- How is it already January 31st? I have a birthday pedicure and wine date with Emily tonight – so this year I truly did get the birthday month I always joke about.
- I’ve done really well with most of my resolutions, so far. I need to step it up in the current events department, but otherwise, I’m right on track (minus a four day hiatus from working out while I was sick two weeks ago). Kicking Diet Coke to the curb was no problem the first three weeks, but the last week or so has been tough – I was expecting the opposite.
- Nell is humbling me in the sleep department. Thomas was an awesome sleeper, and Nell’s approaching being pretty easy to put down – I’d say that 6 nights out of 7 she goes to bed awake and falls asleep without a peep. That one night a week she doesn’t usually requires rocking her to sleep and delicately transferring her to her crib, which I can handle if it’s just once a week. But the middle of the night wakings? Oy.
- We had beautiful weather last week, and the kids and I made sure to spend lots of time outside. Good thing, because it snowed on Monday and has been bitterly cold here since.
- The kids swimsuits for summer arrived last week. Buffalo Check orange trunks for Thomas and a cute striped and ruffled one one piece for our Neller Bean. Cannot wait for warmer weather.
- Thomas is 31 months old and not potty trained. I’m fine with this. A month ago, he started asking to use the little toilet and had one really successful day, and then refused to sit on it again. I am of the opinion that he will be potty trained when he’s ready and pushing it is not helping anything. But he’s aware – he cries when he pees in his diaper and demands I change it immediately – so I’m torn because he’s freaking out either way. I’ve dropped all mentions of using the toilet or wearing underwear, but every morning he says to me “I wear fives (his diaper size and favorite number) today. No underwears. I wear underwears tomorrow probably”. I just say “Ok” and we go about our morning routine. He has been begging to go to school, and when we went to turn in his preschool application for next fall yesterday he told me, “I no go to school. I ike diapers. No pee on the toilet”. Any experienced mamas have any thoughts for me on this?
- I’m in the middle of switching from Blogger to WordPress. Blogger’s formatting has caused me tons of issues over the last few months, and I finally bit the bullet on the switch. So thanks for your patience as I find time to piece the transition together…I’ll let you know when there’s something worth seeing.
- Mr. B was out of town last weekend playing golf with my dad and my brother, and my mom and I made tons of progress on house projects…post coming soon!
Our oldest son did not begin potty-training until he was about 39 months old. We attempted once around 34 months but quickly realized that his extreme perfectionism was making it too stressful for him. I really didn’t want it to be traumatic, so we waited and I’m glad we did. When it came time, we did one M&M for a toilet try and two for success. We did the M&Ms for as long as two small bags lasted — maybe two weeks or so? Then he stopped expecting it. Every time i started to get nervous about him being on the tail end of the normal timeline, I re-read this post: http://billmissandbrood.blogspot.com/2011/01/pee-in-pot.html. I figure if someone with five toilet trained kids has advice for me, I should listen.
Thank you, Kelsey! This is just what I needed to hear to just keep not worrying about it.
I about died when you posted those bathing suit pictures on IG. They are just perfect! I love the little girl one and hope to get my little pumpkin one, very similar! Plus, I love that it isn’t pink.
Oh and I cannot wait to see what you did while the husband was away! Yea….
My (now) 4 year old didn’t get potty trained until right around age 3. I knew he could have done it before, but he just wasn’t into it, so I didn’t push it. Then one day I decided, today’s the day and just went for it. I made him a sticker chart and let him put the stickers on and acted like he won the Superbowl every time he used the potty! OMG we’d get so excited and you could just see how proud he was! When the sticker chart was full, he got to pick whatever he wanted as a reward. He got an ant farm. It seriously only took a day for him to be potty trained. Diapers on Saturday. Potty training on Sunday. Went to school in big boy underwear on Monday! Best of luck!!
Ramblings of a Suburban Mom
I think it’s so cute that T calls his diapers “Fives” and was rationalizing that he’d wear underwear tomorrow “probably”. What a ham.
