Poop on Day 4!

Jax went #2 in the potty this morning.  It's funny that parents can get so excited over a pile of human waste, but I know all you other parents out there can relate.  I even took a picture and texted it to Daddy.  He immediately called to talk to Jax and praise his little pants off.

He tinkled in the potty more than he wet his underwear today, so we're definitely making progress!

I'm ready to blog about something other than tinkle and poop, but this is seriously all I think about and deal with all day long.  There's really no new exciting material to be shared with you all. 

Actually, I did think of something today that I forgot to blog about.  On Mother's Day, Emerson woke me up holding a new HD camcorder.  Daddy had agreed that we weren't doing Mother's/Father's Day gifts this year, but he didn't stick to the rules.  I cried like a baby.  I have enjoyed taking videos of my babes once again.  Love you, sweet boy.

Early success...

Day 3 of potty training... Jax tinkled 5 times in the potty today!  He probably tinkled in his underwear at least that many times, but I'm thrilled that he finally 'gets it.'  Part of what helped him today was me stepping out of the bathroom to give him a little privacy.  Imagine that, a son not wanting his overbearing mother staring at him while he relieves himself.  It was so cute to stand just outside the bathroom door and hear him grunt to get his tinkle out. 

After naptime, he started losing his positive attitude just a wee bit.  I would take him to his potty chair, sit him down on it, and say, "Okay, Jaxey.  Now it's time for you to go tinkle and poo-poo."  He starting saying "nev-uh, nope, nope!" with his hand straight out, shaking his head violently back and forth until he made himself laugh.  Is there such thing as being potty-drunk? 

Now I'm just ready for the poop to go in the toilet.  I know this is gross, but I have a spoon in the laundry room sink that I use to remove the poop from the underwear before I soak them in Oxyclean before they go in the wash.  I promise you that spoon is going in the trash when this is all said and done.  It's a cheap serving spoon I had back in my apartment days... I didn't want to be tempted to put a good spoon back in the rotation, if you know what I mean.  Just kidding. 

GiGi and SueSue saved the day yesterday.  They came by with four packs of training underwear because Jax was going through all of the underwear I had borrowed from Cristin by noon. 

Jax's reward for going in the potty is a big spoonful of peanut butter (no, not the poop spoon), and Emerson asked if she could be the one who scoops the peanut butter out and gives it to him.  It cracks me up that she wants in on the action and the recognition.

I'm feeling cautiously optimistic that he'll keep it up from here, that there will be no regression and that he'll never look back.  The thought of just having one child in diapers makes me giddy! 

Oh yeah, and just so you know what I deal with on a daily basis.  At lunch today...

Jax:  "Mommy, please get off that chair."

Me: "Why?"

Jax:  "Because I said so."

Deals, Pottying & More Ballet Pics

I'm officially in.  I've always been one of those 'kinda' couponers, but last month my friend Heidi in Tampa sent me the book "Pick Another Checkout Lane, Honey."  It was as if a ray of light shone down from the heavens and everything finally clicked.  It's not like couponing is difficult, it's just a lot to organize, and my brain is always so fried by the end of the day, I just figured I'd never be able to go all in.  But I bought a binder with divider tabs and baseball card inserts.  I also started buying the newspaper on Sunday mornings at our QT on the corner.  And I'm proud to say that from May 15th to May 31st, by using coupons, price-matching from the circulars, and matching coupons with sales (especially at Walgreens and CVS), I saved $125.52!  In 15 days!  I have a spreadsheet I save on my desktop and update after each shopping trip.  I cannot WAIT to see what my savings are at the end of a year.  I'll keep you posted!  Here's a picture of my handy-dandy binder. 

Somewhere in Tennessee, my sister-in-law is doing a happy dance.  She's been shopping this way forever, and I know she's proud that I jumped in head-first!

So on to our big project that started today.  I am potty training Jax.  Score as of naptime just a few minutes ago?  Jax = 7 tinkles & 1 poop in his underwear.  Mommy = 0.  Hoping for a turnaround later today or even tomorrow.  Not surprisingly, he took the lead early in the day with two of his points coming while I was sidelined with Hayden.  That's right... benched with a breastfeeder.  Totally unfair!

Here he is, looking so cute today with his bwoo bwankie in one hand, a car in the other, and training underpants right below some serious belly overhang.  Thank you, Cristin, for loaning them to me.  Every time I put a new pair on Jax, he says, "Are these Harrison's underwear?" 

Finally, my friend Kara just sent me these pictures of Emerson from the recital.  They are so good!  She has the most amazing camera... thank you, Kara!  The ones I attempted from the audience were lousy.  I guess the whole 'zoom lens' thing is important, huh?

Anniversary

Our 9-year anniversary today started off a little crazy at 3 a.m.  Hayden woke up, and on my way to check on her, I nearly tripped over Jax who was sound asleep next to my bed.  Why or when he decided to get out of his bed, come downstairs and curl up on our floor, I'll never know.  Anyway, I didn't want Hayden to continue to cry and wake Daddy up, so I knew I needed to get to her quickly.  I put Jax in bed and walked into the nursery to see Hayden's arm stuck in between the crib slats.  I decided to do a quick nurse and put her back to bed.  I assumed Jaxey would be sprawled on my side of the bed when I returned, but that boy was snuggled up to his daddy's back, sound asleep.  He got to finish the rest of the night out in between us.  Shhh... don't tell Emerson.

