Friends Names

Upon entering tumbling class this week, Reese ran into one of the other girls in the class. SHe immediately told me, "Mom, that girls' name is Santa."

I responded, "No, honey. There is only one Santa."

Reese: "Mom, her name is Santa!"

Me: "OK Reese."

Then the kids lined up and the teacher began to do the roll call. They got to Reese's friend Santa and called, "Samantha".

Jabber box

Just a few weeks ago, when I would call my mom the kids would beg to talk to her and then spend the entire time on the phone nodding their heads and grunting their responses to her questions about their day.

Last night, while driving home from Reese's tumbling class, I gave Reese the phone to call Grandma Potter....and she talked her ear off! Reese blabbed on and on and on. She did give me the phone so that I could say a quick hello, but then she was crying for the phone back immediately!

Reese's independence in public has increased as well. Whenever people used to ask her a question, she would look to me to answer or kind of grunt a response. She would never approach people, even kids her own age. Now she often responds with very lengthy answers when people ask her a question. She also has several "friends" in her preschool and tumbling classes that she talks with and tells me about.

It has been so fun to see this transformation in Reese from shy, quiet, mommy's girl to outgoing, friendly and talkative individual. I credit a lot of the transformation to Reese's time at preschool and also involvement in activities with girls her own age (swim and tumbling). I can't wait to see her interactions with her peers as she starts kindergarten and 1st grade.

Golden Hair

Reese took her bath tonight after watching the movie "Tangled". There is one scene in the movie where Rapunzel is stuck inside a cavern that is filling up with water. She starts singing and her hair lights up so that they can see to unblock the entrance to the cavern. While Reese was playing in the tub, she began singing, "Flower gleam and glow. Let your powers show. Make the clock reverse. Bring back what once was mine." While singing she was really getting into it, closing her eyes and rolling her shoulders. She looked up to see me watching her and asked, "Mommy, did my hair start glowing?" I said yes even though I was giggling and could not keep a straight face. She believed me and immediately asked, "Really?" I couldn't keep it up and finally told her,"no, but that she did a great job singing!" It was so cute!

Body Art

Soon after I dropped the kids off at their grammy's, I got a call. My mother-in-law was laughing so hysterically, that she could barely tell me what happened. Sometime after I left, Reese showed off a small sticker that she had placed over her belly button. Debbie asked her what it was? To which Reese replied, matter of factly, "That is my sticker, I hided it from mommy!"

This girl is going to be a handful!

Important too!

While driving home today, the kids and I were having a discussion about pre-school. Reese again took the opportunity to take a dig at Aidan because she goes to pre-school and he does not.

Reese: "I go to school because I am an important girl!"

Aidan: "No. I important g...."

Me: (interrupting) "Aidan, are you an important boy?"

Aidan: "No. I important cowboy boy!"

Where do they come up with this stuff?

Kind of a big deal!

As we were getting ready to leave the house this morning, Aidan asked if he could go to Pre-school. I began explaining to him that he was not old enough and that I would take him to Pre-school as soon as he was old enough. As I was trying to calm him down and divert his attention with all of the other fun things he would be doing today, Reese piped up with, "I am just more important!" Definitely not the words of encouragement that Aidan was needing!
He was so distracted by toys and friends when I dropped him off at Grammys' this morning that he didn't even give me a kiss goodbye. It was a totally different story when I returned a few hours later to drop off Reese. As soon as we walked in the door from Pre-School, Aidan came walking up to me, shoes in hand, asking, "I go to Pre-School mommy?"
The Pre-School teacher asked how old Aidan was at the open house we attended before school started. She informed us that they also have a 3 year old program. At the time I didn't think much of it, but now I am starting to think that we are going to have to sign him up if it can at all coordinate with the times that Reese is there. I really don't think that he can make it until February, let alone 2 more years!

Future Triple Threat

My recent vidoes of Reese show that she is sure to be a triple threat in the future! Singing, dancing and acting: whatever the activity, Reese loves to be in the lime light.

Sleepyheads

We had a very busy weekend this past weekend! By Sunday afternoon, the kids were incredibly crabby and in desperate need of a nap. I brought them home from the beach around 3pm and put them to bed after a quick bath. At about 6 they were still sleeping. I went upstairs to wake them up and found Aidan laying on the side of the bed in a most unusual position. I had to take a picture before waking him up:

After snapping his picture, I ran into Reese's room to snap a picture before she had a chance to wake up:

I hated to wake them up, but knew that if I didn't they would be up in the middle of the night!
After this week, I am so ready for the cooler temperatures and lazy weekends spent at home! Bring on fall!