I can’t wait to have conversations like that with K. No judgement here, my friend. Do what makes you (and T) sane. 
WHERE did you get that fab suit for Nell???
K’s still waking up to chug a bottle at least once/night, too. Punk baby. When does the sleep start happening??
you and b make some cute kids, that’s for sure. i love seeing/hearing about what nell is doing, since it’s like a glimpse into the near future for me
and ugh, i dread that potty training one day. and i’m excited to see what the new blog holds!
Potty training is slow over here too. I’ve asked C’s teachers about it, because I really think he would be successful at it, and they are of the opinion that because of his strong will, he will potty train whe he is ready, and I shouldn’t push it. When we are home in the mornings (usually about one or twice a week) I let him choose to be naked or wear underware so he can “practice.” We always do fun, special things during this time so he will think of it as fun. He gets a Skittle for trying, and two for pee. He is successful on his own (he will go to his potty seat, sit and pee if I’m not in the room) as long as he is naked, but not interested in doing this on a regular basis. I would really love for him to be potty trained before the new baby comes, just because I’m afraind I’ll get overwhelemd and he’ll never get out of diapers. His teachers reassure me all the time that he will learn, when he decides its time, not to make it a battle, and wait for warmer weather to take training outside. It sounds like you’re doing great taking an easy, T-led approach.
Hey lady. Just wanted to jump in with my thoughts on potty training. Isaac was the EXACT same way as T. We tried underwear here and there, and would have a successful day or so, then crash and burn. He HATED diaper changes, but hated going on the potty too. And he’d tell me he didn’t want to wear underwear. But then one day, out of the blue, he said he wanted to wear undies. And literally from that moment on, he’s been potty trained. That first day, I took him to the bathroom every 45 minutes and he went with little to no fuss. It was literally like a switch went off.
All that to say – I’m totally with you on letting the child lead. He will get there.
My son is 33 months and is finally officially potty trained. I was just like you, I never pushed it on him. I would just ask him if he wanted to try the potty, and if he said no, we would move on. He finally told me last week “yeah, I can do that now” and that was that. That’s the one nice thing about potty training when they are older, is goes so fast. My daughter was 24 months when potty trained and it took forever for me to feel confident that she wasn’t going to pee all over the Target cart. They all are ready at their own pace, so just keep asking him and will do it when he is ready. I wish I had realized that a long time ago, I stressed about him not being potty trained big time! One other tip that worked for him was sitting him backwards on the potty. I don’t know if that was what made him decide that he wanted to go for it or not, but it really helped him. Worth a try I guess. Good luck!
O and where did you get those adorable swim suits? So cute!
I’ve been thinking about switching to WordPress. I want to but I’m just pretty sure trying t do it myself will send me over the edge. I wanna hear all about your transition. And then if you wanna do it again, you can do mine.
I’m guessing you’ve already switched. If so, you made the transition look easy.
So many things to discuss! First, you make beautiful babies. Srsly, they’re just gorg. And Thomas-isms make me so happy. I love hearing his conversations. I need to do a better job at keeping a record of Gabe’s. Although today, I overheard him telling his trucks that “No! That’s my mama!”. It was cute. And not it’s recorded on your blog for posterity. But potty training? Ugh. It scares me. But you know how people say it’s usually worse than what you imagine? I keep imagining the worst possible scenario so that when the time comes, I’ll be relieved. Worst possible scenario? Poop everywhere I suppose.
I love the new look of your blog. Every few years we need something fresh and new. I need to do the same thing but I’m just fine with blogger. I’ve never had any issues with it and am surprised when people switch.
Love the swimsuits. Baby girl swimsuits are weapons of mass cuteness. I can’t handle them. I bought Gabe’s at Old Navy’s sale, they have whales on them. Which reminds me of Maine. Which reminds me to plan a vacay with you.
This ridiculous comment means we should have a wine/facetime date soon. I clearly have too much to talk to you about for the likes of a comment.