Going on 7Ms

The little guy is almost 7 months old now.  It's amazing how much Little D changes overnight.  He can now sit 30-60 seconds before slowly leaning to a comfortable fall... and put this guy on his belly and you don't know what your going to get.

Sleep - he likes his belly.
Awake - he'll roll over to his back in seconds, wants nothing to do with it, forget about it.

Dylan can thank his sister for the great pic, once again I relied on my daughter for the handy work with the camera. 

The Potty Saga

The stories with this one are countless at this point.  First off, the binkie is so last week... and we've made some progress on the potty front too, quite a few trips have yielded results.  She'll go about 50% of the time, which means the other 50% end up in her diaper.  Problem is, she will not come to us when she's ready to go... we have to ask.  I've come to the conclusion that she knows exactly what the potty is for, but she will not go based on constant orders from her parents.... or various methods of negotiation.  No, this one probably knows how badly we want to get her on the potty and this is her form of dangling a carrot in front of her parents face!   If fact I believe that when she goes in her diaper, she is fully aware that the potty should be used instead... I just have a hard time believing otherwise, here's why.  Last week Maddie mentioned that she wanted to go back to dance class (link), note the time stamp on that blog post -- September. 

I probably should have provided an update to that post -- long story short -- her friend Brianna didn't come to class after week one, and then Maddie didn't want anything to do with it.  We tried going back for 2 more weeks, but she went into full blown meltdown mode within minutes of being in the class without a friend in there with her. 

Anyway, out of curiosity, I questioned her -- what was your teacher's name?  She answers:  Miss Manda!!  I couldn't believe it, now I could barely remember the teacher's name, and Maddie remembers a name from back in September... not to mention she really only met this teacher twice.  If she can remember a teacher's name from 6 months ago, I've gotta believe she remembers instructions for using the potty. 

As of today, we're not sure on our future plan of attack.  For some reason, I just do not think the old tricks in the book will assist us on the transition to the potty.  I must say though -- I look forward to these types of challenges -- and no doubt in my mind that our princess will be diaper-free within a month.

Random Pics of the Princess

Her first pigtails!

Limbs Akimbo

No More B's

On Sunday, our 2Y9M old parted ways with all of her binkies.  For the past couple weeks, we've been telling Maddie that she needs to give all of her b's to the Easter bunny -- because the Easter bunny had to give them to the other babies of course.  She seemed to be on board with the plan, although I wasn't fully confident Maddie was aware of the consequences.  Anyway, Sunday morning she found a pink bunny in the toybox and it went like this:

Maddie:  I have an idea!  I'm going to give all my b's to the bunny.... so she can give them to the babies!!

She then proceeded to collect all of her binkies.... and since it went this far, Cathy and I took it to the next level....

Mom and Dad:  We have a great idea, why doesn't the pink bunny throw all the b's in the garbage!!

Maddie:  Okay!

In the trash they went, and that was the end of that!  We're 4 days and 3 nights into it, no issues.  Honestly, I'm amazed.  She would never go to sleep without a binkie.... never.

As a celebratory treat we told her she could pick out something at the grocery store -- her request, strawberry ice cream.  She actually told me to get the camera and take the picture above.

Sitting Around

Dylan hasn't mastered it yet, but as each day goes by he can sit a little longer without assistance.  He can go 5-10 seconds before we need to catch him provide a helping hand.  He's rolling over from back to belly now too... although we've never witnessed this maneuver live, he does it every night in his sleep.  Much like his sister, once it became an option, laying on his belly became the preferred sleeping method.

Build-a-Hello Kitty?

Not much to do in Michigan in the winter time, so we often find ourselves strolling through the mall just to get out of the house.  Frequent stops at the mall include Pottery Barn Kids, Baby Gap, and Starbucks... plus countless escalator and elevater rides as well.  Anyway, right next door to Baby Gap is a Build-a-Bear store.... after numerous inquiries by our princess as to what this place was all about, we dropped by for a visit.

I rate it a 'B', Maddie would probably say it's closer to a 'B+'.  If you've never been, basically what you do is pick an unstuffed bear off a wall, hook the back of the bear up to a stuffing station, press a pedal to stuff the bear with cotton, go to the back of the store to the grooming station - where the kids press a pedal that blows air on the new stuffed animal (pic above), pick out an outfit, dress the animal at the changing station, go to a computer and generate a birth certificate, and then finally make the purchase.  Now I wasn't paying 100% attention to the entire Build-a-Bear experience, but I believe it has a tag in it as well -- which identifies the stuffed creature if it gets lost -- of course the bear will never be found unless someone goes out of their way to report the lost animal to the nearest Build-a-Bear store.

