Bicycle Mamas.

We've been toying with the idea of getting Lily a bicycle this summer and we've just never quite gotten around to it.  We've also talked about getting one of those pull behind bikes but never did anything about that either.  

Well today, Joel saw one for sale on Facebook and we bought it!  

Lily absolutely LOVED IT.  She laughed and talked and was ridiculously excited to ride this thing.  After we road once around the block just to test it out, she wanted to go again.  So we took a longer ride - about 3 miles - and she did great!

Me, on the other hand.....boy, it was a workout!  I really didn't expect it to be harder to pull than the trailer loaded up with both kids, but I think it is.  No clue why because she actually can pedal and it does help move us along.  The other thing that's strange is just learning the balance.  It's a totally different experience riding with her back there.  Every little move she makes, I can feel.  It's going to take some getting used to. 

But she loved it so much, that the extra work is totally worth it.  

Sad Consequences.

I recently ran across the term "sad consequence" when referring to a child being punished for poor behavior.  I decided that I really liked this term because when you say that, you aren't committing yourself to a specific punishment.  Maybe a sad consequence is time out.  Maybe it's no dessert.  Maybe it's loss of a favorite toy.  

Anyhow, I started using this term with Lily.  If she misbehaves, I ask her if she wants a sad consequence.  Well, I'm sure she has NO FREAKIN CLUE what a consequence is, but the very thought of it must terrify her because EVERY TIME I've brought it up, she's immediately corrected the bad behavior to avoid this mysterious thing known as a sad consequence!  We'll see how long she stays scared of consequences, but for now, it works like a charm.  Teehee!

The kiddos had their first experience with an ice cream truck.  Unfortunately my pictures suck, but they were pretty excited about the whole thing.  Tyler got an orange pushup - I have fond memories of those!  Lily, my super vanilla picky child, choose a cup of vanilla ice cream.  All those colorful options and she wants just plain vanilla.

These two kiddos are ridiculous in the bath tub.  If I'm not in there moderating, the whole bathroom gets soaked.  This is their thing now....laying down and then kicking their legs and splashing like they were taught in swim lessons.  Could we get them to do that while they were in swim lessons??  NO.  But at home in the bath tub, you betcha!

We recently got Tyler an electric toothbrush.  I'm pretty sure he now has the cleanest teeth of all two year olds on the face of the planet.  He has been known to brush his teeth for like 30 minutes at a time.

The daycare thought Tyler had hand, foot and mouth a couple weeks ago so Joel had to pick him up in the afternoon and then stay home with him the next day.  Given that Tyler wasn't REALLY sick, but rather just not welcome at daycare, he and Joel had a big ol time playing hooky.

 

Tyler's getting along really well in his new bed.  He piled up all these friends while Joel was reading him a story one night.  Pretty stinkin cute.  He's in his "soup man" shirt.  Superman, Batman, Spiderman - pretty much all super heros are known as "soup man."  This shirt is not jammies but he's getting to the phase where he wants to pick what he wears and he's a little insistent sometimes on what it is.  On this particular occasion, I had him in the Thomas the Train jammies shirt and he ripped and pulled and stretched the neck of it out and eventually got the shirt off and threw it across the room.  It's probably ruined.  I guess that'll teach me to try to convince him to wear something he doesn't want to wear.  Prima donna.

Pieces of Jason Daniel showing up in Tyler Daniel.

Tyler, apparently, hates loud noises.  Just like his Uncle Jason.  Loud noise = fingers in the ears.  It's hysterical!

Lily, on the other hand, doesn't mind the noise but the wind...OH the wind!  "It's windy.  Mommy, It's WINDY!"

In spite of the wind and the noise, the kiddos do love riding in the Bronco!  Especially cause it usually means we're doing something exciting like going for ice cream!

Poopin' on the Potty is a Big Deal in our House.

Wait, what?

Oh yes.  This guy:

This guy, pooped on the potty.  

Over the past couple months, we've been trying to get Tyler used to the potty.  We're not super consistent, but generally we've been getting him to sit on the potty at least once a day.  Mostly just for familiarity purposes.  We haven't really expected him to actually go largely because when we sit him on the potty it's typically during the process of changing an already soiled diaper.  

Anyhow, this morning when changing him and getting him dressed, he told me he wanted to go sit on the potty.  I was already running late and wasn't really in the mood for the potty this morning, but I'm pretty sure there's a line in the parent handbook, in the potty training section, that says something like "Never deny your child's request to sit on the potty."

