Microblog Monday: Regression

Rylee's been at this whole potty training business for 3 months now.  She was doing really good.  She still had a few piddle accidents here and there, where she'd start in her panties but then finish on the potty, but it was manageable.  In the last week, however, she has regressed so much that it's like we are almost back to square one.  She's had a few full on pee accidents and she piddles almost Every. Single. Time now.  The exception is if I make her go potty, which I feel like I'm having to do way too much.  If I try to wait it out and let her go on her own, she pees her pants.  I softly prompt her, reminding her that potty goes in the toilet/potty seat, but that isn't doing any good at all.

I am so frustrated.  The good news is that poop is always in the toilet.  Thank God for that.

The plan is to start potty training Ayden shortly after we get back from our trip in a few weeks.  The original thought was that Rylee would be pretty much fully trained by then.  I'm sooooo dreading having to deal with potty training both of them together.  The amount of laundry I'm doing daily is already out of control.  Ugh.


To learn more about #MicroblogMonday, and/or to read more posts, click here.

All About Rylee at 2.5

Rylee, Rylee, Rylee.  This girl is quite the character, I tell ya.  When Ayden and Rylee were first born, we joked that life would be boring if we only had Ayden because he was such an easy baby and she was sooooo not!  I wouldn't say that life would be boring if we only had Rylee, because she definitely does her fair share of keeping us on our toes, but she is definitely the more easy going of the two now.

My current favorite picture of her!

Rylee has changed so much since I wrote her All About Rylee at 2 Years Old post!  It's funny to look back and see how short her hair still was.  I couldn't remotely put pigtails in her hair then, not only because it was too short, but also because she absolutely did not even want me to try.  Now she LOVES having "pretties" put in her hair, and she HAS to have bows or flowers of some sort as well.  She is becoming quite the little fashionista. The girl has to wear a dress almost daily.  If she's not wearing a dress, she either throws a big temper tantrum about it or I have tricked her into wearing something else.  If I pull a shirt out of the closet rather than her dresser, she usually thinks it's a dress.  Almost every day after getting dressed, she will give a twirl in her outfit of the day.   She's also very into accessorizing with hats, gloves, and shoes (and the shoes don't always have to match).

**I have NO IDEA WHY blogger won't let me change the formatting of this last paragraph so it isn't all centered.  Ugh.  So annoying.**

Rylee is 29 lbs (55%), which continues to follow the pattern of weighing 5 lbs less than her brother.  They measured her at 36 inches, but I KNOW that's not accurate!  She was still wearing her sandals, which didn't make a huge difference, but she also had a ponytail on top of her head with a huge bow that DID make a big difference!  The nurse didn't account for the bow at all.  I know better than to believe Rylee is only 1 inch shorter than Ayden.  I mean seriously, look at this picture...

There is definitely more than 1 inch height difference between them.

Rylee is wearing mostly 3T shirts and dresses and 2T bottoms, but does fit in a few 3T bottoms now as well, as long as the waist isn't too big.  She is wearing about a 7.5 in shoes, but depending on brand, that size could be up or down a bit.

No diapers for Rylee!  I'd say she is (mostly) potty trained, but here this last week she's had a LOT of pee accidents.  I don't know what the deal is.  We're almost 3 months into this whole potty training business, and she's having more accidents now than she ever had in the beginning.  Poop is good.  It's always in the toilet, thank goodness!  As frustrating as the pee accidents are, I'd rather clean that up than deal with poop!  She mostly stays dry for naps and nighttime now, with maybe one or two days a week that she wets the bed.  It's still a work in progress.

Rylee is a talker!  We can hold actual (basic) conversations now.  She constantly surprises me with new words she says and I sometimes wonder where she learned it.  She can say several 4-5 word sentences.  Every single morning, she says "go bye-bye pretty soon," at least a dozen times, regardless if I tell her we aren't going anywhere or not.  Sometimes she will get a sad pout on her face, sticking out her bottom lip and will say, "I'm so sad."  When I tell her please don't be sad, she then gets a big smile and exclaims, "I'm happy!"  Oh, and she growls. Hahaha!  When she's mad (mostly fighting with Ayden), she growls at you!  It's hard not to laugh at her when she's mad and growling at you.  She also likes roaring like a dinosaur, tiger, bear, etc.

Rylee can recognize and tell you all the primary colors, is starting to sing along with the ABC's, and can count one through ten (usually skipping either three or four).  She's also starting to recognize different shapes.  She has heart and star down pat.  We are working on circle, square, and triangle.

