42 posts tagged “the boy”
My mother-in-law obviously possesses some sort of magical power that jumpstarts my children's interest in potty training.
To make a long story short, potty training has been completely non-existent in this household. Well, minus the several dozen videos the Boy watches on YouTube about it every so often. Other than that, The Boy had pretty much decided that he was perfectly content with diapers, and failed to see the need to put his waste elsewhere. But something happened this past weekend when my MIL took the kids to the shore Thursday night. She notified us on our arrival late Friday evening that Jon had peed four times in the potty and pooped once. Neither of us had been successful in even getting him to SIT on any one of the five potties (two adult-sized, three child-sized) in our house. With Katie, I recall getting a phone call at work one Friday night shortly before her third birthday saying that Katie had went potty on her own five times since I had left for work. How? Granny promised she could have chocolate covered pretzels if she sat on the potty. Well, we tried the same tactics with Jon, many MANY times, but he just wasn't getting it.
But, something obviously clicked for him this weekend. He's now relishing his new accomplishment and enjoying wearing his big-boy undies (the same undies that are now too small because we bought them nearly a year ago, with the hopes that it would jumpstart his interest. It didn't, obviously).
I've learned (now twice) that potty training is just one of those things that you really just have to sit back and let them figure out. One day, it will click for them, but if you press the issue, it will become a battle, and then you're really screwed. I'm thankful my MIL was able to get through to Jon finally, just as she did for Katie. I was beginning to feel like the potty thing was something Jon was resisting simply as a matter of power -- he knew I wanted him to go on the potty, and he knew so long as he resisted, he'd have the upper hand. Taking myself and hubby out of the equation was essential in garnering his attention to the matter...and once he figured out that going potty was something that would bring him MUCH attention, he was all "ah-hah! Now I've gotcha!"
First, my sweet, adorable, beautiful nephew, B-Man. He really can't look anymore like my brother, honestly. But I do see quite a bit of his beautiful mama in him, too, so no doubt this kiddo is going to break many a heart...sigh...what I wouldn't give to see this sweet thing and smooch on him, but he's all the way out in Missurah :(
Then, some shots from today of my two knuckleheads...I was practicing shooting on a white background...the goal being to actually get it WHITE straight out of the camera. This is no small feat with a budget lighting setup. Basically, to get the white background white (without lighting it its a putrid shade of gray...), you have to aim at least one (two is better) strobes at it and blow it out (overexpose it). So I aimed my two portable flash units at the white background and used my regular strobe as my main, and by george, I think I got it!!! Could you accomplish this without the lights on the background? Yes, but you'd be spending several hours in Photoshop afterwards...so better to get it right SOOC (straight-out-of-camera). I'll be upgrading my lighting equipment very soon, so in the future this won't be so cantankerous.
So here we have The Boy, currently a.k.a. Hee-Haw or Ozark, because (a) the missing teeth, crazy cowlicks, and numerous freckles bemoan such a moniker, and (b) you have to strap him down and sit on him to put his shoes on most of the time. The Child hates to wear shoes outside, and rips them off the minute he walks in the door. But he is darn cute if I do say so myself...course I'm a bit biased....
And then we have our little diva-in-training, doing her best Hannah Montana poses...
Its pictures just like this that make me somewhat thankful I work at night and am lucky to not have the onus of bathing this filthy mess of child. When my hubby said "oh yeah, the bathwater was black tonight" during my nightly call home to bid the children good-night, I assumed he was just mincing words. But, as they say, a picture is worth a thousand words...and so indeed it is. Special thanks to my neighbor Ti Ti for capturing this priceless moment of boyhood history.
Yesterday, Jon received his first set of stitches. Technically, these aren't his first set, but given that the only stitches he has received prior hereto were administered under general anesthesia when his two front teeth were pulled, this set qualifies as the official "first set." I've got a feeling that these certainly will not be the last.
And how, you ask? I'm not even exactly certain. We were sitting out in the backyard. I was at the picnic table looking over some paperwork. Jon was flittering about, getting dirty, having fun, and being his usual rambunctious self. He went to climb up onto the arm of my chair, which is one of those metal types from your standard 1980s patio set. The corners are rounded, but somehow he slipped and hit his mouth on one of the arms and busted his lip open. It was the cleanest laceration I'd ever seen, almost as if it was sliced by an X-Acto knife or something like it. So he's crying, bleeding profusely (why oh why does the mouth bleed so?). So I rush him inside to assess the damage and stop the bleeding.
Once I had the blood under control, I called our pediatrician to see if they could take a look to tell if it required stitches or not. Their next available appointment was in 15 minutes, so I took it. Meanwhile, I'm on my cell phone in my other ear telling Shawn the details and that I needed him home ASAP. I'm trying desperately not to freak out at the sight of his gaping hole in his lip, and I think I did pretty well under the circumstances. Jon calmed down pretty quickly -- even tried to eat pretzels with his busted lip while I was on the phone with the nurse.
