Potty prize.

We honored our promise.

Thanks to a VERY successful first day of potty training yesterday, we found ourselves at Chuck E. Cheese for dinner tonight to honor her first completed sticker chart. And it completely lived up to her expectations! This girl was downright giddy to be there. She couldn't focus on her piece of subpar pizza because she was too excited to spend her tokens. And, oh the tickets! I've never seen anyone so thrilled about winning 1 or 2 tickets at a time. After an hour of mind-blowing fun (and avoiding the giant Chuck E. Cheese that was walking around, scaring children), she walked out of there with a bracelet, a crazy straw, and some Smarties (73 tickets will get you some real treasures, friends!) Oh, and also one of the biggest smiles I've ever seen on my now-even-bigger girl.

Note: Day 2 has been just as successful. She got 6 stickers today, keeping her Pull-up dry all day. With only 4 more boxes to fill on her chart, it looks like we'll be making a grocery run for some Dora cereal tomorrow!

Update time.

- Joe thinks sleep is for the birds. (I don't really understand that expression. I mean, I understand it enough to use it correctly...I think...but I don't know the origin. Can someone enlighten me?) Though things have been a little better the last week or so, we're still up multiple times each night. And then somewhere between 5-6 a.m., he's wide-the-hell-awake and decides he's ready to start the day. Only that doesn't really work for me because 5 a.m. and I don't gel. So it's a bit of a battle to get him back to sleep, and about 60% of the time one of us (usually me) ends up just holding him the rest of the morning. It's a pretty annoying/bad habit that we've all gotten into. And when Brooke gets up at about 7 each day, it either wakes him up or I have to keep her quiet watching shows for a while. Thankfully, she loves her shows an awful lot and doesn't mind so much.

- Can we talk about how it's NBD for me to get up at 7 a.m. now? Sure, I'm dragging down the stairs pretty zombie-like, but I don't curse under my breath while I do it anymore. I'm like a bona-fide grown-up.

- Well, this happened:

Like, today. All 5 in one day!! We decided to try yet another tactic to get her to go on the potty: a sticker chart. We let her pick out some stickers at Walmart yesterday, made up the chart, and explained she'd get a special prize if she filled it (more on that in a minute.) We forced her to go try this morning when her diaper had been dry for a while (which has been happening more and more lately - a sign that a kid's ready.) She fought us, but as soon as she peed and then got to pick a sticker, she was so excited. Add to that the 3 mini M&M's she gets for going and the girl was eager to try again. We got her to go 4 more times throughout the day, filling up the entire chart in one day! We are so proud of her and hoping she can keep this up!

- So a few weeks ago, as we're sitting at a red light, Brooke said "What's that place?" while pointing to a Chuck E. Cheese. When we told her the name, she said "What do they have there?" We told her they had pizza and games & maybe we could go sometime. Fast forward about a week & she brings it up completely out of the blue. "I'm going to go to Chuck E. Cheese tonight." I was totally flabbergasted. We had seriously only talked about it the one time. Since then, she brings it up all the time. So when it came time to pick a prize for her 1st sticker chart, a chart I assumed would take her a loooong time to fill since she's been so reluctant to go potty, I thought a trip to visit that scary mouse was a perfect idea. Well, joke's on me apparently. Guess where we're going for dinner tomorrow night? (For the record, her next sticker chart has 10 boxes on it & the prize is going to be small, like a sucker or the Dora cereal she's been dying to try.)

- Joe went from barely crawling to being all over the place in a matter of days. The boy cannot be contained! He is everywhere and getting into everything. Evidence:

 

(See those last 3 pictures? That's proof that I do put clothes on my kids sometimes. We don't wear jammies all day every day. However, they did have them on all day today...love lazy Sundays!)

Clapping.

First, let me apologize for having to listen to my voice in this video. Ugh. Do I always sound this nasally? I need to cool it with the high-pitched baby talk. I'd tell you to mute it but then you'd miss Brooke and, well, she's too funny not to hear. Like when she teaches Joe how to clap: "Put one hand like this, then the other hand, then clap!" I'm also going to apologize for the shaky NYPD Blue-esque camera action. It's kinda hard to teach your baby how to clap without showing him.


Anywaaaay... This is a great example of what our mornings are like: jammies, toys everywhere, big sister dominance, little brother curiosity. You can see how much love there is between these two little peanuts. Such a sweet relationship already. Joe just watches every little thing Brooke does & she tries to teach him things along the way.

By the way, how cute is the clapping? I die.

It's mornings like this that just warm my heart on this chilly April day. As Brooke says, life is butter dream.

Big crawlin' man!

Guess who is officially on the move? :)



My favorite little guy here decided to bypass the army crawl all together and go straight to the hands-&-knees version. We're so proud of our big boy!

p.s. Did you see his Downward Dog yoga pose where he gets up on his tiptoes and sticks his little tush up in the air? He's just going to stand right on up one of these days.
p.p.s. This was taken just before a diaper change, hence the No Pants Party. He is a big-time squirmer now, so we hadn't made it past the pants before he just took off.
p.p.p.s. Yes, that is a pajama shirt. I wish I could say this video was taken in the a.m., but that would be a lie. If this had a timestamp on it, it'd say 4 p.m. What can I say, we had nowhere to go. They did get fresh jammies after a bath that night, so they weren't in these all day. Judge away, you're just jealous.