Her latest obsession is swimming.  We started swim lessons two weeks ago, Monday through Thursday.  Allllllll day long she says, "let's go swimming!"  When we finally get in the car to go swimming after we've had dinner and Tony gets off work, she says at least a dozen times on the way there, "we're going swimming!"  It's only a 5 minute car ride.  lol.  She is quite the fish, too.  She can climb out of the pool all by herself and jump in.  She has no problem sticking her face in the water, and she's doing a great job of "swimming" by kicking her legs and starting to use her arms, like a doggy paddle.  Of course we are holding on to her for this. (It's a parent/tot class)

Rylee is just as adventurous as Ayden when it comes to climbing.  She's little miss independent about climbing into her car seat all by herself and buckling herself in, to our frustration because it takes about 10 minutes.  She is pretty efficient at climbing all the playground equipment at the park, and she loves to give us heart attacks trying to climb things at home.

Gah!!!

Rylee is a good little helper who loves to "help" do the laundry and vacuum.  Of course, she also likes to knock over my piles of folded up laundry and vacuuming is taking 10x's longer now with her help.  I hope she continues to love to do chores!

Rylee is obsessed with watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, but also enjoys watching Paw Patrol, Kipper, Curious George, and Winnie the Pooh.  She loves music and dancing.  When we are in the car and a song comes to an end, she always asks for it to be played again.  It doesn't have to be the same song, she just wants ANY song to be playing and hasn't figured out yet that she only has to wait two or three seconds for the next song to come on.  Her favorite books are the same as Ayden's, Llama Llama Hoppity Hop and What a Wonderful World. Rylee loves seeing animals, but is fearful of getting too close to them most of the time.

As frustrating as toddlers can be a lot of the time, they are also such a joy.  It is absolutely incredible to witness them learning new things almost on a daily basis.  And the love.  The love that toddlers give unconditionally is something that I wish we never grew out of as we get older.  Like her brother, Rylee is a cuddle bug.  She loves to be held and snuggled with.
She loves to give kisses.  She loves to be chased and tickled.  Her laughter is contagious. Sometimes she oozes orneriness, but her smile lights up our world.

Microblog Monday: Cutest Thing Ever

I mentioned previously that Ayden and Rylee danced the night away at the wedding they were in.  I managed to capture little snippets of them boogieing throughout the night and put them together into a short video.  I don't think there's much cuter than two year olds dancing!  Whenever I need to relax and smile, I just watch this:

If  you'd like to read more #MicroblogMonday posts, click here.

All About Ayden: The 2.5 version

Technically, Ayden and Rylee turned 2.5 last month.  I'm just well overdue writing this post!  Ayden, Ayden, Ayden.  This post is all about this handsome little dude of mine.

Ayden has grown a full 2 inches in the last 6 months, so is 37 inches tall and falls in at 75% on the growth chart (a full 10% more than at his 2 year well check up!).  He weighs 34 lbs and is at 88% on the chart.  The doctor didn't seem too concerned at his weight, but did ask if he was eating a balanced diet and asked what type of milk he drinks (2%).  She was pleased that they don't drink a lot of juice (only a couple times/week).  The thing is, this kid doesn't carry a lot of extra fat on him, but he does feel like a ton of bricks when you pick him up!  I guess the best way to describe it is that he's just thick.  He has a cousin that is the same way.

Ayden is wearing size 6 diapers.  We'll be tackling potty training with him in September.  We have a big road trip coming up and we'll be gone for a week.  Between moving and that trip, I decided to wait.  I don't think potty training is going to be an easy fete with him, so why make it harder by throwing a 12 hour (one way) road trip, where we'll be away from home and Daddy for a full 8 days?  We'll wait.

He's in size 3T tops, but is actually starting to wear some 4T.  He has a long torso, so he usually ends up outgrowing his shirts length wise.  He's wearing size 2T bottoms, but is starting to wear some 3T now too.  He's in a size 8 shoe.

Ayden has always been a climber, but he's really starting to become so much more athletic. Just recently he has mastered some of the park playground equipment.  He's really quite impressive actually!  He used to make me soooo nervous just climbing up the steps on playground structures, but now he's taking on the climbing walls successfully!  He's also started climbing trees.

He's so proud of himself!

Something he just started doing a few days ago is hanging from a monkey bar and then dropping to the ground, landing on his feet. He was at least a foot off the ground!  He asked to do it over and over again. He still needed help reaching the bar.  His mommy's good for something, lol!  The kid has no fear, I tell ya.  However, that doesn't mean he doesn't still get into his fair share of predicaments.

He was legitimately stuck in this chair! 

