

At 3 months old, our little Ian is a man in motion. The only time he stops moving is when he's sleeping. But when he's awake, it's go-time! About two weeks ago, Ian decided it was about time he started rolling over. In the morning he rolled from his back to his belly and then fell asleep that way. That very same afternoon, he rolled from his belly to his back while playing on the floor---both directions in the same day!!! I tried to tell him to slow down a little. I'm not ready for him to grow up so fast, but he doesn't seem to care. He's just going full-steam ahead. He didn't stop with rolling over. He can now scoot, wiggle, and roll himself all over the place. I remember commenting to Eric while I was pregnant with Ian that we were definitely in for one active little baby. The amount of moving he did in utero was just incredible. I thought Molly was active, but she had nothing on the belly moves her little brother was making!

He started on his back under the play gym and ended up on his belly, scooting his way backwards and out of the side of the playmat!

Here's one of his first attempts at "crawling". I laid him on his back under his toys and went to the kitchen to make dinner. I turned around to find him on his belly, launching himself over the boppy and onto the carpet! And he's not even four months old!

As you can guess, he started out in the middle of his blanket turned 90 degrees to the left, and he wiggled his way all the way off toward the kitchen. Maybe he wanted a snack :-)

Another new skill Ian has learned is playing with toys. He's really been enjoying the exersaucer lately, as well as his play gym. Because his arms move a-mile-a-minute, he actually ends up hitting most of the buttons on his own. I remember it taking Molly months to get the hang of pushing the buttons hard enough to play the music.

The one skill he hasn't quite grasped yet is how to let go of one toy while playing with another one. He just ends up collecting all of them until I go over and pry one or two of them out of the death-grip he has on all of them.
Another one of Ian's new discoveries is his toes. Now that he's found them, he just LOVES them. They make great pacifiers AND toys. Sometimes he'll just grab onto both feet, kick out his legs, and squeal with excitement!
He's still just the happiest little guy in the world. He smiles easily, laughs heartily, coos and babbles constantly, and is just a delight to be around! I can't imagine life without our sweet boy.

Video Updates

I don't take videos often. I guess I just forget about that wonderful little feature on our camera. But I remembered today and captured a couple short clips that represent a little snippet of the stages our two kiddos are in.

First, Molly and Her Ball. She's been having a blast lately learning how to play ball. She's now pretty good at kicking and throwing. We're still working on the catching. One of her favorite games is to stand on the porch and throw the ball down to Eric. She makes the cutest noises when she's concentrating on lining up her throw and gets very excited about playing ball with her DaDa :-)

Ian is at a very adorable stage right now where he's starting to "talk" and smile a lot more. He coos quite a bit and makes some of the cutest noises when he's talking to us. He's such a patient boy and he certainly has to be with such a high-spirited older sister. He'll lay quietly under his play gym while I'm wrapped up in some activity with Molly, but as soon as I walk over and smile at him he starts talking and smiling up a storm. It's as if he saves up everything he has to say until he knows someone is listening. Then he just goes crazy. He has so many funny facial expressions, just like Molly did at that age.

Big Sister

To say that Molly loves being a big sister is a bit of an understatement. She adores her baby brother and showers him with kisses all day long. I'm starting to get a bit jealous. She never offers kisses to me or Eric. If she's leaving one of us for naptime or a trip to the store, she offers a quick bye-bye wave and off she goes, but Ian gets the royal treatment of kiss after kiss, gentle pats on the head, and endless conversations in her "Molly language".

However, she is also a very active toddler that loves to play outside, so Ian spends a fair amount of time chilling in his bouncy seat while Molly burns off energy in the yard. But she never gets too far before she needs to run back and offer another kiss, just to make sure he hasn't forgotten that she's his awesome big sister.

Molly now thinks that, "Let's take a walk" means "Molly gets to push Ian in the stroller." She obviously can't reach the handle, so she pushes him around backwards. We don't get very far, but that's okay. Ian's entertained and as long as I stay nice and close to prevent any spills, no one get's hurt, and Molly feels like a super awesome big sister.

She even invited him in on some swing action, her absolute favorite outdoor activity. (Don't worry--he didn't actually swing with her and I kept a firm hand on him while Daddy snapped the photo ;-)

Molly doesn't quite understand that Ian can't do all the same things she does. You can tell that she really wants him to join in on her daily activities. The other day I discovered her snack cup of goldfish in his seat with him.

And then I saw that she just wanted to share with him. Too cute! She also doesn't quite get that Ian isn't big enough to play with her, but that doesn't stop her from trying! While I was preparing dinner, I looked over to see Ian's swing filled with Molly's toys...AND Ian. She just wanted to make sure that he was thoroughly entertained. Ian could care less about dolls and stuffed animals, but I'm sure listening to his big sister jabber on about her toys while piling them all around him is plenty entertaining.

Where's Ian??? This reminds me of that scene in E.T. where he's hiding in the closet with all the stuffed animals. The little toes sticking up at the bottom just crack me up :-D

One of Molly's absolute FAVORITE things to do is to help change Ian. As soon as I lay him on the changing table, she's immediately pushing a chair over to stand on. Eric has coined the term "watchtower" to describe her little observation deck. She could be completely engrossed in a different activity, but she'll drop everything for changing time.She likes to point out all of Ian's body parts while he's laying on the table. She'll point to his nose and shout, "Dat" (Translation: "What is that?"). "That's his nose," I'll reply. "Where's your nose?" And she'll point to her own nose. This continues until she's pointed out all the parts she knows. Dat! Ears. Dat! Head. Dat! Mouth. Dat! Bellybutton. And so on.

Towards the end of my pregnancy, I started to freak out a little bit about the prospect of caring for two babies under the age of two. I worried about giving each of them enough love and attention. I worried about compromising my relationship with Molly. Would I have enough time for her? Is she going to feel abandoned? How am I going to care for a newborn with such an active toddler? As usual, my worries were for nothing because things couldn't be going any better. 7 weeks in, I really feel that a younger sibling is one of the best gifts we've been able to give Molly. There's more than enough love to go around and now she has someone else to love on too. They entertain each other, learn from each other, and love one another. I couldn't ask for anything more.

Sharp-Dressed Man

Now that we've burned through all of our newborn disposable diapers, and we're quickly using up the Size Ones, we figured it's about time to begin the adventure of cloth-diapering TWO babies! Mr. Ian made his cloth-diaper debut in a very sophisticated black Smartipants one-size pocket diaper. A friend commented that it looks like a tuxedo and I'd have to agree. I think that would make a great commercial for cloth-diapering---a bunch of adorable fluffy-bummed babies attending a black-tie (err, black-diaper) gala in tuxedo and sequinned diapers. Eric, on the other hand, calls this one the "Batman diaper" because super-heroes are far superior to tuxedo-clad gentlemen in his mind ;-) I already know that my little man is stinkin' adorable, but a fluffy cloth-diapered bum just adds to the cuteness factor. Wouldn't you agree? Ian sure looks awfully happy about it. I just can't get enough of this precious smile. Every time I see him smile, I fall in love all over again! And who wouldn't? I just can't resist my sharp-dressed man.