but oh...how I love my boys!
Balian
We have had a major accomplishment last week. Balian went 5 days without ANY accidents!! Over the past couple of weeks, he's gotten better and better and had a couple of days where we just had one or two accidents, but we've never had an entire day without one - and now, all of a sudden, we had 5! The big change: We pulled out the little potty again. Apparently it's been so long since he'd sat on it that he forgot that he hated it...and decided that he liked it. He gets really excited about seeing what he did, that sometimes we have to remind him that he needs to finish going first. Ha! He is by no means going entirely by himself, but we're making steps in that direction. He's helping pull his pants down and pull them up...and with using the little potty now, hopefully it won't be long until he can go on his own, but for now, we're celebrating dryness.
Balian has been wearing real underwear during the day at home, which have his favorite thing on them - Cars! So, after he went 2 days of keeping his "cars" all-dry, we watched the movie Cars (he'd never seen it before). Of course, through the entire hour and a half of the movie we hear "Ca, ca!" (car, car) over and over again...he was so excited!
The bad news is that on day 6 I was reminded that just because a kid is "potty- trained" doesn't mean there won't be accidents...and some days will be better than others...and any little change in their day can make things worse. oh, and resistance can rear its ugly head as well...and they may just decided that they don't like the little potty again...oh well. at least I know that the end of potty training my second-born is around the corner somewhere...just not sure how long that corner is...
Balian is also starting to speak a little better. He's actually trying to repeat what we say, instead of just grunting and calling it good like he has been. We've tried to encourage him to repeat what we say, but he was having a pretty hard time. After I started doing flashcards with him (just before Isaiah was born) we definitely saw a huge improvement with what letter sounds he could say. Now we're at the point that there are only a couple letter sounds he can't say. But what's even better than that - he not only can say the sounds, but he knows what letter makes what sound. He doesn't know all of them yet, but we're working on it...here's a video:
Isaiah
It took about 2 weeks to notice the big differences in Isaiah after he got his lip-tie lasered, but now I am completely confident that we made the best choice in getting it done. Not only is he latching on better and getting more milk at each feeding - He's now going longer between feedings because of more milk AND he is no longer waking up during his naps because of gas! He is also a LOT easier to get down for naps in the first-place. He is no longer being swaddled, and will put himself to sleep after some wind-down time of a diaper change and reading a book. He loves his "lovey" bear blanket that was given to us by our friend Tricia, and he snuggles with it as he goes to sleep.
I think I've figured out that because of this, I have an additional 4 hours a day (if not more!) that I didn't have before - to spend with the other kids - or actually have some "me" time. That is seriously a lot of time if you think about it! Not to mention how much less stress I have now. When your baby won't go to sleep because of gas...or is waking up constantly because of it - it can be emotionally draining and really stressful.
I am so, so thankful that we got all of this figured out! Thank you, Jesus, for directing our paths!
I'll post more on Isaiah later - after his 4-month check-up. For now, here's a picture of his first day in the "jumper."
