Life as One

As many of you know my hubby came home about 2 1/2 weeks ago!!!  Hence part of the reason I've be a little absent.  He made it in right about noon.  We were thankful to have some of our good friends Matt & Sarah join us for the "ceremony".  They were gracious enough to be our photographer and videographer.  (I'd share the vid...but I neglected to give Matt instructions on the video camera and so half of it wasn't recorded.)

Here's Blaine just hanging out holding down the stoller and all our provisions.  At the last re-deployment ceremony we were there for about 3 hours before they showed up so I made sure to bring plenty of diapers, snacks, drinks, etc.  Thankfully it wasn't that long of a wait this time around.

The boys did such a great job coloring this sign for Tim...

One of the great things about Tim being tall is it makes it a little easier to pick him out of a crowd.  :)

Colin was ready to take off as soon as they opened the hangar doors...

Our 2nd photo as a family of 5!!!!



Tim hit the ground running when he came home.  They were stuck in Iraq for a few extra days due to sand storms/lack of a plane, so he was pretty much able to switch his body's time clock before he got home.  We always try and keep it pretty relaxed the day Tim comes home.  #1 on the agenda is normally coming home and showering.  #2 is grilled cheese sandwiches.  #3 is Oreos with REAL milk.  (I think we've already gone thru 5 gallons since he's been home.)  By day 2 Tim was pretty much ready to go out and already started knocking things off of our "to-do" list. 

We are so thankful to have him home and the boys have done great adjusting to the change.  I'll try and post a few more times on what we've been up to the last few weeks.  We are looking forward to Tim's leave (hopefully by the end of the week) where we'll spend some time visiting family and some time just at home.

8 Month Update

I know I've been pretty quiet on the blog front lately.  Thought I would break the silence today though to write an update on Blaine.

Tomorrow Blaine will be 8 months old!  Currently weighing in at 22 lbs (feeling like 25)!  Blaine's last week of being a 7 month old was very exciting!  About four days ago he started crawling!  He's getting better and better everyday.  He doesn't like the tile floor and he always makes a bee line for any shoes or matchbox cars left lying around.  On top of crawling this last week Blaine has had FOUR teeth break through, with THREE more on the edge!  I have never seen that many teeth come in at once.  (Granted he's only my third child.  Still craziness.)

He loves his brothers and has adjusted very well to Tim being home.  He can still be quite sensitive and seems to have trouble with new faces.  We were at the mall last week and when we walked into one of the stores two other ladies started admiring him and he puckered out his lower lip and started crying.  Then, just two nights ago, Tim was holding him and went over to talk to some of his friends and he just about had a meltdown. 

Here's just a quick clip of him a few days ago....

It's About Time

Today we got to color a sign for Tim's Welcome Home Ceremony!

It's been a little surreal this past week.  There was a few days delay in their flight plans due to sand storms and who knows what.  Although I know he is headed home, it seems kind of un-real.  We've been doing a lot to prepare for his homecoming, but it's hard to grasp that this time he's coming home for more than a 5 day or 2 week visit.  My heart is filled with excitement, anxiety, some reservations, but I can't wait for us to adjust, to work through it together and be a family of one again.

Silly as it may be, one of the simplest things that helps to make this a reality for me is this.....

Today, I got to put my husband's towel back on the towel rack.

No Communication

The first time Tim was deployed I would start to get nervous if it had been 3or 4 days since I had heard from him.  Technology has changed a lot in the last six years, and so has his job in the Army, so now I rarely go more than 12 hours without hearing from him.  That said....the only time I pray that I DON'T hear from him is when Tim is on his way home!!!!!!  No communication means that they are traveling!

Unfortunately, I talked to him today.  Haha. 

They were supposed to fly out two days ago and have been delayed TWICE due to sand storms.  Oh the joy of weather delays.

It was good to talk to him today, but I'm back to praying that he either won't call in the next 48 hours...OR if he does call me he better be in a different country!

In the meantime, the excitement is building so we are doing our best to keep busy.

We've been cleaning, organizing, taking mini-road trips, playing outside in our little pool, going to the lake, going for lots of bike rides, etc.  We've been getting boxes in the mail from Tim and some of the other guys mailing their excess back. Our paper chain which once wrapped itself around a door frame is now down to about seven links.  (I still have a few extra links on just in case.)  Both are great encouragers that Tim's time away from us is almost over! 

Potty Training a Bust

I officially called off Colin's potty training around 4:30 this afternoon.  The day had not been completely horrible.  It was pretty even across the board as far as attempts, accidents, and successes.  BUT...one of my biggest concerns in doing this was Colin's defiance and disrespect for my authority.  It's been a hard battle.  One that is partly just a 2 year old thing, but something that also takes some consistent discipline..and that's something that I really have to work on. 