I rather enjoyed the whole assembly line process, which helped to maintain order amongst several excited children waiting for their new stuffed bears.  But the only "fun" part in my mind was the actual stuffing of the animal --- which took all of 2 minutes.  And this part, of course, was not a fan favorite by our princess -- this mainly due to the fact that she does not seek help from strangers -- Maddie much rather prefers to do things herself in these types of situations -- so I assisted the employee by pressing the stuffing pedal to fill up the animal.  After we stuffed the animal, Maddie had a blast at the grooming station... and the outfit section, pink ballerina of course.  Oh, I almost forgot the first part.  So we're standing there looking at all the unstuffed bears on the wall... and Maddie grabs the only bear-deviation available, the Hello Kitty.  She barely has had an interest in Hello Kitty up until this point, and aside from a coloring book in her possession, this was really her first toy from the contagious product line.  Time will tell if her collection grows, but what I can tell you is this - the Hello Kitty has made the exclusive list of dolls that stay in bed with her at night - you be the judge. 

Overall it was a kind-of-fun experience... however I'm not sure if it left a lasting impression on Maddie, who's surprisingly particular at such a young age.  We'll see on our next trip back to the mall, but my bet is that Pottery Barn Kids will still trump all.

Baby c

Sure this isn't a surprise... but the cinquinos will be a family of 5 come September 10th!

Sabres - Crossing the Generations

The day has arrived -- another generation from our family has made it to a Sabres game.  These father-son moments will never be forgotten, on both accounts I’m sure.  Speaking from my own childhood experience, I have fond memories of parking (for free) one mile from the Aud, and then walking down dimly lit city streets with my father while he candidly (and often times offensively) spoke to complete strangers regarding his analysis of the pending game, and on the way back – provided an amplified post-game assessment of the Sabres performance as well.  Being the young kid I was at the time, I didn’t know any different – that was what I considered to be normal conversation between grown adults at a sporting event.

But the main lesson I had learned -- through obnoxious osmosis -- and not by my father explaining his seasoned hockey-watching ways to me:

If you are going to comment on an individual player’s performance during the game, you MUST yell it at a decibel level loud enough for the on-ice player to hear you – NO exceptions.

The vast majority of the time he would become a local celebrity in our section, providing hilarious entertainment for all the other fans… and the best part of it was, he wasn’t trying to be funny!  In his mind, if the players heard his opinion, he could actually impact the outcome of the game.  Hence his opinion would be heard across the entire stadium – and I’m not exaggerating, his voice would carry.  Anyone from my family will attest (and friends as well), you just had to be there to believe it.

I’m sure that Jeremy and Avery had a memorable experience too.  Jeremy sent a note saying that Avery loved it, and hung in there for two solid periods before getting wiped out… with another generation being introduced to the Sabres, we can only hope that the Lord Stanley will finally pay a visit.

Flying Solo

Mom's been out of town since yesterday, so I'll be running the house for the next few days... until Thursday that is.  I remember the first time I was on my own (link) and thinking how hard it would be, maybe even a bit nervous.  Looking back, what a piece of cake... even now, piece of cake.  Yeah I'll lose some sleep, big whoop.  So far it's been a breeze and we've been able to keep up with all (required) weekend activities -- Dylan was snoozing window-side for this shot, while I enjoyed a relaxing cup of iced coffee:

Right now they are both asleep, and believe it or not, I find it relaxing to sit down and write a quick post.  Sure I could be cleaning the house, getting ready for tomorrow, eating lunch... I just choose to do that during the chaos that ensues when they both wake up, it makes for a more exciting afternoon -- in fact, I welcome the challenge, it's all part of an adventure for me. 

Inventory Management

Roughly 1.75 years ago, Mom went long on number 3 diapers.  I remember the Babies-R-Us trip to this day -- we were there making our regular purchases when we came across a sign (that Mom could not resist) for diapers, something to the effect of:  buy two boxes and receive a $10 gift card.  After our short debate on the proposed deal, I reluctantly stocked our cart with 2 full size boxes of number 3 diapers.  Being the financier (geek) I am, I always choose to have a reduced inventory for an improved cash position... Mom on the other hand, views my penny-pinching behavior as poor time management.  Her argument, which she can back up with many historical data points, is that we will have to buy them again within 1-2 weeks, so just buy them now.  Now I do agree with that, BUT -- odds are we will be back at Target or Babies-R-Us within a week anyway! 

So why am I bringing up this particular purchase?  Well, about 2 days after the questionable diaper transaction, Madison didn't fit into them anymore!!  The two boxes have been occupying valuable shelf space in our basement for the last 1.75 years!  That is, until today.  

Dylan just made the leap over to number 3's.  What a treat, it almost feels like free diapers, the $10 deal finally paid off and Mom had finally proven her point.  But I will contend that the economy has taken a serious downturn since the initial purchase, did deflation offset the $10 bargain?  Probably not, but I will still use that as my defense to downplay Mom's long-awaited day of glory.