The Potty Training Wars

When I hear that title, usually I think of the mom who desperately wants to potty train her child, but the child is resisting as hard as he can.

Well in my case it is the opposite. Jacob wants to be potty trained. He goes on the potty a couple of times each day. He is convinced that he is a big boy, but he's not consistently dry. I don't know that he is ready, since he seems to go every ten minutes.

Today's casualty: The bathroom floor --Jacob had realized that he had begun (not finished) having a bm. 

So he trots himself into the bathroom. 

Moves the stool over.

Removes partially full diaper

Sits down and finishes his bm.

Then he tries to wipe himself

Then he comes and gets me when he realizes he just doesn't have those mad skillz yet.

What a mess I found! So I don't train until my children are doing bms consistently on the potty. This is backwards from what most experts say to do, but honestly it has worked for me. No children hiding in the corner doing their business. No messy underwear--which really is the worst. And the other stuff comes easy after that.

Jacob is convinced he is ready, and I should probably jump on his wagon and join him in his quest for independence. But oh the work, the panic, the short tether of the first months---I just don't want to!

The Tooth Fairy Leaves a Note for Beth

A little late . . .

So our weekly update is a bit late. I don't know why, but the last two days, I've been massively tired. Even now I'm yawning, and it's the middle of the day! Plus I still have so much to do! Oh well.

News for the week: Beth lost another tooth yesterday. Tragically the tooth fairy was caught in a freeze and ended up spending the night at the Easter Bunny's house last night. Things should be made right by the time she gets home. Doesn't work too well when Mom goes to bed at 9:00, and sleeps later than Beth--Dad forgot to leave a message for the tooth fairy.

Caleb is being Caleb. He made some slime at Joyschool, and is laughing manically about it right now. He is so cute. We have started reverence stickers, and going to bed stickers, and Caleb has taken right to it! He's doing a great job.

Jacob is my sweet buddy boy. When we tell him to go get into his bed, he climbs into our bed. Last night Rob and Jacob had a conversation about that. When Rob said, fine you can stay here for now, Jacob shot him a look and cocked his little head at him, as if to say I totally won Dad. Today during visiting teaching, he was ready to go, so he turned and said good bye to the sister, pointed to the door and signed to ask for a cookie.

Rob is doing pretty well. He's happy, since he got me my new computer. It gives him joy to mess on a brand new Mac. Which is another reason I posted late. And other than being tired, I'm good as well.

100 Book Challenge

One of the forums I go to has issued a 100 Book challenge.  That is a challenge to read a 100 books a year. Now I can't say how many books I normally read in a year, but I figured that it'd be fun to find out.  To get the challenge you have to read about two books a week.  Also I'll list books I reread, but I won't count them to my challenge. Since I mostly read YA I'm not usually reading books over 350 pages.  

Here's my list so far.  I'll just pick up a new post with new numbers.

1. Nicola and the Viscount
2. Victoria and the Rogue
3. Princess Mia
4. Princess on the Brink
5; Forever Princess
6. When Lightening Strikes

7. Code Name Cassandra

8. Safe House

9. Sanctuary

10 This Lullaby (by Sarah Dessen) My favorite of all her books

11. The Last Summer of You and Me (by Ann Brashares)  Awesome love story

12. 3 Willows by Ann Brashares

13. Miss Match

14. Catalyst By Laurie Halse Anderson (This book really reminded me of how I felt in high school as opposed to some of her other books (which are good too))

15. Senses Working Overtime

16. Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta (Incredible book)

17.  Prom

18. The Kind of Friends We Used to Be 

19. The Forgotten Warrior

20. The Host (I liked it better than the Twilight series)

21 My book--and yes I'm going to count the first time I read it through

And I may be leaving some out, but that's okay.

Reread books that I remember this year

Hunger Games (So awesome, that you can not imagine the awesomeness of the book)

Harry Potter 7

Valentines Day Slideshow

Here's my attempt at being thoughtful this year ... a little slideshow I made for Mim. Hope you enjoy it too. There's a higher quality video here. Music is by Peter Breinholt.


Valentines Day Slideshow from Robert Caldwell on Vimeo.

Beth's Storybook

Every year, our local PBS television station hosts a children's storybook contest, where kids write and illustrate their own book. Of course, Beth was really excited to give it a try, and here is a little video podcast we decided to make based on her book. She did it all herself, with a little help from her younger brother Caleb.


Beth's Storybook from Robert Caldwell on Vimeo.