So very two.

We have entered a whole new ridiculous stage of Toddler with Brooke. Um, holy cow. I like to call it the "I don't want to" stage. In which she says "I don't want to" (or the equally annoying "I want to" when she isn't allowed to do something) 7400 times a day. My response to this is typically one of the following:
1. I don't care. (Very mature of me, I know.)
2. I didn't ask for your opinion.
Or sometimes it goes like this: B - "I don't want to go nigh-night!" Me - "And I don't want to listen to whining all day, but I have to." Or on that same note: B - "But I want to go outside." Me - "And I want a million dollars, but I'm not getting it." (Usually when I say this last one, she comes over and tries to hand me a pretend million dollars.)

We went through a solid week of straight up toddler insanity in which I may or may not have uttered the words "I don't think we're having any more children" once or twice to the husband. Homegirl was a mess with a capital OMG. Meltdowns with unknown causes, tantrums over the silliest things. It was a full week of just madness, so exhausting.

And then, as if God heard my cries of desperation, she flipped a switch and became a hilarious, polite little doll again. Sweet as pie. The husband came down after putting her to bed in one of these moods and said, "I like that Brooke. She listens, she's nice, she cooperates..."

It tends to be one Brooke or the other lately. And the nice Brooke is just heaven - so adorable, so affectionate, so much fun. She told the husband yesterday, "You're the best Daddy ever!", which was pretty awesome to hear. And I've heard "Mommy, you need a big hug" an awful lot lately. Oh and she's mastered giving kisses on the cheek and it's just to. die. for. Every time she does it, my ovaries twitch a little bit. Like, how dare I consider not making more of these.

Easterpalooza.

As usual, we took holiday-celebrating to a whole new level with Easter, making it a several-weeks-long celebration. I love love love my holidays!

First up was the Egg Hunt down at the Rec. Brooke & Joe both got to hunt eggs in the same 2 & Under group. Brooke was kind enough to help her brother hunt for his eggs (and by hunt, I obviously mean "pick them up out of the grass".) Then we headed inside for games, cookie decorating, and jumping in inflatable bouncy things. The munchkins also got to meet the Easter Bunny, which was miraculously successful. No tears from either one! We even got a really cute pic of the 3 of them - this is unprecedented, I tell ya. It was a very fun afternoon for the kiddos!

We celebrated Easter with both of our families the week before. However, we almost didn't. Brooke woke up the Saturday before Palm Sunday with a minor fever and some terrible congestion. Palm Sunday brought no relief, though the fever was still pretty mild. She was very pathetic, but was able to muster up the energy to do a little egg hunt at my parents' house and look at her basket from them. Overnight, her fever hit 104.1. A quick trip to the pediatrician revealed that she had strep. Since Joe had a low-grade fever and was starting to sound congested, we decided to treat both of them. In the meantime, my own congestion started and by Wednesday I was at the doctor with a sinus infection. So three of us were on antibiotics all week; the husband had a runny nose (making us 4 for 4 in the Kleenex department) but no drugs for him. Even though we were all still a mess, we were able to spend a few minutes with his parents before they left on their cruise (they're on the water as we speak!)

By Saturday, we were ready to embrace the final days of Easterpalooza. What Easter is complete without dying eggs? Brooke had seen an episode of Special Agent Oso where they dyed eggs, so she knew exactly what we were supposed to do. She had a ton of fun with it, while the husband and I anxiously watched/helped her with scary visions of bright red dye all over everything in the back of our heads. (We aren't the kind of parents that let their kids finger paint and play with mud; call us the Fun Police if you will, but there are plenty of fun activities that don't require an entire bottle of Dreft to clean their clothes when they are done.)

Easter Sunday was a lovely day for the Reeder family. You know, besides the lingering colds all 4 of us had and the day full of mega-tantrums via the toddler. (Um, it was so bad that the husband, who is both allergic to orange juice & not a huge fan of champagne, suggested we have mimosas with breakfast. An hour after we got up. We had that many meltdowns - during basket opening, no less! More on this current toddler situation in an upcoming post.)

We kicked off Joe's 1st Easter with some very exciting surprises from the Easter Bunny. This is his "Say what? There's a bunny that hippity hops on over and just leaves me stuff? And I don't have to do anything to get it? Is this real life?" face.

He was very happy to grab at anything he could get his hands on. All of his new things became chew toys within 2.6 seconds of being in his hands, naturally.

 See, not everything in our house is girly and pink. The Easter Bunny put a shot of testosterone in his basket with sports eggs.

Brooke was pretty excited by her basket, too. Some of the highlights: a princess t-shirt, some new PJ's, a Dora jump rope, & a "Play-Doh machine". (According to the husband, normal people don't have baskets like this. He says normal people just put candy in their kids' baskets, with an egg or two filled with change. Well, this is how my Easter baskets always looked, so this is normal to me!)