Besides climbing, I'd say Ayden's next favorite activity is pushing his dump truck around everywhere.  He's got a truck inside and another for outside, and he pushes them both everywhere.  This often results in skinned up knees when we are outside, when he gets going too fast and the truck gets away from him, but yet he still continues to do it.  In addition to his dump trucks, he "drives" all his other cars/trucks all over the house, all over the walls and furniture.

Ayden loves to play in water, but he HATES with a passion to get wet from a sprinkler or a shower, sprayed with a hose, or to be splashed.  If he's not getting wet on his terms, then he is not a happy camper.  We are currently taking swim lessons (parent/tot class).  He absolutely loves to go to the pool.  He's very good at climbing both in and out of the pool, but is currently not a fan of jumping in (a change from last summer).  He's good a blowing bubbles and listening to the fishies (ear in the water), but greatly dislikes having his head under water.

He's also a bug kid.  He loves to terrorize ants and beatles by chasing them around and catching them (repeatedly).  The poor bugs don't usually survive (I'm not really sad about that).  He points out all butterflies, flies, and bees, but doesn't actually really get the difference between them unless he's pointing them out in a book.

"Look Mommy!  A bug!"

Ayden is still behind in the communication department.  However, he is definitely improving!  He does talk a lot and has many words, but he doesn't necessarily put a lot of words together for short sentences yet, which he should be by this point.  With that said though, he LOVES to count.  That is how we get him to pick up all his cars and trucks, by counting them as he puts them away.  He randomly will count various things all the time.  He also can recognize and name colors now.  One of the things he says all of the time is "of course."  That is often his answer when you ask him to do something.

Me: "Ayden, it's time to eat breakfast."
Him: "Of course, Mommy."

Me: "Ayden, let's put your shoes on."
Him: "Of course!"

Me: "It's time to put your cars away."
Him: "Of course."

You get the idea.

He has a very soft voice and doesn't talk very loud at all.  He's quite a little cuddle bug and loves to be held and hugged.  He is most definitely a momma's boy, which can be very difficult sometimes.  Hard on me, because I sometimes never get a break.  Hard on daddy, because he wants to be able to comfort him too.  Ayden loves his daddy and will snuggle up with him sometimes, but if he's in a mood at all, I'm the only person he wants.

Speaking of moods....  That is our biggest struggle with Ayden.  He whines.  He whines a lot.  A LOT!!!!  There are days that he spends the majority of the time whining/crying/screaming about something or other for hours.  He is not very good at not getting his way.  If he can't play with something he wants (such as another kid's bike/ball/toy), he throws a major temper tantrum.  We have to make sure he doesn't get too hungry ever, because that's when it gets really bad.  And if he's tired AND hungry, oh milanta.  It's exhausting and it's my biggest struggle as a mother to keep my patience.  I know people could say it's a normal 2 year old thing, but he takes it beyond that normal range.  We are hoping it's a phase.  (Please let it be a phase!)  We are hoping that as he continues to learn how to talk, that the whining will subside.  We constantly try to encourage him to use his words rather than the whining/crying.

Okay, more favorites.  Ayden loves Nemo and Dory, anything with Mickey Mouse and friends, and Buzz and Woody from Toy Story.  His favorite book is Llama Llama Hoppity Hop and What a Wonderful World.  He likes the first because it's action based (jumping, stretching, clapping, etc.) and the second because I sing it to them (and so far they don't hate my singing voice, haha!).  Ayden also really loves hanging out at his grandparent's farm, where they get to see a pig named Peppa, a horse, and several cows.  They love to explore the property, ride on the tractors, and ride the zip line their Grandpa rigged up.

Ayden, the cow whisperer

Even though we sometimes often struggle with Ayden whining and throwing temper tantrums, when he is smiling and having fun, he lights up our world.  He has the best smile and he is so gosh darn cute when he is happy!  It is amazing to watch him learn new things, and especially rewarding when we get to see how proud he is of himself when he accomplishes something.

Playing Catch Up

I'm back to the land of the living, or at least the land of having internet once again.  After our move, it took THREE weeks to get hooked up to internet.  When I called the first time to get it set up, I was told it would happen the following week.  Not ideal, but whatever.  We could live with that.  Then on the day it was supposed to be installed, I got a phone call saying that there were no lines hooked up to our house and they couldn't get a tech out until the following week.  That was frustrating, but what tipped me over the edge was when on that second week, I received ANOTHER phone call to schedule installation for the NEXT week.  I was livid.  So anyway, we spent the first three weeks without internet access except through our phones, which cost us only an arm and a leg.  But now, we have internet.