Rock Band

We have a Rock Band party coming up this next weekend at a friend's house. I just wanted to let a few of the other bands know, we take Rock Band really seriously around here, and they can expect a challenge, as should be evidenced in the video below. Okay, actually, I kind of suck at it, and haven't played the game in months. Should be interesting. At least I can wear tight pants and do scissor kicks.

Valentine's Day and Such

It's funny but ten years ago on Friday, Rob proposed to me. In a lot of the ways I think of it as the beginning of the beginning of our family. We had a fun Valentine's Day weekend. Rob and I went out and saw "Slumdog Millionaire." It was the best movie that I've seen in a long, long time. So moving, so sad, and yet so happy. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful.  Saturday night we went shopping, and to Chipotle's, which was yummy, not crowded and not too expensive.

Rob made me a totally sweet video, which he will likely post on Tuesday, because he has exceeded his weekly allotment of uploading video to Vimeo. And because he doesn't want to upload it at home when he can do it at work in a fraction of the time. The kids made BYU Mint Brownies for Rob, and they are sooo good. Yum. And pink chocolate cupcakes. Pretty good, but not for my diet.

The weekend has been one of cranky kids, and too much sugar. The boys especially just can't handle candy or red dye. Since I've stopped buying fruit snacks, the kids are happier. They do okay with cake, and brownies, but straight sugar like fruit snacks, suckers or other candy just sends them over the edge. We simply don't do it anymore. I must confess that I threw away lots of candy on Saturday when they weren't paying attention.

but the weather this week was great. We went to the park. We got the car back and working so it has been good.

The speech therapist has recommended an extra day of speech therapy for Jacob. She was super sweet when she made the suggestion. She told me that Jacob was smart, but that she could see that he was having a motor planning/processing problem. Basically he probably really does have Apraxia. It's good news about the extra therapy, but I'm sad too. I just worry that things won't improve enough or that we'll have to make the decision about putting him in early intervention. I don't want him to get labeled if he can work through this. I also realized that I may just have one more year left with kids home. If Jacob does do early intervention he'd start the same year Caleb starts kindergarten. Seriously, it's breaking my heart.

On a happier note, I love the way that the kids play together and have fun. I think they are so sweet. Caleb gave his first prayer in closing exercises at Primary. He wasn't at all scared, and spoke very clearly into the microphone. Of course you couldn't see him over the podium, but what else would you expect?

Anyway have a great week!

Car Update

Several people have expressed concern about our recent car woes. Well, I wanted to report some good news. I picked up the car today from the mechanic, and everything seems to be working great. There is no longer oil fouling up the spark plugs. The repairs were not as major as we had feared, nor were they as expensive. So we now have our car back.

Thank you to everyone who was willing to help us out by offering rides, cars, teleportation and the like.

Hiking at Umstead Park

I feel bad because all I ever post are photos and videos, with very little story to go along with them. Mim feels bad because she only posts stories with no photos or video. I think we are a good team.

A quick disclaimer: the video is pretty long for those of you who are not family. Even very close friends may find 11 minutes of hiking in the woods a little boring, no matter how cute our kids are (and by golly, aren't they cute?!)

So here's a little backstory: we had some beautiful weather this weekend, really warm for early February. I felt like we had better do something outside while we could. So we took the kids hiking at Umstead Park, a great place really close to our house that has miles and miles of hiking trails. The kids loved it. They especially liked drinking water from my Camelback water bladder (which I took solely for the entertainment of the kids). They also loved cooking an MRE meal on the pavement during our picnic. We added some salt water from a packet to another bag with our food in it. The bag started to sizzle, smoke and steam, and 12 minutes later we had warm chili that Jacob couldn't get enough of.

Caleb kept us entertained the whole time with his usual barrage of witty comments, but almost every time I turned on the camera, he got really quiet.

Beth also shot some of the video. I've learned from watching the footage that she likes to add her own commentary while she videos. I think I'm going to start letting her use the camera more often. I really enjoy her running narration.

Click on the link below the video that says "Hiking at Umstead Park" if you want to watch the video in HD.


Hiking at Umstead Park from Robert Caldwell on Vimeo.

Spring Is In the Air

This weekend has been nice. The temp was around 65 and so we decided to go hiking to take advantage of it. Today we opened the windows and aired out the house. It really does smell like spring out there. I don't care what some silly groundhog says, bring it on!