So off to the bathroom we go and I sit him on the potty and he proceeds to play with the potty seat and his boy parts and just generally having a good ol time sittin there grinning at me.  I'm getting impatient and keep asking him every 7 seconds if he's done.  He keeps saying no.  So I told him I needed to go finish getting ready for work and he could stay on the potty as long as he likes.

I go back to my bathroom and I'm not in there 30 seconds before he hollers in his sing song voice, "I DOO-OOONE!"  (When did he grow up???)  So, with a big eye roll, I walk back to his bathroom and he says, "I poop."  Whaaaaat?

I pick his little butt up off the toilet and sure enough, there is a gift staring back at me!  (You're welcome for not posting a picture of it.)

However, I'm immediately skeptical cause it's not usual for his sissy to forget to flush the toilet after she's done using it.  I checked his butt for evidence, found some and commenced with the celebrating, high fiving, and fist bumping.

Then we had to call Daddy and tell him.  And in all the excitement about pooping, I forgot to have the kids tell their Daddy happy birthday.  My bad.  But it was poop!  In the proper location!  Can you blame me for being distracted?

We did try to make it up to Daddy by having some cookies and creme pie for dessert tonight (Lily picked it out).  We put 3 blue candles (don't ask me why 3...Lily said that was the right amount) and all sang Happy Birthday, which is to say, I sang it and Lily chimed in at the very end.  Tyler just kept sticking his fingers in the pie, too anxious to wait until singing was over to eat some.

Happy Birthday Babe!  So cool that you can share your birthday with such a monumental milestone in your son's life.  Ha!

AAAARRRGG!

We have two pirates in the Basham household.  Jumping monkey-on-the-bed-pirates actually.  These are their "Aaaarrg!" faces.  

This is what we did tonight instead of going to swim lessons since it was raining.  Swim lessons have improved, though, since the first two nights.  Nights 3 and 4 went a lot better with Lily.  Not sure if it was the ice cream bribe Joel used on night 3 that helped her turn the corner or what.  Whatever the reason, she participated and it wasn't a 30 minute cry fest so that was nice.  Unfortunately, we're likely to miss out on the entire second week.  Between tonight's rain and the next two days with a high of only 70 degrees, outdoor swim lessons aren't looking favorable.  Bummer.  

Even after all that cuteness pictured above, I'm in a funk from bedtime which is currently wearing me and Joel the hell out.  A few weeks ago, we came up with a new rule that we need to alternate putting each kid to bed - to get away from me always doing Lily and Joel always doing Tyler.  

Well, the kids do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT appreciate this rule.  They both usually melt down, scream, cry, hit, kick, run for the other parent, throw things, refuse to brush teeth or pick up toys.  You name it, we experience it.  It is miserable.  I keep thinking, surely tonight will be better with no drama.  Surely tonight, Lily will just willing go to bed and let Joel read to her.  Nope.  We should not dread bedtime just because it's my turn to read to Tyler and Joel's turn to read to Lily.  This is a tough battle to want to continue to fight.  It's one of those things that you KNOW it would just be easier to just go back to the way it was before - we were a well oiled machine.  But I felt like I was missing a huge part of Tyler's development because so much gets shared at that one on one story time (well at least it should if we weren't so busy dealing with tantrums.....).  I know we'll get past this, but man, I wish this storm would just hurry up already.

With all of that griping I should recognize that we are coming off of a really nice weekend where the kids were well behaved like 90% of the time - pretty remarkable stats I think!

Oh and there was this really cute conversation today:

Lily:  Mommy, did you go to your new job today?

Me:  Yep I did!

Lily:  Well I went to my new job too!

Me:  You did?!  What do you do at your job?

Lily:  I play with babies.

Me:  Oh, that's great!  Do you color?  

Lily:  Yep. 

Me:  Do you sing songs?

Lily:  Nooooooo.  Well maybe just a little bit of songs.

Me:  Do you watch movies?

Lily:  Oh yes!  We watch lots of movies at my work.

Me:  It sounds like you have the best job EVER!

Lily:  Yep.

Ok, now there's only a little of the funk left.  Good thing I have enough points left over tonight for cookies to completely eliminate the remainder of the funk.  

My kid is THAT kid.

We enrolled the kiddos in swim lessons this summer and they started last night. 

Tyler's in the parent-child class so Joel's been in the pool with him. He's done ok in the class but gets pretty cold before his 30 minutes is up.  And he's not too interested in following directions (sound familiar?).

Lily on the other hand......yeah she's not that in to it. Last night she never cried but she just stubbornly sat on the side of the pool and didn't do ANYTHING.  They kept trying to encourage her but she just wasn't having it.  