We had a whirlwind of a move.  The house we found to move into was available right away, so we ended up moving within a week.  Hiring movers (Tony's company paid all moving expenses) made everything SO much easier in most ways, but challenging too.  It was nice not having to pack anything at all, but that made it a little more difficult when it came to finding necessary things once we got here.  We are mostly settled in, but still have a few more boxes to unpack and I need to organize the garage.  We haven't hung any pictures on the wall either.  Honestly, we've been here a month now, but we have only had one weekend where we were actually home.  We didn't get anything done that weekend either because Tony somehow hurt his back and spent the entire weekend laid up in bed.

I've missed this space.  There's been so many things I wanted to write about, but had no computer (internet) to be able to sit down and actually blog.  But let's be honest, I wasn't blogging much before that either!  We've moved TWICE in just a four month period!  Ridiculous.  We've move three times in the last 13 months, and still have another move on the horizon when we hopefully buy a house in about a year, which better be our last move for a long, long while.

We made a not so great impression on our next door neighbors within the first day of moving in.  Tony's parents were here on moving day to help watch the kids while Tony and I directed the movers on where to put things and worked on unpacking.  At one point, I saw Ayden pushin his MegaBloks truck around outside.  I commented on how that's supposed to be an inside toy, but let it slide in all the craziness that was going on.  The next day, I unpacked the same truck out of a box of toys and wondered how the heck it had gotten packed back up.  I didn't put too much thought into it though.  I thought somewhere between the movers, the in-laws, and Tony, someone had just put it back with all the other toys.   Well, turns out that the truck wasn't Ayden's!  He took it right off our neighbors front porch. I learned this when the mom came knocking on our door a few days later asking if we might have her son's truck. ding, ding, ding!  It all made sense then!  I found the neighbors truck in our backyard and returned it.  The mom was not very friendly or understanding at all.  She wasn't rude, but she was nice either.  I noticed later that they no longer keep any of their son's toys on the front porch at all.  They also never smile or wave when they see us.  It's kind of awkward.  So much for making friends with our neighbors.

Other than moving, the biggest changes for us have been Ayden and Rylee!  They turned 2.5 in June, and they are learning new things at a rapid rate right now.  I'm going to do individual posts for each of them, hopefully this week.

I'll wrap this up by sharing that Ayden and Rylee were in their first wedding two weekends ago!  They were flower girl and ring security for one of Tony's cousins.  It was pretty special for us, because this cousin and her brother were the flower girl and ring bearer in our wedding almost 19 years ago!  I know I'm biased, but I have to say that Ayden and Rylee were the cutest kids there!  We were nervous about how they would do.  Let's be honest, we were nervous how AYDEN would do!  We were pretty sure Rylee would do okay, but Ayden is rarely still and does not like to be contained at all.  During the rehearsal, Ayden ran all over the place!  During pictures before the wedding, he had a major meltdown and wanted nothing to do with being in any of the pictures.  However, he pulled himself together and they both did AMAZING during the actual wedding!  Then, they danced the night away afterward.  Is there anything cuter than two year old's dancing?

Ayden's hand gesture shows what he really thought about being in the wedding pictures!  His suspenders, bow tie, and boat shoes melted every adult in attendance though, along with sweet little Rylee.

Potty Training Fail

Exactly one week after starting potty training with Rylee, I had a short lived potty training start with Ayden.  I know he's ready, but I quickly learned that he is going to require a lot more individual attention for the first few days.

Backstory...

I read the Oh Crap! Potty Training book and decided to follow that method.  It had been going pretty smoothly with Rylee, and Ayden was wanting in on the action so I decided to bite the bullet and train him too.

Here's what happened....

That morning, Rylee decided that she needed to be the one to carry her pee (in little potty seat) from the kitchen to the bathroom and dump it in the toilet.  The problem was that she was sloshing it everywhere and I feared for the carpet.  I tried compromising with her, that I would carry it to the bathroom and she could dump it in.  We fought about this almost every time.  Good times.

For the first few days of potty training, the book recommends that they are naked on the bottom, so we spent the morning in the kitchen doing lots of fun activities like water colors, puzzles, etc.  Ayden had one accident, but it wasn't a big deal because he was sitting at their little table and the pee just hit his t-shirt and stayed contained.  Easy to clean up.

He's been sitting on the potty seat for months now before bath time, and the previous week when we started training Rylee, he sat on it (fully clothed) quite often.  It was always hit or miss whether he'd actually stay sitting on it, but he'd peed in it at least a good dozen times over the past few months.  Of course, the morning we started potty training, I couldn't get him to sit on it.  Of course.