I arranged to have our neighbor get Katie off the bus and we headed around to the pediatrician's office (thank you, Ti Ti-- and Aunt Joyce!). Unfortunately, he did need stitches, and, of course, they do not do stitches in the office. Off we went to the emergency room.
Five very long hours later, he got two stitches in his lip. He did okay for the most part -- even did not mind their restraining him like a burrito in a large sheet, but when they poked him with the needle the first two times, he screamed bloody murder and cried. Poor guy. Thankfully, the doctor worked fast and he was stitched up and ready to go home.
So, here we have it down in the record books...3.25 years old, first set of stitches. Welcome to boyhood, little man.
Or so sayeth the Girl yesterday when she was riding her bike without her rear affixed to her seat. She was quite proud of herself, especially since she's only recently begun riding her larger, big-girl bike that her Grandpa got her for Christmas. She's been a bit daunted by the size of the bike (although it fits her quite well) and all the braking options available; two hand brakes and a coaster brake; yet she still prefers to utilize the toes of her sneakers to slow herself down. Lovely.
Yes, such an event should have been cause for a photo op, but I was hanging at the neighbors and didn't have my camera tied around my neck as per usual (I know, shocker!!!). But, frankly, I need a break from the lens. I did a pre-wedding gig for a friend of mine at work whose daughter was wed on Saturday, and then had a newborn shoot with Shawn's cousin's little boy on Tuesday. I've been editing pictures nearly every waking hour. I usually love editing a shoot, but I'd prefer to do it in smaller spurts rather than spending days at a time editing.
I got some awesome images from both opportunities, and I had a lot of fun during both shoots. It would really suck to be in business doing something you didn't love to do, right? Each time I learn so much and gain more confidence and comfort with my abilities. It's very satisfying. I promise I'll post some pics at some point after my eyesight has returned.
In other news, the Boy graduates from preschool tomorrow. Yes, he's only 3, but apparently even if you aren't really leaving the preschool, you still get to graduate and come back. He's really excited about it, and he told me all about their trip to the college gym to rehearse and all the things they would be doing for their graduation. He's at the age where his memory growing, and he's able to recall events that happened the previous night and tell me all about them. It's really nice to be able to ask him "so what did you do today at school" and get more than the perfunctory "I play in the sandbox." (which is his reply regardless if he played in the sandbox that day or not).
So, if I am able to extricate myself from Lightroom/Photoshop hell this weekend, I'll get some pics up of the Party (which was a hit!) and Little Man's "gradjiashun from pweeskool."
Daddy got these pix the other night of our Boy, who had fallen asleep at the laptop while playing, I assume, Webkinz.
We'll be adding these to our growing collection of pictures where Jon has fallen asleep in odd places or positions. I can't dig them up at the moment, but I have ones of him asleep under our coffee table, which sent me into a panic one afternoon because everything got really really quiet, and I could not find him anywhere. Finally I found him under the coffee table. I'll have to put together a montage of all these pics at some point.
I'm turning the keyboard over to The Boy this morning.
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jon
The end.
Translation: Hey guys. .what's up? Can you come over and play cars with me? We have fruit snacks. It'll be fun.
Manic Birthday Party Mom has officially been laid to rest.
Yes, sorry to disappoint, but Katie's upcoming six year fete will not be the crazed, overthemed/underplanned extravaganza that I have been known for in years past. There will be no erections of the Barbie Dream House in birthday cake. I don't even have any immediate plans for an intricately designed birthday invitation as I have been known for in years past (although that might change this weekend -- I could use a sample for my portfolio, so the effort would be worth it for the business). Nope. This year, per the request of the Queen herself, she wants a simple birthday party at a local indoor playzone (think Little Gym but for bigger kids), where they provide not only all the fun a child can have in a single hour, but all the paper goods, balloons, and even pizza and juice. All I have to show up with is my person, my two chillruns, and enough cupcakes for the brood. Oh, and a #6 candle so she can blow it out.
How will I ever manage to not turn this simple affair into grounds for divorce? Shawn won't know what to do with himself and all the time he'll have to sit and, well, breathe, without my having him run to every candy store on the East Coast to find the exact type and color of gummy fruit slices.
I'm certain I'll manage to overcomplicate matters somehow. Oh yes, favors. Yeah. I'll make that a clusterfuck in no time flat.
Today I was upstairs in the living room and Jonathan had been playing on the computer downstairs in our family room. I then hear him go upstairs to his room, then a few moments later he appeared in the living room nude from the waist down. I didn't even need to ask -- I could SMELL the reason why he was standing before me in such a state. Thankfully, I keep boxes of wipes in almost every room of our house, so I grabbed some out of the box and finished what he had started. He was trying to change himself. And, I must add that he did a pretty darn good job of it. I expected to go upstairs and find poo everywhere and on everything, but I found his loaded pullup in the diaper pail, and nothing else. I was shocked.
