I just accomplished something I'd been dreading for almost 3 years: Arianna is potty trained! From the time she was a 4-month old crawler and an 8-month old walker, I knew it would be a LOT different from potty training Marissa. With Marissa, I had tried a few times early on, but she just wasn't getting it, and I was hugely pregnant, so it wasn't ideal anyways. But when she was almost 3, one Sunday she was in diapers, and the very next Monday she was completely dry in underwear and could go hours in between. It was incredible. But from day 1, Arianna has been SO very different from Marissa, and after the months of drama surrounding her breastfeeding, and then Roman being born (and the week I stayed in the NICU with him), I knew she could never be potty trained as easily as Marissa. But I'm ashamed to admit, I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly she succeeded! We started last Monday, Jan. 30th. I just put her in underwear and we stayed off the carpet/couch as much as possible. She had several accidents, but also a few successes, which gave me hope. I was extremely happy to slap a diaper on her for naptime and bedtime though! On Tuesday, she pooped in the potty, and didn't have any accidents all day, and that was that! She was awesome at church Wednesday night, and lasted a whole hour in the car on Thursday. She did have at least one accident at church on Sunday (it's a long time, and her teachers change partway through, so who knows if they even knew she was wearing underwear til it was too late), but she has been so awesome! She gets a jelly bean every time she succeeds, and her love language is jelly beans, so that really motivates her! Haha. The only problem we have now is she wants to "try" about every 2 minutes! She really does pee a lot, but definitely doesn't need to every 2 minutes. Hopefully this problem resolves itself soon because she still needs help in there, and it's hard to drop everything (dinner prep, changing R's diaper, etc) every 2 minutes to chase her to the bathroom! I'm just so proud of her though, and she suddenly seems so old to me! It's hard to believe she will be 3 this month. Seems like she was just born, and was my crazy mobile baby. She is still crazy, but so hilarious and random and entertaining. I've been able to say I have 2 kids 2 and under for a while, which just seemed crazy. But almost 6, 3, and ~1.5 sounds a little more sane! (Are we insane for driving them to Disney this summer? Please tell me no...lol)
Arianna and Marissa have been playing together really well lately (a lot less refereeing on my part!). Marissa decided (on her own) that she would teach Arianna the ABC's and the sounds the letters make. I found them one night (reading before bed) with an ABC book on Marissa's lap, and Arianna repeating letters and sounds after her. It's so cute, and Arianna knows all her letters and 17 of their sounds! Marissa thinks she's Arianna's personal teacher, and Arianna loves it too. The other day Marissa said to Arianna "Was that fun or what?!" and Arianna replied "Um, what!"
Arianna has started to pick up on Marissa's sense of imagination. Both of them could sit for hours with a few toy figures or animals and pretend the most elaborate scenarios. It's so entertaining to listen to!
Roman is an absolute joy these days. He is so stinking sweet, sometimes coming over to me simply to get a hug/kiss or lay his head on my shoulder. He is so happy, and babbles and plays by himself with a smile on his face. He laughs and giggles excitedly when I ask him if he wants to go upstairs, or if he's ready to eat lunch. He runs over to his booster seat at the table if I tell him to go get in his seat. He repeats "baby" all the time, and used to say "ball" too, but won't anymore. He high fives like crazy. He and Arianna play the goofiest games, and he loves when she gets rough with him. Haha. He's pretty tough, and falls down a lot, but always gets right back up and barely cries. He is still an awesome sleeper. He now starts his nap at 12:30, right after lunch, and I don't hear a peep from him until at least 3:30, sometimes 4. Then he's ready for bed around 7:30, and sleeps straight through (most nights) until I get him out of bed (sometimes I have to wake him up!) at 8:30. If he wakes up at night crying, he usually falls back asleep on his own within minutes, but if he doesn't, all it takes is a few minutes of cuddling and when I put him back down, he cries for a second then falls back asleep. It's so nice to get 8 full hours of sleep almost every night! Every time I look at him, I'm surprised at how big and old he's getting - 14 months already?! I want him to always be my baby, but sometimes when I look at him I see a toddler coming out.
We are again considering homeschooling Marissa this coming year. She has not learned much this year at school, and when we ask her each day what she learned, her answer is usually "I didn't learn anything, I already knew it all" from when I homeschooled her last year for "preschool." She enjoys school, and has a few very good friends (got her first marriage proposal too!), but we think she would really exceed with more challenges than she's getting this year (Dan and I have both seen firsthand what they are working on, and she literally does already know most of the things they are learning). I'm having a hard time agreeing, not because I think it's the wrong thing to do, but because of selfish reasons: curriculum stress/overwhelming, paper/supplies clutter, and our personalities clashing/my patience. I love her to death, but we're a lot alike. Lol. Dan is also interested in "classical" education, and that's also overwhelming to me. So we'll see where this all takes us.
Right now, Marissa is in MAJOR craft mode. She will take whatever scraps of paper we have around, take some glue, stickers, and crayons, and work on a masterpiece for HOURS! She is so creative, and loves to display her artwork...and I'm running out of places to store it! Lol.
Lately it seems as if EVERYONE I know is starting a blog. Just when I barely update mine anymore. I wish I could make myself post more often, because I love going back to read about my life...but it seems like I just keep getting LESS time to myself