Tonight, before we ever left the house, she told me she didn't want to go.  "I don't like swimming."  Bull-larkey!  "You like swimming and I paid and you're going and it's gonna be fun!"  Am I the stereotypical parent, or what?!

We got there and she proceeded to cry, scream even, for the next 25 minutes.  The other kids are like, "What is her DEAL???"  For the last 5 minutes, she did stop crying long enough to do ONE of the things they asked her to do.  Sigh.  Maybe tomorrow will be better.

In Lily's defense, sometimes she's a total rockstar in new situations.  Yesterday we made it back to the dentist for her first real appointment and she did awesome....The only thing she was a little skittish about was sitting in the chair by herself.  She sat on my lap while they cleaned and then checked her teeth.  But she did everything they asked her to do and was super cooperative.  Good girl!

Big Boy Bed. On. The. First. (Real.) Try.

Oh yes.  Yes, we did.  Please-don't-let-me-jinx-it-by-writing-about-it.

On our trip to Evansville last weekend, we brought back my old twin bed and set it up in Tyler's room.  He was immediately interested in it.  The plan was just to have it in Tyler's room for a while and let him get used to the idea.  But he was immediately taken with it so I rushed out to the store to get a mattress pad in case we could get him to sleep in it that night.  

We were close, but he said he didn't want to and we didn't push it.

Then Sunday, at nap, I suggested we try to get him to sleep there.  And he did with no protesting.  Sunday night, we tried it again and he asked to sleep in his crib, but I convinced him to sleep in his bed.  And he did.  All night.  

On Monday night, he begged Joel to sleep in his crib, but Daddy convinced him to sleep in his big boy bed and he did!  All night.  (He did startle the crap out of me this morning while I was flipped upside down blow drying my hair....but it was 6:15 and a perfectly acceptable time for him to get up.)

Now the crib is outta there!  Out of sight, out of mind and he didn't even ask about it tonight.  (Pictures were taken before crib dismantling.)  Now I need to start thinking about redecorating his room so it doesn't look like a baby nursery....There's always something, ain't there?

I refuse to say "this was SOOOOO easy" because then I will for sure jinx it..... but, ya know, it wasn't sooooooo hard.  

Bring on the potty training!  Bwwaaahahahahahahha!  

(I'm so screwed for saying that!)

Fourth of July.

Happy (belated) Fourth of July!  We spent part of our long weekend at Grams house, living it up by the swimming pool.  Grams didn't mess around and she put these kiddos to work.  Actually, she's got it all figured out..... she had them BEGGING HER if they could vacuum the pool.  If only I could figure out this trick so they would beg me to clean up their toys.....hmm...

Most of the morning of the Fourth was pretty miserable.  The kiddos were tired, super crabby and generally horrible to be around.  It was the kind of day where you rush lunch time and eat as early as possible in order to get to nap time sooner rather than later.  After napping for THREE HOURS, I finally go wake Lily up.  She hasn't taken a three hour nap in nearly a year.  About 30 minutes after that, Tyler finally got up.  They.  Were. Tired.

After that, it was a whole different story.  Way more agreeable to having fun instead of fussing and crying.  

There was a little bit of lazy floating going on.

Some jumping off the diving board.

Some popsicle eating.

And some poolside selfies.

After dinner, it was the moment Lily had been waiting for for a whole week!  Fireworks!  She was with me when we had bought a package of fireworks from Walmart and she had been asking and asking and asking and asking when it was going to be time for the fireworks.

Ohhhh, the anticipation!!

Tyler didn't care much for the noise.

The kids would take turns picking an explosive from the box and would "help" Daddy set them up in the driveway.

And then they'd run to the side of the driveway where they had to be "behind the line" before Daddy would light them.

 Tyler really didn't like the noise.

As soon as the fireworks were all done ($20 worth of fireworks done in probably 20 minutes or so), Joel and I ran while the kids weren't looking and took ourselves to a movie!  Thanks Grams!

We headed back to Columbus on Saturday after lunch and the kids slept most of the way.  Travelling with toddlers is all in the timing.  The car ride was so peaceful since they both slept for most of the way.  

We had to stop for gas.... which meant we had to pee..... which meant we walked by the candy counter.... which meant Mommy couldn't say no.  You'd think after 3.5 years of children in my life, I'd have learned a lesson about what kind of candy to direct the kids' attention to when riding in a car.  You know, something NOT chocolate and therefore NOT melty.....When will I learn??