So, a few hours into the morning, I was battling it out with Rylee after she'd peed in the potty chair, trying not to let her dump the pee all over the carpet on the way to the bathroom.  She was screaming.  She does that a lot.  Sigh.  I came back into the kitchen to find Ayden peeing all over one of the kitchen cupboards.  It happened to be the cupboard door that doesn't actually close all the way, so was partially open.  Not only did he pee all over the outside of the cupboard door, it was all over the INSIDE AS WELL!  It was dripping on the outside, on the inside, and was all over the shelf and on my griddle.  And he was just standing there watching it happen.

It was at that moment, three whole hours into our morning, that I gave up and put a diaper back on him.  I can't do it by myself with both of them.  We are going to wait until after we move and get settled, and pick a weekend to start where Tony will be around to help.

It took me a few days before I got up the nerve to make some peecakes again.  I mean PANcakes!  Pancakes.

Heellllllooooooo.......

Is anyone out there?  Hello?  Hello?  Hello???  

It's been a little over two months since I've written anything!  How did that happen?  Is anyone still even interested in reading anymore?  I have no idea, but I've missed this space. This is my 300th blog post.  I had planned on that being a special post about something.  I don't know what, but something.  I suppose me writing a post at this point is pretty special though, huh?  lol

So here's what we've been up to:

We moved back to home!  But you knew that already because that's where I left off.  We haven't unpacked all our boxes or hung any pictures on the wall.  There literally is not enough space for us to unpack everything.  The house is small, but I do finally feel like we are starting to at least feel comfortable here somewhat.

Not that that means much because guess what?  We are moving BACK to the Eugene area! Yes, you read that right.  We are moving back.  Sigh.  After only being here for 2.5 friggin months, we are moving back.  When we moved back to our home area, Tony was supposed to be getting a promotion as well as taking over the Salem office here.  Well, since then, his company merged with another and that promotion is no longer available.  That particular position is no longer a job.  Without the promotion, we take a huge financial hit because the Salem office without the promotion does not generate as much business as the office in Eugene.  Besides that, the guy that was hired to take over his job there is getting fired this week.  Tony has been driving back and forth to Eugene (1.5 hours, 3 hours round trip) at least 3 days a week this WHOLE time!

Soooo, we are moving back just as soon as we can find another house to rent.  Oh, did I mention that somewhere in the next 12-18 months we will be buying a house (somewhere), so we will have ANOTHER future move to look forward to as well?  Yes folks, that would make four freaking moves in a 2-3 year period with two toddlers.

In all fairness, I do miss some things about the Eugene area, particularly the friends we made.  I am excited to be closer to them again, but sad to be further from family again.  We will settle.  Someday.

In other big news, I now have one potty trained toddler!  Last Monday began our potty training adventure.  Prior, I read the Oh Crap! Potty Training book and followed that.  Rylee has been ready for awhile, but I wanted to wait until after we got settled in here.  I am happy to say that all poo has been in the toilet (or potty chair) since day one.  We had several pee accidents (or learning experiences) the first few days, but by day 6 she was going completely unprompted and all on her own.  The only accidents since Saturday have been from not quite getting her pants pulled down all the way and peeing on them because she was sitting on them partially.  I don't really consider that an accident.  We even took a trip out to the grandparents house yesterday with full success!

My plan was to start the same potty training method with Ayden this morning, but after 3 hours of complete chaos I threw in the towel and quit.  This story deserves it's own post. Believe me, it's a good one.

Ayden has also had a big change since our move though!  He now is in a toddler bed.  About 1.5 months ago, he finally crawled out of his crib.  There was NO keeping him in his crib after that!  The first week in his new, but same bed (his crib converted to a toddler bed), was rough.  He didn't take a nap at ALL the first 3 days.  We had to go in and get him back in bed several times, and even sat on the floor for an endless amount of time a few times, but we now finally have that down to only having to go in once or twice at both nap and bedtime.

Oh!  Tony and I also committed to changes for ourselves personally as well.  We signed up to do the 21 day fix with Beachbody.  I actually signed up as a coach, although I haven't done anything with that yet.  I'd love to help other people and it's right up my alley from being a personal trainer and softball coach for years, but I just don't feel like I have time to invest in it other than for myself right now.  Tony and I both felt it was way past time to get serious about taking care of ourselves.  We've both had some success, and I feel so much better in my own skin now.  Still have a long way to go, but it's a start.

Lot's of changes for us and more to come.  I can't wait for the day we can just buy our own house and stay put for awhile.

Here's a few pictures, just in case you've forgotten what we look like!  haha  That is, if anyone is still reading....

Mother's Day

My babies are getting so big!

*Okay, I've tried to edit this whole thing a half a dozen times so the font will be normal sized instead of so friggin small, but blogger won't save it!  I'm sorry for the eye strain, for anyone who happens to read this.