Growing up too fast

Garrett is all about being a big kid lately. He really admires the school-age kids at daycare. He tells me that he wants to go to school and he wants to do homework. Hopefully he'll still feel this way in a few years! He's excited that he is "older" since his 4th birthday. This is our conversation the other night as I was tucking him into bed:
Garrett: I'm a lot more bigger when I'm 4. Can't I stay up later?
Mommy: Maybe you can stay up later when you are 5 or 6.
Garrett: Ugh.
Nice try.

This was a night when he was being particularly silly. He also said, "I'm older than you." I said, "I'm 31. How old are you?" He replied, "34."
He was full of giggles that night. I'm not sure where this came from, but he kept asking me to "Shake my sillies out. Shake my sillies out!" I obliged.

Making Progress

What we thought would be a one-week potty training trial is turning into the "real deal." We've made some progress. Avery has not had a (for lack of a better term here) #2 accident all week. She's been telling us and making it to the potty, including when we were all the way across town visiting Toys R Us! She kept telling me she had to go #2, but when I would try to sit her on the adult toilet in the bathroom she would cry. This happened twice, so we hurried out of the store and drove the 20-30 minute drive across town. She made it home to do her business on the potty! #1 is taking a little longer to figure out...

Potty Training: Day One

The good news is that Avery did pee on the potty once yesterday. The bad news is that she peed on the couch too. Lynette gave Avery a lot of water to drink yesterday to help this potty training process along and I think it kicked in last night. We're using underwear rather than pull-ups because in our experience, pull-ups just don't work. So that means cleaning up some accidents. And yesterday evening, there were a lot of accidents! Luckily, other than the couch, all of the others were on the vinyl floor. But Avery wasn't telling us she was having accidents, we were just discovering big puddles. We'd clean it up and discover another one about 20 minutes later. We discovered that she peed on/in Greg's lunch box while standing on it to try to reach her Halloween candy! Greg wasn't so thrilled. After each accident, we'd take her to the potty and she'd sit while we got clean clothes and undies. Then she started to get a little silly. She'd strip off her underwear and come tearing out to the living room naked. She'd start laughing when she saw me and then go tearing back into the bathroom and sit back down on the potty chair. I just ignored it.
Turns out our "easy to clean" microfiber couch isn't always so easy to clean. It smells terrible. And it turns out that upholstery cleaning companies can't clean microfiber because the heat of their equipment is too hot for the fabric. But a very helpful upholstery guy gave me some great tips on a baking soda/peroxide combo that should help. And Greg is headed to Target to buy some "plastic" training pants after work today!

Big Girl Panties!

Big news at our house today...Avery is wearing big girl panties! We are officially potty training as of today. She liked her pink Elmo undies until we put them on her! They must feel a little different than a diaper. We didn't make it on the potty this morning. She sat several times but no luck. Maybe Lynette will have better luck. She seems to be an old pro at this. More to come...

A boy and his dog

These two friends are inseparable. Garrett can't go to bed without Casey in his room and Casey can't handle it if he's not included in Garrett's bedtime. If I had known what buddies they would become, we probably would have had a dog much sooner.

Garrett has been waking at night and coming into our room several times a week. He always brings his two "blankies" and his favorite stuffed cookie monster and orange cat (aka Morris). He climbs up onto our bed and attempts to sleep at the foot of our bed. This lasts for several minutes and then he climbs down onto the floor with his blankets and animals to curl up with Casey who sleeps next to the bed. I often will tuck him in with a blanket. He is fast asleep in no time at all, snuggled up with his best friend, Casey. Sometimes I worry about him not sleeping well on a hard floor and we'll move him back to his bed after awhile, but last weekend, he slept all night on the floor with his pal.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my birthday. Garrett greeted me with a great big birthday hug, kiss, and a "Happy Birthday Mommy!" Avery greeted me with a "Happy Mommy!" Pretty cute. We had yummy burgers at the Red Robin tonight to celebrate. We had so much fun driving the race car video game after eating that we walked out and forgot to grab balloons. Garrett realized this on the way home and became a little upset. Greg tried to distract him by saying, "Let's sing Mommy Happy Birthday" and he started to sing. Garrett started screaming, "No, stop singing!" and did NOT want to participate. At the end of the song, Avery chimed in, "Again Daddy!"