After checking out baskets, Brooke got to hunt for a few eggs...

...while Joe ate the grass out of his basket.

After breakfast (a double chocolate chip muffin for me, praise Jesus that Lent is over!) and baths, we made it to Church. And we were actually early, if you can believe that (I still can't.) The rest of the day felt pretty relaxed. We had a nice lunch out with my parents and a few of my siblings followed by a dinner with the same group at my parents' house. We capped off the day with some ridiculously yummy carrot cake I made (5 sticks of butter, baby!)

The whole Easter season was pretty great! I'm really looking forward to next year, when Brooke will finally be old enough to start explaining (in a very kid-friendly way) why we actually celebrate the season. We hope you had a fabulous & blessed weekend :)

7 Months.

Dear Joe,

Another month has passed, & what an exciting month it has been! You have blossomed into this very active, very playful little guy. You are always on-the-move; nothing is safe on the floor anymore as you can get to anything that you want. While you aren't yet crawling, you are getting very close, rocking on your hands and knees. You can also sit yourself up from a laying position, something that has provided you with even more freedom. You are starting to pull yourself up to stand, have figured out that it's fun to bang stuff together, and just recently started to clap - you're just such a big boy! As you get older & develop more of your personality, your likes and dislikes have become even more evident to us. Here are a few of the ones we've picked up on this month:

Favorites
Puffs - The only real change in your diet has been your new found love of puffs! Before this month, you would gag on them when we let you try them. Now? You can't get enough! I think you would live on these little star-shaped snacks for the rest of your life if we let you. And the best, most impressive thing of all is that you can feed them to yourself already! Mommy is still so amazed that you can do this, as it is not a skill expected this early. We can't convince you to gnaw on much other real food, only the occasional crust of a grilled cheese, but we're working on it!
Drinking water - Until this month, milk has been your only source of hydration. While you are still nursing 4 times a day & getting a bottle at night before bed, you are now drinking water at meals, too. And you love having something to wash down all those puffs! You finally figured out how to drink from a sippy cup this month, which made offering you a drink a lot easier. Except for the occasional glass of prune juice to help that troublesome tummy of yours, milk & water will be the only thing you drink for a very long time (we are holding off on the introduction of juice much, much longer than we did with your sister!)
Swinging - Santa brought you & your sister a swingset this year, and, thanks to the unseasonably warm winter/spring we've been having, you've gotten to enjoy the swing a lot. No matter how fussy you've been, you instantly calm down when you get into the baby swing. You could hang out in there for hours! Sometimes you are very mellow & just sit there soaking in all of your surroundings. But most of the time, you wildly wave your arms and kick your legs in excitement :)
Your activity table - We have a little activity table that you love to stand at. There are buttons you can press that make noises and music. It has been very helpful in teaching you how to keep your balance while standing.
Bath time - You finally enjoy taking a bath! You moved out of the little blue bath tub and into the big bath tub this month. You & Brooke take baths at the same time, something that thrills both of you. She wasn't so sure about sharing the yellow rubber duck with you at first (your absolute favorite bath toy!), but now she happily hands it over. You don't purposefully splash, but when you accidentally do it it makes you smile so big!

Not-so-Favorites
Vegetables - You're still not really a huge fan of eating your oatmeal and fruits & veggies. You have to be in the right mood to accept any of it, but we really have to catch you in a good mood to get you to eat your veggies. Sweet potatoes are about the only thing you'll eat without any complaint; green beans and carrots are your least liked veggies. We tried giving you actual peas and carrots a few weeks ago, but you're just not quite able to mash them up with your gums yet. We're hopeful that you will be soon so we can stop force-feeding you the purees and you can feed yourself some actual veggies.
Being rocked - You have never really enjoyed being rocked to sleep. We're fairly certain it's not the rocking motion that you dislike so much as the sitting down part. Even as a newborn, you've always preferred the person holding you to be standing while they lull you to sleep. We're starting a real bedtime routine with you now to try to get you to fall asleep better & faster, so we'll start spending even more time in the rocker. We're hopeful you'll learn to love the cuddle time soon as much as we do.
Wiping your nose - You got another cold this week, meaning there has been lots of nose wiping. You start squirming the moment you see the tissue coming.

You are such a funny little guy. You're very quiet if you're happy; you still giggle silently! You babble a little bit but not much, and you're still only making vowel sounds (oohs & aahs). The second you get mad, though, you really stretch those vocal chords! You do a lot of whining (or at least it seems that way to Mommy,) especially if you can't get to what you want or if she leaves the room for a minute. And if you get really mad, boy do you make some noise! Thankfully, this doesn't happen often & Mommy can almost always calm you down instantly.

Joseph, you are just the perfect addition to our family. We needed a calmer, more even-tempered little guy to balance out your loud & excitable big sister. Your playful spirit fills our hearts with so much joy & that smile is the most adorable thing on the planet! Thanks for letting us love on you for the last 7 months, buddy!

Love,
Mommy & Daddy