In the morning, he had a small accident in the kitchen.  I took him to the bathroom and told him to wait while I went and found him some clean underwear.  (I did have a pile stashed in there, but I ran out and forgot to replace.  Ugh!)  Of course he didn't stay.  INSTEAD he choose to go into my room, on top of the living room rug I had rolled up and moved out of the way, and finish peeing on it.  :) 

So I admit.  That was half my fault.  I should have put him on the stool to see if he had to go anymore.  But to be right there, and not even try!?

As a whole though, he did pretty well in the morning.  A few successess and a few accidents.  He even pooped in the toilet today before his nap!

After nap time it kind of seemed to go down hill.  When the timer would go off Ryan and I would get all excited and say "It's potty time!!!  YEAH!!", but it was taking more and more convincing to get him to get up and go to the bathroom.  I knew he was due for a good pee cause he sucked down a whole cup of koolaid since I woke him up from his nap.  We had already made it through two 15/20 minute rounds with no success, so I KNEW he had to go.  Man, was he fighting it though.  The timer went off, we went to the bathroom, and I couldn't get him on the stool.  So I sat down and was trying to ask him why he didn't want to go pee and he said he was scared.  So I said, "Well, ok.  Let's pray about it and then you can try."  I wasn't even two words into our prayer when he started peeing all over the floor...and my feet.  Ugh! 

I guess it frustrated me because we were RIGHT THERE!  One foot from the toilet!!!!  If he would have gotten up on the stool WHEN I told him to, he wouldn't have had an accident.

At that point I made a decision.  He wasn't ready.  I can't drag him to the bathroom kicking and screaming.  Although I can discipline him for not obeying me when I give him a command in other things, I can't discipline him for not going pee when I tell him to. :)

And as much as I want him out of diapers, I'm not sure I'm 100% ready.  I am already at my max capacity for tension.  We are at the end of a year deployment, and I'm feeling it.  I realized that I was telling him it was ok if he had an accident, that they are part of the learning process, but my actions weren't exactly saying the same.  I was getting frustrated and annoyed.

We had started potty training Ryan a few months earlier in age then what Colin is now.  It was a longer process, and it took a while for him to get it.  I guess I was hoping that since Colin was a little bit older, he would be able to catch on quick.  And he is definitely at the stage where he wants to do everything himself, so I was hoping this would just be another one of those things. 

All in all...it wasn't a complete failure.  I am a bit disappointed that he's still in diapers, but he's at least peed in the toilet now!  So we can work from there.  I'll keep doing some "pre-potty training" and tyring to talk it up so that way about a month or two down the road we can try again.  And I know that having Tim home is going to make a HUGE difference, for the better.  (If only that were tomorrow!!!!!)

A Potty Party!!!

Today we started our first day of "hard-core" potty training for Colin!  Some say it might not be a good time since we're about to go through a change with Tim coming home in three weeks..but for me, at this point ANY progress is good.  Colin has shown signs in the past of being ready, but I have not acted on them or been consistent in any type of toilet training.  I had every intention of doing this a few months back in February, but then Colin caught the flu the few days I had scheduled it and I haven't had three free days back to back, until now.

Sunday night after the boys went to bed I "prepared" the house.  I rolled up my living room rug, removed the rugs out of the bathrooms, collected some of his favorite books and stored them in the bathroom, got his sticker chart ready, his jar of Peanut MM's, and (my favorite) I hung streamers from the bathroom door!

I wanted to try and get Colin excited about going pee in the potty..so we had a little party!!!  It was just us and my friend Sarah and her boys came over to play later for a bit.  We started the morning with chocolate chip pancakes and Caprisuns!  After we cleaned up from breakfast and I got myself together, we put on our cool  party hats and Colin got to open up his potty gift!

 Big boy underwear of course!!!

Then he got to help me make the koolaid he picked out!  (I've been pretty successful at switching my boys to water all day, with an occasional Gatorade..so koolaid is a real treat!)

For each attempt he gets one sticker and one MM.  For a successful pee, he'll get two each.  After a few days, he'll only get the MM's for a successful pee.  We even bought some little party horns and bubbles to blow if he peed in the potty!

 

We ended the day with 10 attempts, 5 accidents, and 2 successes!!  Right around 5 PM I was thinking that maybe he's not ready yet.  He hadn't peed in the potty ONCE.  By 7 he tinkled for the first time (from what I saw), and the next time a GOOD successful pee!  He was even leaning into it!!  I'm SO thankful for that little bit of success at the end of the day!  It was very rewarding and encouraging for me.  Praying the number of successes go up tomorrow!

6+ months

Blaine has grown so much in the last two months.  The week we were in Oklahoma there was dramatic change in about a two/three day window in his behavior/awareness.  In the last two weeks he's finally rolled over!!  YEAH!!!!!

In the last two weeks he's gone from just learning to roll over to sitting up for extended periods of time on his own!  I love it when they start sitting up on their own.  It's the cutest thing!

Here's just two more pics of our handsome man!

We had his 6 month appointment last week and he was 20 lbs, 6 ounces, and 27 1/2 inches!  He's pretty solid though so his 20 lbs feels more like 22/23.

Ok..and one more video.  (I can't help it..he's just so stinkin' cute!!!)