The Hurdle Facing Us This School Year

In other words: even though I am an opinionated mommy with a do-it-all-by-myself attitude, there are somethings I have no clue about yet - shocker, I know.

Today is Aiden's last day of Summer Camp and even though his schedule will stay the same when school starts, his days go back to much more structure and curriculum oriented activities.

He's been such a chatter-box lately, and a little know-it-all to boot, that I am not worried at all about his academic performance this year. So instead, I have decided to occupy my little mommy-self with things that we need to work on at home.

The big one is bed-wetting. While I take time every day to be grateful that Aiden is potty trained and I am diaper free (for some undetermined but indefinite amount of time), there are all sorts of joys that come with big-boy under pants.

For instance, the need to visit every bathroom in every public location we stop at. Aiden has even verbally admitted to me that he does this quite often just because he wants to know what the new bathroom in the new place looks like.

Surely this is no reason to wish to convert back to diapers, but the point is - each new accomplishment brings a new set of less desirable behaviors to deal with. Now, part of my mommy mantra is to pick battles carefully. Is it worth an overhaul in disciple or routine to keep us from seeing every bathroom in metro Denver? Not really. Is it worth a little change and struggle to end unwanted bed-wetting and sheet washing every day? Absolutely.

Every night, we have a bed time story. Then Mommy rubs Aiden's back while she sings a song. Then he asks for a cup of milk. Then he asks to go potty but really doesn't do much before climbing back in bed with another request that will put off bed time another couple minutes.

I would suspect that any Mommies out there with advice for me might jump directly to saying "No milk at bed time" - or any other drink. But I don't believe this is my solution, because in the morning, he has only had one to three gulps from his cup when I go to get it from his room. Yet, about three times a week he and the bed are soaked by or before morning.

This means I need to do more laundry - not because he doesn't have extra sheets but just because it smells bad. And it means he needs a bath/shower in the morning which we may or may not have time for.

I haven't done much research on this yet, because I just really would rather some veteran mommy advice, but I was comforted by some of the stats on this:

Fortunately I don't have any reason to believe this is caused by some sort of emotional trigger for Aiden but it worries me terribly that it's one of the top 3 fears of young kids to wet the bed.

I certainly don't think it's a HUGE deal when it happens, I don't get mad or frustrated with Aiden - it truly is one of the easier messes to clean, but I have noticed that he gets upset more often than not about it and I'm not sure why. Any ideas on comforting this would be helpful.

It seems like we are stuck somewhere between staying dry and that final stage where bed wetting stops completely but it could take another year or so - as with all milestones, I just need to remember that Aiden is going to do it at his own pace.

I think I am definitely going to have Aiden start helping clean the messes though, not in any negative way, I just don't want to brush it under the rug for him, especially if it's upsetting - if we can clean it up together, we can talk about it together and it's much less frightening.

Other than telling Aiden that he can go potty whenever he wants or needs though, I am not sure how to go about getting him to do so in the middle of the night - Veteran Mommy Advice Wanted Please.

Change is in the Air

We have been a little bit busy.

Grandma and Grandpa Tennant came to town and helped us move over Memorial Day weekend. The whole process went  very smoothly and amazingly fast. Grandma and Grandpa Deiker helped us a whole lot the week before so that was part of it, but boy when my Mama gets a plan in her head she just gets right to it.

We have so much space! Aiden loves having his own room and I love organizing it! More pictures and IKEA greatness to come :)

In the meantime, here are a couple cute pictures of us enjoying at least one day out of the holiday weekend.

Aiden and Daddy enjoying an Otter Pop!

Aiden being about as cool as anyone can get

Me and the Bubs 

It wouldn't be Memorial Day with out a marshmallow! We haven't had s'mores yet but hopefully things will settle down soon and we can get that pushed up on our priority list!

Anyway, besides moving over the long weekend, Randalicious and I kicked my car shopping into high gear hoping to get a new car before my tags expired.

Also, Frank, who I suspect knows he is being replaced, has been a real pain in my ass. One day last week I only had to jump start once, that was considered a good day. On the bright side, jump starting my car everywhere I went like a total bad ass made me feel incredibly awesome.

