I totally need to get more creative with my "veggie hiding" when cooking for the boys. Ian saw a picture of green beans in a book yesterday and said, "green bean casserole!" Well, what can I say. Putting them on a plate and calling them Super Green Power Rods only garnered enough interest for them to emit a few sound effects and launch them one-by-one to the floor.
Santa was generous enough to swing by our subdivision one evening. We made a deal of it, tossing the boys in the car and letting them cruise, unbuckled, through the neighborhood as we searched for Christmas decorations. Several houses had the sidewalks lined with glowing candy canes. The boys cheered for the candy canes, as if they had planted their own sweet selves in nearly-straight rows. When we arrived at the clubhouse, Ian celebrates, "Yay! We're at the North Pole!" He shoots out of the car and up to the door, and once inside, squiggles through the throng to get a not-too-close peek. Satisfied with the sighting, he raids the dessert table, chugs some hot chocolate and starts jumping and dancing and diving under the table. Neither of our kids have any interest in getting close to Santa, so Ian hollers "Goodbye!" to Santa, who is busy grinning for a camera, and he prances back to the car. For the next couple of hours, he asks to go see Santa again, but it's late and we have lots of sugar to burn before bedtime.
It's probably time to start wrapping presents. We're going to have a GA Christmas and a FL Christmas. I've done an inordinate amount of Christmas shopping online this year, so hopefully the deliveries will be rolling in soon. After his drawn-out birthday and the approaching drawn-out Christmas, we're going to have to enroll Ian in a 12-Step program for gift addiction recovery. On the first day of Christmas, I admit I'm obsessed with wrapping paper...
I'm excited to say Ian is probably officially potty-trained. I haven't looked up the official Certified Research Academy of Potty Training guidelines, but he hasn't had any accidents, he's randomly decided he's willing to go on "big" potties (even in public places!), and only gets 'suggestions' from us right before bed or long road trips. I'm not sure what has occurred in the blur of the last month to make all this possible. We really have done nothing but let him figure out his own body and provide choices of what undergarment he'd like to wear and where/how/if he wants to "go."
At some point we got all tangled up in our own frustration of trying to "make" it happen, so we just gave up trying, really. We'd usually describe his behavior to him and help him try to link that with what his body was telling him (You're dancing. Your body is telling you it wants to pee. There's your potty if you want to pee.). We didn't think he had attachment issues with his poop/pee, but we explained that it's just parts of food he ate and other 'trash' his body doesn't want anymore. We pointed out how when his belly grumbles, his body is telling him it wants food and he eats. When his mouth is dry, he drinks. When his nose tickles, he sneezes, and so forth, and then pointed out the potty signals. After that, we turned it over to him. No more reminders to go or anything. Maybe he just needed the time and space to figure it out himself.
Ian's been enjoying a steady trickle of gifts and cards mailed from relatives. On his actual birthday, he got a motorized Cars racetrack that came with Lightning McQueen. He was so excited. After playing a while, he came to me and said, "We need to go to the store and get Mater." Oh dear, he's got it figured out already. When he took a break, Isaac was turning the track on. Ian told him "No noise, baby. It hurts my ears" and turned it off. Isaac turned it on again. Ian said, "Baby, I know you want to play with it, but no more noise. It hurts my ears" and turned it off again and asked me to put it away. It's good to see he also practices tactics from those times when Mommy isn't a beast.
Isaac woke up on one of those rare occasions when Ian and I were already up, and got out of bed and walked out -- not sitting in bed crying (also rare) -- toddled past me (another rarity), inquiring, "Ian?" He found Ian in the kitchen and threw his arms around him and Ian hugged him back (getting rarer yet). It's the cutest thing ever when they hug! Usually one is offering and the other wants nothing to do with it. Sometimes the sibling stars align, and...cute cute cute!!!
Isaac is sitting on the floor now in a pile of books. I just heard him close one and proclaim, "Great Tory!" His word combos are getting longer. Probably the best yet was when he stuck his toe up and said, "Kiss toe. Nay bip-per hurt me (nail clipper)." Not to change topics, but I'm pretty impressed with his soccer skills too. He loves to run behind a ball and seems to have a knack for kicking. So far I have a mechanic/engineer and an athlete/diplomat.
I've stalled long enough. Time to go attack the Godzilla-sized pile of laundry. :(
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