Potty training FAIL

Yup, I am a total failure. All hepped up to potty train Lincoln this week (Spring Break) and the little booger starts being non-cooperative.

He's been doing great occasinally sitting on the potty, has peed & pooped in it many times, so I figured the real deal would be a cakewalk. WRONG!

Today I put him in real underwear with plastic pants over it, and had him sit on the potty every 15-20 minutes (like yesterday, only in pull-ups yesterday). He peed in the potty ONCE--every other time, he peed in his underpants soon after standing up from the potty.

SO. I am frustrated and just gave up, cried, and now feel like a failure. He's back in pull-ups and we'll sit on the potty every so often. And Lincoln will be in pull-ups until he can drive.

Snow adventure

The first week of February, we had four snow days in a row, Tuesday-Friday. FOUR. It was great! Especially as I was at a conference that Monday, so had a nine day break from school. YES. It was very therapeutic.

Anyway, it was so bitterly cold that I couldn't take Lincoln out until that Thursday, Feb. 3rd. Then I decided I just couldn't take it anymore, bundled him up so tightly that he sort of reminded me of the little brother in A Christmas Story, and out we went to risk hypothermia for his first snow adventure!!

All ready to go! At least Lincoln can mostly put his arms down:

Digging & throwing:

Link had a BLAST shoveling & filling his bucket!:

In fact, Link had so much fun that my mom took him out a second time when she came over. And he had SO much fun shoveling the snow with her that he threw a monster fit when it was time to come in. It was the first real tantrum Mom had witnessed from him. Lucky Grandma!

After he calmed down, we made sugar cookies. It was so much fun, and Lincoln did a great job!

Rollin' rollin' rollin':

Cutting out the cookies was fun!:

We were all three exhausted after our day o' fun. It was great!

Baby boy ultrasound pics

Both from the ultrasound a couple of weeks ago when we found out he's a boy!

Notice how much his wee profile looks like Lincoln's? They have the same nose!

Christmas photos, belatedly

Better late than never!

Our first decent family photo since last Christmas!

Now if I can only get George to take off his hat.

Best part of Christmas morning: playing in the wrapping paper!

Lincoln's monkey hat and mittens:

And his "Home Alone" impression:

Such a big boy!

Back to it

Back to the grind with the first day of school today. I really am trying to be positive, but pretty much failing! I am so used now to staying home and enjoying Lincoln that it's heartbreaking to be away from him all day long.

At least we only have 4 days this week and the long weekend for Martin Luther King day coming up. I will survive!

Santa

Note to self for future free photos with Santa at Bass Pro: the key is to get there FIVE HOURS before you actually want the photo, get a place holder card, come back at the appointed time and go straight to the front of the line (yesterday night).

This is as opposed to showing up at 4:45 and being told the next opening is at 7:30 (Tuesday night).

So there was no screaming involved with seeing Santa this year! Lincoln sat on Santa's lap, played with the candy cane, and eventually told Santa he wants a "dog--a dachshund dog."

Clearly, this was George's coaching!





And yes, our child does actually have clothing that fits--his pants just rode up a tad. :)


The screaming came before we saw Santa, when I took him to get his second-ever haircut. He had his first in September and did GREAT, so naturally I expected this again this time.


NOPE!


Lincoln freaked out when the girl came at him with spray bottle & scissors. He had his mouth full of chocolate animal crackers, so when he started screaming, little bits of them fell onto his chin, and he started drooling brown all down his face--it was so attractive.


I managed to distract him off and on by asking him what animals the crackers were and pointing out that the kids in the movie (Polar Express) were about to FALL OFF THE CLIFF! He'd be fine for a minute or two, and then every couple of minutes or so would catch a glimpse of the stylist in the mirror and start freaking out again.


It was GRAND. Especially since she didn't have a chance to get his hair as short as I wanted it, so we'll be back again next month. OH BOY!

Lincoln's big announcement

Lincoln will have a little brother or sister in June 2011! (the 23rd is the official due date)

When asked, Lincoln will say Mommy has a baby in her belly and lift my shirt to see my (already-protruding) stomach. Then he'll lift his own shirt and say, "Lincoln baby belly." So pretty sure he doesn't totally get it just yet. :)

Story to follow!

Halloween

So this was our Halloween:

After begging to wear "Yoda ears" all the time after his costume arrived on Thursday, when it came time to be Yoda on Sunday night, Lincoln refused to have anything to do with his costume.

Me: "Lincoln, it's time for Yoda ears! Are you ready to be Yoda?"

Lincoln: "No."

[George and I look bewilderedly at each other.]

Me: "Come on, buddy, you get to be Yoda and see PawPaw and Grandma and Zack! But we can't go see them unless you're Yoda."

Lincoln: "No."

Me: "Don't you want to see John and Kristy? And their puppies?"

Lincoln: "John. Kwisty. Puppies?"

Me: "Yeah, but you have to be Yoda!"

Lincoln: "No."

This went on for HALF AN HOUR, with George and I taking turns cajoling, pleading, threatening ("Fine, we'll just stay home! Is that what you want?" "Yes."), wheedling, even (gasp!) bribing...to no avail. Everything we tried was met with sheer obstinancy!

Finally, I called Mom and told her we weren't going to come over. She suggested we bring him anyway because she had stuff for him.

So, we went to Dad and Mom's and FINALLY got Lincoln to put his costume on when we got out of the car. He was good at the neighbor's, happy at Mom and Dad's, screamed his head off at the other neighbor's, and a perfect doll at John and Kristy's.

And we were exhausted by the time we got home!

Seriously, how come none of the parenting books or magazines warn you about this side of toddlers and Halloween??

Here are some pretty cute photos for your viewing enjoyment, but please don't judge us on the red light saber, which obviously isn't the correct color for Yoda, but is all we had (George wants me to tell you that):

Use the force!

Yoda definitely wasn't this cute!

Kiss kiss:

Thanks, Grandma!

Ha ha! Gotcha, Daadaa!

The REAL DEAL

I was finally able to get photos of Lincoln's REAL haircut off my phone. Enjoy!

I love you

Lincoln now says "I love you!" It is so awesome and exciting to hear!