I think I could have skipped around the block singing at the top of my lungs after that. Why? Because you have to understand something about this incredibly stubborn, incredibly headstrong, INCREDIBLY JUST LIKE HIS FATHER, boy of mine. Rarely does he do anything without a fight, and our most difficult challenge is the wrestling matches we have to endure day in and day out when he needs a diaper change. He would be perfectly content to sit in his own mess forever if it were an option. So when he takes the initiative to take care of business, so to speak, this is a big, HUGE, thing for him, and for me. This tells me that SOMETHING is finally clicking for him. This was even further evidenced by the fact that when I said "come on, let's go find your pants and get a fresh pullup on," he said "No, I DO IT!!!" then he ran upstairs, got his pullup out, put it on all by himself, and even when I went to help him he insisted very firmly "NO! I do it!!". I just sat back and let him do it.
Who knows, maybe this is the start of something...one can hope, right?
The last couple of days, I decided that instead of changing Jon's diaper in his bedroom, or wherever I catch him and wrestle him to the ground, I would start taking him into the bathroom for changes so that he starts making the connection that this is where we take care of our bodily functions. Given that he absolutely refuses to even try to sit on the potty, I thought this would be a little conditioning exercise to maybe perhaps get him more interested in the whole business of potty training. Yes, I am a bit desperate. I'm really trying to restrain myself here, but truth be told, toddler poop is just the worst and I am very anxious for him to be potty trained. Not to the point where I'm ready to force the issue by any means, but I'm willing to try every trick out there just to get him even remotely INTERESTED in the potty.
So this afternoon, he did #2, and so I take him up to the bathroom to clean him up. As I am taking off his pullup by separating the sides, he decides to wiggle around like a fish, causing his pullup to fall and the contents thereof to hit the floor. At the risk of being graphic (as if you expected any less from someone who wants to know if you are a wrapper or a wadder), this particular poo was reminiscent of Brach's Bridge Mix candy (hey, I warned you). Think chocolate covered nuts and raisins of varying shapes and diameters all over the floor. We lovingly refer to these types of BM's as "poopy nuggets." So I'm all "DON'T MOVE!!! STAND RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE!! YOU'RE GOING TO STEP IN THE POOPY!!!" And he, of course, is just so proud of himself and having spilled the contents of his pullup onto the floor. So he's cracking up and shrieking at the same time.
Wondering what all the commotion was about, Katie comes wandering in and stops dead in her tracks and shrieks at the sight of all the little turdballs all over the bathroom rug. She's standing in the doorway, totally grossed out, while I'm using wadded up TP to try to pick up the poopy nuggets. At that moment, I remembered that I had a stack of clear plastic foodservice gloves that I keep in one of the vanity drawers for coloring hair, so I asked Katie to fetch me one. She stooped down to find one in the drawer, then handed it over and I donned it and began picking up the poo balls.
As I cleaned up the rug, Jon's standing there totally impressed with himself because not only was there POOP on the floor, but he managed to totally gross out Mom and Katie. That's a shenanigans trifecta in his little mind, a cause de celebre, if you will. So he's just giggling like mad. Katie was all "Oh my gosh, Mom! That's SO gross, Jon! You really need to put your poop in the toilet, boy!"
Jonathan, annoyed with his big sister's admonishment, turned around, bent over at the waist, and stuck his bare bottom mere inches from Katie's face. Dare I mention that I had not yet been able to clean him up?
Katie reacted like every other 5-almost-6-year-old red-blooded American girl: she screamed like she saw the devil himself. "OH MY GAWD!!! MOMMMMM!!! JON THAT'S SO GROSS!!!" Then, shrieking, she ran from the bathroom. Jon did what every red-blooded American little brother would do given the same set of circumstances: he chased his sister into the bedroom to see if he could catch her and do it again.
Me? I'm sitting on the toilet in a state of shock at all that had just transpired. Poop balls on the floor. Butts in faces. This really is my life. Then the comedy of it all hit me and I couldn't stop laughing. I couldn't even catch my breath to tell Jon to stop chasing his sister and sticking his butt in her face. I was laughing so hard, and the tears were just rolling down my cheeks. The whole crazy scenario reminded me of something my brother Rob would do, and probably did, it's just the trauma of being his sister all those years has destroyed any memory of such event.
Does anyone remember when your mom would always say "I hope you have one just like you!" Now I knew going into this parenting gig the odds were heavy that I was going to give birth to at least one offspring that was just like me. And I did -- Katie is my clone in so many ways it is almost spooky. But hell, what the frig did I ever do to deserve having one just like my little brother? I'm still trying to figure that one out. I'm certain my mother is up there in heaven pissing on her angel's wings watching me wrangle these two knuckleheads.
So, Rob, this one's for you. I hope it gives you a chuckle out there in the great Midwest. I also bet you're feeling a certain sense of pride knowing that the torch of torture was passed right on down the ol' genetic line to your nephew Jon Jon, and he knows how to apply it much to the chagrin of myself and his poor sister. But, dear brother, your time awaits. I cannot wait for the day when I get the phone call or e-mail saying "hey, guess what Bradyn (my nephew) did today."
