Friday: early riser

Last night I checked Isaac right before going to bed. I was a bit noisy, due to a messy room, but didn't think much of it as he is a good sleeper.

I looked at the monitor about fifteen minutes later and notice that Isaac isn't there any more. I scan the camera and find a fully dressed boy.

He thought his clock had turned green and that it was time to wake up. He was awake, but still a bit out of it. I helped him back into his pajamas and put him back to bed.

I love this boy.

Thursday: serious business

In other news, Joshua's still doing great with the toilet so we ordered him some new underwear.  If this trend does continue it would be interesting, because then both boys would have gone from semi-toilet trained to almost fully toilet trained in the month of January.  Perhaps they have (had) some New Year's resolutions that they didn't tell us about.

Isaac still enjoyed his puppy treats today.  I also played more fetch than I have in a long time.  It's an easy game though, so I went with it.

We went to Meijer today for groceries.  It was rather cold, but it made the store rather empty!  We were the only ones returning pop cans, so we could use three machines and do it faster.  The checkout lines were also wonderfully empty.

Wednesday: treats

Joshua has figured out that if he goes to the bathroom he gets a treat and has been taking advantage of it.  I drew the line at getting another treat after one minute, but have still let it go for the most part.  The up side is that we haven't had any accidents in three days.

Isaac decided that some of his toys are puppy dog treats and has happily been doing chores for them.  I won't complain one bit, although I do wonder how long it will last.

Tuesday: this and that

We might need to work on his form for catching a ball.  Isaac can catch it about once every three times or so.  We started the catching thing since hitting the ball with a bat doesn't seem like a great option inside, but this has been working really well.


I also had one tantrum today because I cut Joshua's sandwich and wouldn't put it back together.  I even asked him twice before I cut it, and he watched me cut it.  Then reality set in.  He ended up eating lunch on my lap because he couldn't quite calm himself down enough to eat in the booster seat.

I continued decluttering today.  I cleaned up the bib drawer - Joshua isn't using bibs every meal any more, so I threw out the ones with non-working velcro and removed the smaller ones.  There are a few left because we still use them with some meals, but it is much easier to open and close the drawer now.  I also got rid of six rocks.  I counted each one of them as an item because they have been in the house too long and weren't moving.  I threw them back into the landscaping.  So easy, but it took me so long.

Monday: at home

The picture was from July, but it just made it to me a few days ago.  :)

Today we just hung around the house.  We played some games, did some exercising, and took down most of the Christmas decor.  Surprisingly, I was ready for it to come down.  Usually I feel like I drag my heels and take a little down at a time, but today I was ready.  The winter lights are still up and I kept a string that is half dead out...the half dead part is hidden.

Some friends are doing a challenge in which you remove 2017 items from your house throughout the year, trying to declutter.  This comes out to about five or six items a day, and that is just too much for me right now.  However, for the past year I have been thinking that some serious clean-up needs to be done as things are hanging around for too long.  So I'm partially joining; I think I'll see how many things I can get rid of, but will not try to hit the 2017 mark.  I'm currently at seven.  I got rid of some Christmas stuff that hasn't gone up for years and is not going to go up again.

In other news, Joshua has started to call Isaac "Puppy" and it's really cute.  I'm not sure if he'll understand that sometimes Isaac is Isaac and sometimes he's Puppy...we'll see how it goes.

New Year's weekend

Nathan and his family came up for the weekend.  We did Christmas presents and enjoyed being together.


Friday, Isaac's birthday, started out with a Clifford visit.  Joshua was rather scared, but we took the picture anyway.

(They were twins.  Grey shirts and black pants.)

Although stopped promptly, the older kids enjoyed bouncing on Dad and Pat's couch. :)

We went to the Noon Year's celebration on Saturday.  Rather busy, but everything kept moving.  A bit boring for the adults, but the kids seemed to enjoy it.

We opened presents after nap time.

The kids played together extremely well.  Joshua was a bit worried about Jameson taking his toys, so he hid them in assorted obvious places.  But at one point Jameson had Joshua's grabber as Joshua had been busy elsewhere.  I told Joshua to wait.  Joshua waited, even though you could see in his face that he was very worried about his grabber.

Friday: 5 years old

Isaac is five years old today!  Five!  A whole hand.

Likes: building things (circuits, duplos, etc.), mazes, running, gymnastics, screen time, treats.  He actually seems to like almost everything, really.  When I ask him what the least favorite thing was of the day he often doesn't have one.

Growing up: Isaac still wants to be a Big Puppy Dog when he grows up, and this month he has been extra Puppy Doggy.  He tends only to be a puppy at home or other places that don't have peers.  If you call him the wrong name in the wrong place you will be corrected.  Isaac still does a good job with his chores, although he does periodically tell me how much he doesn't really like them and in what order he doesn't like them.  He does like the money though.  I also feel comfortable that he will make the correct decisions in most situations...at least, any of the situations that he might find himself currently in.  He also has a good sense of timing now and realizes that things might not happen right away, but that they will still happen.

Social: Isaac likes a ton of people.  He enjoys playing with Ben.  He plays with Joshua and understands that Joshua is littler and has different rules sometimes.  He likes his grandmothers and CC.  He can play alone with friends.  He still seems to love me the most.

I'm super proud of the kid Isaac is turning out to be.  He's a lot of fun, helpful, and loving.  And silly.  Don't forget that he's silly.