But not as awesome as I feels sitting high up in my graduation present:

It doesn't have a name yet but it's going to need two - one for the car and one for the bossy b*tch living in the radio!

So we have been working hard putting together all of our fun IKEA stuff and cleaning out boxes and settling in, really just working hard to make our new house a home. It felt awesome this weekend to take a break and take in a Rockies game with my pals.

When I got home on Sunday night - I found a surprise in Aiden's room...

A fort!

It was pretty cute. Steve was watching Aiden so I could go to the game and when I came home, they were camping and fishing in his room!!

Even more fun, we spent a little time in the new pool testing out Aiden's sea legs.

Of course that didn't wear him out enough to go right to bed, and of course he was up late on his last night before going to Summer Camp :)

This is also a big transition for us. He has been doing so well potty training that he will be moving to the older 3's class soon, new kids, new teachers, etc. But before that happens, he has Vacation Bible School in the morning which consists of very different structure and a much smaller group of kids. He really wasn't too sure about it after the first day but low and behold when it was time to go home today, he wanted to stay!

Parent Teacher Conferences Take Two

Things have really turned around for my Bubba this year - at his fall parent-teacher conference we were confronted with a speech barrier and poor responses, if any at all, to assessment questions. But with the help of speech therapy and some great involvement on behalf of Abiding Hope, he has come a long way.

He perfectly described a scene from a book, counted to 8 with no mistakes (higher with his own interpretation of sequence...) knew all of his colors, cut a line with scissors and man, my kid draws a mean circle!

He is talking wonderfully and communicating about his feelings. When one student pushed him, he was able to articulate to that kid how it felt and to resolve the conflict.

On top of that, he loves going to school! And best of all, he is now potty trained!! So he can attend Vacation Bible School in June and Summer Camp throughout the summer -- then he gets to go to the older threes class in the fall :) When we were talking about Summer Camp, Mrs. Hastings said he could probably move up to the older threes class during the summer since he is potty trained and that might help with their *one* concern.

Aiden, my precious angel - bless his heart, "growls" at other kids. Mind you me, I take parent-teacher conferences very seriously, but when Mrs. Hastings said that, I started laughing. Hysterically. I couldn't pull it together, I know it's not funny per se...but it's kinda funny. Considering last time I was crying after conferences -- to hear that your child "growls" at other kids is hilarious, period.

Anyway, the point is, he likes to play rough. He's used to playing with his doggies and his daddy, and his Lake Uncles - and they rough house. So that's how Aiden plays. Luckily, he gives 3 hugs for every growl he makes but still, the aggression might be tempered a bit by playing with older, more energetic, bigger kiddos.

So proud of my boy, he's really growing up - way too quick for my liking.

A Boy and His Dog

Play Hard - Sleep Hard

Call this a Whirl Wind

I have thought a great deal about what to title this post in order to describe the last two weeks - Jury duty, modeling gig, new apartment, Aiden updates, and fiery red hair - but there's just no way to be clever about it.

Jury duty was super intense, not only could I not talk about it, but I didn't really want to. And now that it's over, I still feel so burnt out on it that I still don't wanna talk about it, but I learned a lot met some really cool people and walked away from the experience feeling really good about my decisions.

I also had a modeling job which was a lot of fun, but super exhausting, and since it was for a hair company I had to get my hair done (by them obviously) so now I have copper-red hair...my hair has balls now they said!

Aiden got to spend half of this last week at Grandma and Grandpa Tennant's house so I could start packing and cleaning for our big move this month, but that meant he had to miss Aunt B's birthday which both parties were bummed about. We had a good time though, having family dinner and cake at home.

I am super excited to take Bre to use her Charming Charlie gift card and even more excited to go get a massage with her - it's about that time of year for us :)

After Bre's birthday I spent the next couple days cleaning and dropping things off at Goodwill, then I headed up the mountains to get Aiden and see Mom and Chris' new place.

It is beautiful!!

I am really looking forward to basking in the sun on this patio in the summer.