The hike was actually a lot of fun. Rob's doing a movie of it, so you'll get to see some. Jacob walked most of the way. Impressive. We didn't set too fast of a pace, but we we were out there for about three hours. We ate lunch by a lake, and Rob had this MRE meal. It smelled good, surprisingly, but I did not partake. Rob did manage to re-injure his knee on the hike. The first injury he got on his annual Appalachian Trail hike last October. So now he is considering heading to the doctor about it.

We got good news on the car. The problem is not as serious as we thought. The bad news is we still haven't gotten the car back from the shop. But honestly this is the week to not have a car. Joyschool is at our house. So we are good to go.

Beth is having fun, and is very excited for Valentine's Day. Caleb is very excited about Hulk currently, and so is Jacob. Caleb has decided he needs to write his name. So he may just learn how this week. Jacob is still progressing in his learning and his the best snuggler in the whole wide world.

Me, well I'm me. 

Popcorn!

A lot of you have probably already seen this short little video, but I thought I would post it here for the benefit of those who haven't seen it.

The kids love making videos. The other day Beth came up to me and asked if she could use the camera to make a video all by herself. She said she only wanted me to help her put it on the computer.

So, as soon as I have a chance to give her a little lesson in how to use the camera, you should start seeing some pretty "interesting" videos on here.

Car Broken

Our Nissan is not working. That's Rob's car. It's old--a 1994. So it's had it's share of problems. The engine's been totally rebuilt once. The alternator has gone out once. Lots of new brakes. A new starter. 

There is an oil leak in the spark plugs--which was deemed too expensive to make the fix worth it, but now we are stuck with a broken car.

It won't start. I think it is the alternator, since the electrical equipment was acting up for Rob the last week. Maybe it's just a belt. 

So I'm sad, because I am totally stuck at home --can't run errands, and it is too cold to go for long walks to various areas around my house.

Tomorrow I'll spend all day in the car, since I need it for errands, that can't be rescheduled. So I'll drive Rob to work, and home, and that's like three hours in the car for me.

Yuck!

Week In Review

Well nothing much has happened.  I was talking to Cyndi at the Relief Society meeting yesterday, and we both agreed not much has happened lately.  Thinking about that it can be both a good and a bad thing. Today I'm looking at in a good way. Sure nothing outstandingly terrific or exciting has happened, but neither has anything outlandishly horrible. Sometimes we just need to move along at a happy pace and enjoy the peaceful parts of life.

That said the kids on their own decided that we were sitting on the VERY FRONT ROW of Sacrament meeting. Is this a good idea? I think not. Jacob kept successfully leaving the chapel out the side door, and Caleb put on a break dancing show for the entire chapel. We are definitely back row slackers, but there is a reason for it, definitely a reason.

Beth loves all things art, and is an art elective right now at school. This means she does art every day. It may be clay or sculpture or something, since she keeps bringing home clay projects. Point is that she is having a blast. She's also in French right now. And no, I'm not hearing anything about French. It must not be as fun.

Caleb got a pair of walkie talkies for his birthday. He constantly has one of them hooked to his pants, and then is attaching the other one to Jacob or Beth or me. They aren't usually turned on, because they make this static noise, but suddenly you'll hear a shout "Turn it on, Mom" which is then followed by a brief but very important walkie talkie conversation. He also got a pair of binoculars and has taken to spying on the house across the street from us at odd hours. Fortunately, nobody lives there--otherwise we could be in trouble.

Jacob is super sweet. He loves to snort when he laughs, and just snort in general. He also loves to pretend to be a ghost which involves covering his head, and walking around going "ooooh, ooooh." The other option is a monster which involves roaring and grabbing at your face and then giggling.  Last night he came walking into our room at about 11:00 carrying his little puppy dog just looking so sweet. He's my first that has a definite attachment to stuffed animals.

As you can see below Rob took the kids to the museum alone yesterday so that I could go to the Stake Relief Society meeting. It was wonderful--for me anyway. The kids each had a specific thing to tell me. Beth told me about some fly that eats ants brains and makes the head fall off. Caleb told me about the dinosaurs and the donuts. Jacob just came in, patted my leg and lifted his arms up so that I'd give him a big hug and snuggle. Rob took a nap.

That's about it for us Caldwells. See ya next week!

A Trip to the Museum

I took the kids to the Museum of Natural History in downtown Raleigh this last Saturday. We had a great time. It's the first time we've taken the time to see pretty much everything.

I shot a little bit of video of our day. Hope you like it.


A Trip to the Museum from Robert Caldwell on Vimeo.