Jason went to OKC this morning and came home mid-afternoon.  We had reservations at Mahogany Prime Steakhouse, the best steak in Tulsa by my estimates, and laughed our butts off when we pulled into the parking lot and were the only patrons there.  Why, you ask?  Because it was 5 p.m. ON THE DOT.  Yes, we had to make reservations at 5 in order to be back home by 7:30 so I could nurse little H.  With the other two, I would've just left a bottle with the babysitter, but Miss Persnickety thinks it's fun to not take a bottle.  At all. 

During dinner I kept thinking, 'Wow, this will be the last year I have to rush home from anniversary dinner to nurse... and the last year I won't be able to drink a glass of wine... and so on.'  Of course, Jason thinks it's really hilarious to talk about how great a fourth Van Valkenburg child would be.  Then I remind him what life was like during this last pregnancy and he gets quiet. 

Dinner itself was marvelous, and getting a chance to talk uninterrupted with my incredible husband was so refreshing.  I dearly love that man of mine.  Nine years after walking down the aisle to him, there's no one else I'd rather be sharing this journey with.  We laughed/cringed/marveled at the stress and chaos we've gone through since January and concluded that most people would've crumbled.  I know I would've crumbled without him.  He's my rock.  He's the fearless leader of our family, the reason two little sets of feet run as fast as they can to the front door around 6 p.m. every day, the elicitor of full-face grins and giggles from our baby, the source of my daily dose of laughter.

Happy Anniversary, Jason.  I adore you and always will.    

That's How He Rolls

Jax's new favorite word?  NEVER.  Delivered with a firm hand gesture and his best scowl, of course. 



Camcorder has never been returned, so this was taken with my camera's video setting.  I'm actually pretty pleased with the quality!  Do I miss my HD?  Heck-to-the-yes.  Am I thankful to have videos at all?  Even more heck-to-the-yes. 

One more Jax story.  You know the song "So this is Love" that Cinderella and the Prince dance and sing to during the ballroom scene?  Well, a few days ago, Jax came downstairs from his nap, holding his bwoo bwankie.  I picked him up and started doing a slow dance hug to help him wake up.  He put his head on my shoulder and said, "So dis is yub."  I almost melted in a puddle of yub right then and there.

War on the Shrubbery

It has literally been World War III in my back yard for about two weeks, and this weekend, I prevailed.  This is a picture of our back yard last fall before we moved in. 

Notice the row of shrubs on the right side of the back porch.  These shrubs have prevented me from getting a clear view of the kids playing in the back yard while I'm in the kitchen, so I decided we should probably remove them.  My first thought was to have Daddy do it, but the last thing I wanted was to put that on his to-do list for a weekend.  There's almost nothing worse to me than Daddy home on the weekend with a project keeping him from playing with his kids.  So the next thought was to hire someone to pull them out.  As I thought more and more about that money going to someone rather than new rugs for our house, I decided I was going to pull these suckers out myself.

Soooo, for the past two weeks, I have gone out every other day or so and gotten to know our shovel on a very personal and meaningful level.  These ridiculous shrubs have roots in all shapes and sizes, the largest being 3-4 inches in diameter.  I have a feeling the original homeowners planted them, so they're probably close to 10 years old.  Some of them only took about 20 minutes to pull.  A couple took upwards of an hour each.  That's an hour of sweaty, frustrating, near-cursing labor intertwined with keeping the kids out of harm's way in the backyard and Hayden happy in her papasan chair.  

Daddy was in Green Bay training his new team up there for three days last week.  When he got back, I only had three shrubs left, so on Saturday he came out back and played with the kids while I finished up.  Pa-Pa and MeMaw stopped by to play with the kids for a while, so Daddy and Pa-Pa sat on the porch as I gave a play-by-play of my shrubbery massacre.  I was on my next-to-last victim when I so cleverly decided to lean all my weight against it, thinking I could just break loose the last root.  The only problem was I leaned in butt-first, and that was a huge mistake.  Literally.

It was like the parting of the Red Sea as I toppled backwards, through the shrub, onto my back on the ground.  As I was falling, I started laughing, but it was one of those silent laughs that takes over your entire body and renders you completely immobile and without cognitive function.  I think I was down for a good 2 or 3 seconds before Pa-Pa saw me.  He yelled my name and came running over to lift me up, but I was laughing so hard, I couldn't get control of myself to give him my hands.  All I needed was a couple of seconds to gain all muscle control, but the hilarity of the situation was preventing any of that from happening.  I finally stopped laughing long enough to be helped to my feet, and Jason had a great time explaining how funny it was to look over and see nothing but the bottom of my shoes peeking over the shrub.  Hardy har! 

I had the last laugh, however, as I pulled that final shrub from the ground.  Muuaaa haaa haaaa!