23 months

I only got the pictures a day late this month!

Isaac has a bunch of fun words this month, and they seem to be rather themed.  We have weather themed - wet, rain, snow, brrr, boots.  We have food themed - juice, wipe.  And we have Duplo themed - broke, fix, tower.  There's also been several times where Isaac seems to be saying something (over and over) and I have no idea what it is.  It's not the gibberish that babies say, but it is another language.

He's good at realizing that his tower is broken, but hasn't realized that he can just fix it without me asking if he can fix it.  I see a lot of broken towers in a day.

Isaac can move his highchair to the correct place by himself now (from the table to the living room).  He blows kisses.  He likes doing the robot dance, and I'm pretty sure we only read some books to see the robot picture and then do the dance.

Potty training is going well, unless he's at his Grandma's house.  Then he has about 300% more accidents than normal.  He likes his "nummy-nummy" after he does his business, but I've only been giving them to him if he asks.  He often forgets.

Sleep went well this month too.  I think between a growth spurt and sickness he was sleeping a little more, which was awesome.  He has one nap in the afternoon (usually at least 2 hours) and sleeps from 8 at night to about 7 in the morning.

He also has really enjoyed magnets and bottles.  He loves having a little water in a bottle so he can take the cap off, drink, and put the cap back on...but he'll enjoy the bottle even if there isn't any water.  We haven't had too many messes.

Monday: kisses

Isaac was in a very kissy mood today...

...the little bear before we left the house.
...the water bottle before we left the house.
...the blue monkey.
...me.
...the random baby that we saw in the store.
...Ben
...the blue monkey
...the cow in the bedtime book
...the sheep in the bedtime book
...the blue monkey again.

And those are only the ones I saw.  The Duplo dog, horse, and goat often get kisses too.

Sunday: last pickup

Tomorrow is our last diaper pick-up.  Isaac now (normally) has one or no accidents a day, and is staying dry through most naps, so it is time to be done with the diaper service.  I was quite happy with them, but I'm even more happy to be done with diapers.

So that I don't forget if I'm ever curious about what I did, here's the quick summary.  I have no idea if any of these things actually helped, but it's what happened.
1) Cloth diapers almost all of the time.
2) Around 18 months I tried putting him on the toilet a lot for a week.  It didn't work all that well.
3) Between 18-21 months I tried putting him on the toilet several times a week.  If he did go to the bathroom, he got some mini M&Ms and got to wear his training pants.
4) Around 21 months he stayed dry for an entire morning, so I tried pushing toilet training hard again.  Again, M&Ms for rewards...and flushing.  I didn't use the waterproof pull-ups, although I did bring some to daycare so they could use them.  If we went out I either put him back in a diaper or made sure it was a really short trip and he had just gone to the bathroom.  I put a TV tray by the toilet so that he could play/read more easily.  (He was happy to stay on the toilet if there was something to do and I found that he had a bowel movement if he stayed on the toilet for at least 5 minutes.)  I started by putting him on the toilet about once an hour, but we're up to about once every two hours now.

So that's the quick summary...and it's not like we're done yet.  We still need to work on communication (when he does need to go) so that I don't have to remember every two hours.  We're also working on Isaac  taking his pants on and off.  But, the main thing is that most of the time Isaac goes on the toilet!



...Potty training is a lot of work.

bathroom

I was doing aqua-aerobics today, partially to be in good health for the baby.  I even ate a nutritious breakfast for the baby.  Then I had to go to the bathroom before the workout was finished.  It was close the the end so I just stopped.  I sure am going to the bathroom more than I remember with Isaac.  But I'm still feeling pretty good.  I did the calculations and realized, if everything is the same, that I would start throwing up between Dec 3 and Dec 12.  (Thanks to the blog!)  But if memory serves me correctly I was already feeling a little yucky last time, so I'm getting hopeful.

Saturday: more happenings

We finished putting the tree up today.  I didn't take any pictures, but they'll come.  I had to get some more strings of lights and ended up with some LED ones...and now have colored circles on the walls and ceiling.  It's a little weird, but I do love lights.  I think if I could only pick one Christmas decoration I'd do lights.  And lots of them.  But not too many, because it should still seem dark in the dark.

Putting up Christmas decorations with a two year old is a ton more fun than with a one year old.  We took out the nativity set and had fun unwrapping everything.  He (and his cousin) helped with the ornaments, even though all he really did was bring them from the couch to the tree.  It was a lot of fun.

In unrelated news, Isaac has started to tell me he needs to go to the bathroom by pulling down his pants.  The problem is that this usually happens outside the bathroom.  We'll have to figure out how to fix that soon.  He also tried to put them on today.  (If you can't tell, they're backwards.)

Friday: some pictures

They're not great pictures, but they still give you an idea of the day...

Isaac has been in charge of feeding Flurry lately and today found the catnip spray.  So I sprayed it on a cat toy.  After that Isaac was sure that Flurry should play with her mouse and ran around for about fifteen minutes trying to give it to her.  They finally settled on Flurry looking at it while on the banister.

Isaac helped me with the wash.  He actually pulled the basket to my room, picked up all the loose clothes on the floor, and had most of them in the washing machine by the time I was back to it with another basket full.

We went to Chuck E. Cheese.  It seems just right for his age...well, more or less.  He doesn't really get the games, but there are lots of rides that he enjoyed.  I couldn't get any pictures of him smiling, but he did...  (He also wanted to do the jump rope game.  Never mind that he can't even jump yet, let alone understand the game.  I tried jumping while holding him.  It was a hard game.)

Thursday: Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving...it was a very nice day.

We started out by shoveling the driveway.  I was hoping that we'd be able to make a snowman or something, but the snow wasn't good for that and Isaac wasn't that interested anyway.  But he can move in his snowsuit now (an improvement from last year).  I gave him a trowel but think he needs his own little shovel to help us in the future.

We had Thanksgiving dinner with the large family...the food was delicious and it was nice to see everyone.  Larry and Isaac did some synchronized drinking.  (Cap on, cap off, drink.  Cap on, cap off, drink...)

We ended the day by bowling.  I broke 100 both games (amazing) and beat Ben both times (practically impossible).  The last game I just barely pulled it off by getting two strikes and a 9 on the 10th frame.

Isaac was exhausted by this time, but I wanted to get a little more food in him.  We got home at 7:30 and gave him some leftovers.  At 8, his normal bedtime, we asked if he wanted to go to bed and he could barely shake his head yes he was so tired.  I actually thought he'd fall asleep while eating.

And even though I didn't mention it, there are so many things that I'm thankful to God for.  He has truly blessed me.