Aiden loves that there is water everywhere and tons of rocks to throw into it!

To the right of this bridge is their own private fishing pond complete with a canoe - Aiden is in heaven!

Watching him throw sticks and pine cones into the water reminded me a lot of Pooh Bear and Piglet playing Pooh Sticks.

Sadie is clearly enjoying her new boundless space, both the grass and the water.

I took Kane with me to get him some exercise -- he's hard to see out there in all that wide open-ness.

Aiden also got some play time with his pal Bella. She's about 2 years old and they had a great time, throwing sticks, playing in the mud and fighting over who's toy is whose. There was some serious nap-needing happening at the same time as a couple major bouts of only-child-syndrome.

For all the whining and crying happening on Sunday though, I have no complaints - Aiden spent the whole weekend in big-boy underwear with only one accident (which we kinda suspect was on purpose/out of curiosity) and we started the week out splendidly by wearing big boy underwear to school today!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish - We Got A Blue Fish

Aiden has a new pet. Despite my best efforts to get him named "Mr. Boogers" or "Viking" -- he name is, of course, Nemo.

We had to get the fanciest fish bowl and coolest rocks, and what would be the point if the decorations didn't glow in the dark.

Since it was Steve's idea (a reward for Aiden doing so well on the potty) I made him set it up. It was actually originally going to live at Steve's house, but somehow ended up at ours :)

The boys had a really good time getting it all set up and when we turned the lights off to see how it looked, Aiden went crazy! He absolutely loved it.

Aiden actually spent most of the evening "watchin feesh" and changing the color of the light.

Now I only pray that Nemo and the bowl are still in one piece when I get home.

Wordless Wednesday - King of the Throne

Look how full the potty chart is!

With a present from his prize basket.

Easter Re-cap

Church did not go well with Aiden at Christmas. He cried all the way there, screamed during the service and ruined my hair. So he didn't go to church on Easter.

But he did spend some good, quality time at Grandma and Grandpa Deiker's.

Instead of a basket this year, I got him a bucket to use at the beach this summer. He is already very excited about going to the beach and keeps putting the bucket by our front door and telling me, "Remember my bucket for beach."

The bucket doubled as his egg collector too! We may have over done it on the eggs - he and Dana had about 5 dozen to find in about 500 square feet of space.

There were so many eggs in so little space, he got really distracted and missed a bunch off the bat!

Good thing Buggey was there to help find them all.

He had to dump the bucket half way through so he could get more!

Oh boy was it exciting when he realized they were filled with money!

We had a no-candy Easter ;)

Here, Daddy is trying to explain the difference between pennies, nickles, dimes and quarters - we've been working on it a lot but Aiden is kinda like, "Whatever dude, hands off my eggs k?"

Aiden's second cousin Truly, who is 5 months old and a whole 7 pounds of adorable was in attendance as well. Aiden was extremely fascinated with the "baby" and all week has been asking, "Mommy, what baby doing?"

He even got caught givin her a couple smooches :)

As I mentioned earlier this week in my Spring Cleaning post - there was a funny poop incident followed by a potty triumph. 

While "mowing" the yard with his lawn-mower-bubble-maker toy, Aiden made a dash over to where I was sitting. Half way across the yard, he slowed to a very dramatic, slow-motion walk and started breathing really heavily. First I thought he was having some sort of asthma attack but when  he got to me I asked, "Do you need to poop?"

He bent over and leaned on his knees with both hands, sort of squatted down and let out a very exasperated, "Yeaaaaaahhhh." Too late.

I was baffled that he would a. do it right in front of me like that and b. in total disbelief that it even happened. It was hysterical.

He's been getting very upset when he has accidents, so I was trying hard to make sure he knew I wasn't making fun of him and took him inside to get changed. About 5 minutes after, he asked if he could go to the potty again, sat right down and did a big boy poop!!

At Grandma Deiker's house he has a basket of "presents" - when he poops in the toilet he gets to pick one. I think between the presents and feeling so bad about having accidents, we may have reached a potty-training-turning-point!! 

Hallelujah and Happy Easter!!