Everyone Poops

My main goal over the summer was to potty train my son. While we were successful in getting him to "peep" on the toilet, pooping on the toilet was not even close! He does let us know that he has to poop by telling us several times that he has to go "peep" but not doing anything when he sits on the toilet. Recently he has strictly been pooping during naptime or at night when he wears a pullup to bed. When he "woke up" about 30 minutes later than normal one day with poop all up his back and all over his room, I realized that he was avoiding using the toilet. Since he is not motivated by candy or sweets, and is completely obsessed with matchbox cars, I decided that I would use cars as a motivator. I immediately went out and bought several cars and put them in a bucket in the bathroom. I promised Aidan that he could pick out one car everytime that he pooped on the toilet and told him that I would take one car away every time he pooped in his underpants/pullups. He immediately wanted to sit on the toilet and poop, so I was sure I was mom of the year that he understood the deal and would be on his way to being fully trained. He sat until bedtime but could not go, so I put him to bed and told him we could try in the morning. The next day at grammy's he had a potty accident, which he had not done in a very long time, so I took a car away from him and put it in the bucket in the bathroom. That very same night, he told me that he had to poop and actually went on the toilet. Yay, he got his car back! Last night Aidan told me that he had to go poop and after getting him to the bathroom, I discovered that he had already started to go in his pants. I was very disappointed and contemplated taking a car away again, but since he had diarrhea, I gave him some slack and actually let him pick a car for finishing on the toilet. I am hoping that now we are really on our way to being fully trained!

First tumbling lesson

Reese is such a performer and is always dancing and singing around the house, so I thought that she would enjoy taking a class in dance or gymnastics where she could learn some basic skills, be active and have fun. We signed her up at a local dance company and she started a tumbling class tonight. They started the class with some pretty simple stretching, grabbing their toes and bending and stretching their legs. As they were swinging their legs in the air, Reese kept checking to see if I was looking. Next she instructed the girls to lie on their bellies and arch their head and feet to try to get them to touch. Reese did pretty well at this and was doing a great job following directions. She seemed to be having a very good time! After a few minutes of that, the teacher had the girls lie on their backs with their knees up and hands by their heads. She instructed them to push their belly buttons to the sky and make a table. Reese had some difficulty in attempting this skill and needed several remiders to keep her hands up by her head. She kept doing more of a crab walk, so the teacher had to keep moving her hands up by her head. Reese kept trying but got very frustrated and soon started crying. My heart broke as she sat there on the mat telling me that she just couldn't do it. I tried to tell her that it was ok and to just keep practicing. The teacher gave her a nice hug and some words of encouragement and then they were on to the next skill. Thankfully, grammy Debbie has worked with the kids on somersaults, so Reese was able to perform this skill without much help from the teacher, which boosted her confidence a bit. After somersaults, they moved on to cartwheels. As well as Reese could do somersaults, she was completely opposite on cartwheels. The teacher showed them to fall to the side, touch both hands to the mat and then both feet. Reese took fall to the mat literally and kept falling onto the mat like a ton of bricks! After a few attempts she was very upset and crying again. I wanted so bad to go out on the floor and guide her, but did not feel that that would be appropriate. She was so upset that the teacher had another talk with her and then sent her to get a drink and regroup. When she came back they began hoping on one leg, which Reese did more as a !skip. Finally, they did an obstacle course: slide, crawl through tunnel, balance beam and jump off of the trampoline. Reese did the course 4 times in the time that the other girls did 2! I couldn't believe the energy she had left in her!

Finally they sat back in a circle and the teacher asked each girl to name a hero. She gave the example of anything from superman, to a cartoon character to mom or dad. The first girl said her mom was her hero. When Reese's turn came, she answered dad! I'm thinking that she thought that mom was already taken, so she went with the next best option! Haha! No, it didn't suprise me because she has always been a daddy's girl!

All in all, I think that the class went pretty well. I explained to Reese on the way home that we don't need to cry if we can't do something in class, we will just practice it at home and in class. I revealed to her that I still do not know how to do a cartwheel because I never practiced it, to which she responded, "I will teach you mommy!" I am glad that she actively participated in the class and really seemed to want to learn the skills. It did upset me that she got so worked up over not being able to do something immediately, but that is the way she is with anything, puzzles, getting dressed, playing a game. She is very much a perfectionist like me and gets frustrated very easily if she does not excel at something. Hopefully, this experience will teach her to keep practicing and to have a little more patience. Though if she told me tomorrow that she never wanted to go to dance again, I would respect her decision.

Shots are fun!

I took Aidan back to the doctor tonight to have his ears rechecked. Since the ear infection was cleared, they went ahead with the vaccination that we originally had scheduled 2 weeks ago. He fought me as I laid him down on the table and exposed his leg for the nurse to give him the shot. He gave me a pained look and started to cry as the needle went in. When it was finished I gave him back his paper and pen to doodle on and carried him out to the car. His face was still red but he seemed to have forgotten all about the shot. As I was buckling him into his seat, he said,
"That was fun at the doctor mom."

Obviously it was a lot of fun, because as I tucked him into bed tonight he said, "I go back to the doctor?" Not sure if he really enjoys going to the doctor or if maybe he feels special having all of the attention on him and not having to share with his older sister!

Firefighter

We were playing outside when Aidan told me that he had to "peep". His voice sounded urgent and he was grabbing himself. Rather than waste time taking him into the house, I quickly pulled his pants down so he could do his business. He started urinating and he said, "Haha, I get you rock, haha!" I looked and he was urinating right onto a rock in the driveway. He still usually sits down on the potty chair to urinate, but this definitely affirms that putting cheerios in the toilet could be an excellent tool for teaching Aidan to aim in the toilet while standing.