The cereal is swimming

For the past 2 to 3 months we have been potty training. Mike and I had given up and were willing to wait until Casey was born to try again but Van had other ideas. In his mind mommy becoming big enough to not get off the couch easily is the perfect time to start doing a potty dance for 2 hours at a time. I would have ignored it since he would not sit down and pee, after several mornings of prancing around and crying about needing to pee I figured I needed to get serious.

With the help of Miralax and the correct reward/threat program we are getting there slowly. First, after we fixed a bit of the constipation problem causing the long pee dance, I got Van to sit down on the frog potty and pee in the pullups. After a few weeks of that we are now moved onto peeing in the frog potty without a pullup. This was only accomplished with the threat "if your going to be a baby and use diapers babies don't watch TV, eat gummy snacks, drive their truck outside and no riding in Daddy's truck". The kicker was not being able to ride with Mike in the truck. This was made an even bigger deal by explaining how Casey, the baby, will not be able to ride in Daddy's truck and that only big boy's can ride in the truck. With the addition of a sticker chart to earn a bike (1 sticker for the chart 1 sticker for Van) and 2 M&Ms Van has only had 1 pee accident since Monday. Poop which has always been a problem will be dealt with later.

We allow Van to sit on the potty and eat. This morning he announced that a marshmallow from his cereal fell into the potty. We explained that it was now dirty and to leave it be. Van sat and waited to pee. Once he did this came out "momma I pee, cereal is swimming!". You just have to laugh when things like that happen.

The next goal is to move the whole operation into the bathroom. I have been lazy and its been much more comfortable for me to move the frog potty room to room and not sit in the bathroom to wait.

Art, it's in the Genes

There's a new store in town that is dangerously becoming a favorite pastime of Van and mine. The most dangerous part is that it's a paint your own pottery and the possibilities are endless.


For Mother's day Van got me a gift certificate to Brushfire, Mike knew I had been wanting to do a paint your own pottery project with Van but the closest store really did not fit into our schedule most days. Brushfire opened up minutes away in the Denham Historic District. I went thinking that Van would only paint a small section of whatever I picked and I would end up painting the rest. Boy was I wrong. I got in a few dots before Van armed with a sponge brush went to town. I have learned since this experience that I need to put down a light paint color layer first or end up doing what I had to do and go back and paint around Van's art work.

They also have a learn to paint night named Cocktails and Canvas. They pick a painting and with the aid of their knowledge and thankfully stencils you paint away. The stencils were the only way I could come close to making my Blue Dog by George Rodrigue. It was BYOD which I did not do because of Casey. He tried to put in his opinion on my design choices by kicking. It was a fun night. The next painting night is a week before Casey is due, bummer. With the amount of false labor Casey is giving me, he might come before then.