Conversations with William

(William is in the bathroom doing his thing on the toilet.  From the bedroom, Omar and I hear a what sounds like a small explosion, and then a small whine.  I go to check.)
Mommy: Are you okay?
William (with a smile): I made a big poop!
(It's true.  He did.)

(William is helping me with the laundry.  I ask him to push the basket of clean clothes that just came out of the dryer into the bedroom.  He does.  I follow a few minutes later, and find him very carefully putting all the clean clothes from the basket into the dirty laundry hamper.)
Mommy: What are you doing?
William: I'm doing a good job!

(William has been in bed about an hour.)
William: Mommy! Mommy!
Mommy (walking into bedroom): What's wrong, William?
William (pointing to leg pulled up to his chest): My knee is bent!
Mommy: Ok.
William: My knee!  It's bent!
Mommy: Does it hurt?
William: No, it's bent!
Mommy: Well, that's ok, it's suppose to bend.
*Pause*
William: I have to go potty.

Mommy: Are you a bird?
William: No!
Mommy: Are you a puppy?
William: No!
Mommy: Are you a William?
William: No!
Mommy: No? Who are you, then?
William: I'm daddy!

My Baby Girl

I love my special bond with my baby girl.  Joy is more attached to me than William was at this age.  Maybe partly because of the breastfeeding: I only did a couple months with William, but Joy and I are still going.  Whatever the reason, she is definitely a mommy's girl right now.  I love to see her little arms reaching for me.  She's cutting a tooth right now, and I hate to see her hurting and not feeling good.  My precious baby girl...

I love her when she's happy...

I love her when she's grumpy...

I love her when she's awake...

I love her when she's sleeping...

I love her when she's sick...

I love her when she's healthy...

I love her when she's relaxing...

I love her when she's playing...

I love her when she's shy...

I love her when she's up to something...

I don't think I could love her more. <3

Productivity

I feel like I have earned my right to some relaxation this evening.  I got so much done today. 

Last night, Omar helped me kick off my productive day by helping me pick up the living room. I also got the kitchen cleaned up, including wiping off counters and tables and getting into the corners with the broom.  I found so many puffs.  Joy is getting pretty good at getting them into her mouth, but they still seem to end up everywhere.

We went to bed late, but the kids kind of let us sleep in this morning.  Joy was up at 6, but I just took her to bed with me.  William was up at 7, so he came to bed too and we turned on Toy Story 3.  So we didn't really get up until 8.

My big accomplishment of the morning was vacuuming the whole house.  Both my kids are terrified of the vacuum.  As soon as he saw me pulling it out, William yelled, "Don't vacuum my toes!" and ran to climb up on the couch with Joy.  And Joy cried everytime the vacuum came near.  Her face was so sad and terrified; I felt really bad and gave her extra cuddles when I was done.  When we moved upstairs, I put them both in the crib while I vacuumed.  William seemed to think that was a safe spot, but Joy was still worried the vacuum was going to get her, so she still cried and had to have more cuddles.

Mid-day, I found time to take a nap with Joy.  She was so tired, but wouldn't go down, so I finally layed her on the living room floor and layed down with her for a while.  She slept for an hour and a half there; I layed with her for about an hour, then got up.

After naps, we all went to the store, and I practiced some of my new money saving stuff.  Using coupons, we saved over 10% on our Target shopping trip.  Also, I tried out my new iPhone app call Shopkick.  I think it's going to be good; easy to use and rewards that'll I'll actually use.  I just downloaded it last night, and I'm already up to level 4 with 300 points.  We're really aiming to save money so we can both pay off our debt and also be able to give more.

By the time we got home, we just had time to feed the kids dinner and put them to bed.  Then I finished putting laundry away and cleaning the kitchen (including washing all my pump accessories and bottles, which I usually put off until Sunday night on the weekends).  Now it is my relaxation, including a cup of Dunkin' Donuts Strawberry Shortcake Coffee which is so yummy.  And of course, a movie and time with my husband.

I need more days like today.

San Diego

We had such a great day today, it's worthy of a blog.

Omar has lots of friends from Ouachita Baptist University that he stays in touch with.  One of his friends, Britney, came out with her daughter, Annika (1 week younger than William), to visit another of their OBU friends, Lindsey, who is due to have her baby soon.  So of course we had to go visit them in San Diego.  I'd gotten to know Britney a little through Facebook because of the close ages of our kids, so I was really excited to finally meet her in person.

The day started out slow.  For some reason, Omar and I keep staying up late on Friday nights like we actually get to sleep in on Saturdays, even though we know the kids are still going to get us up at 6.  Well, I guess the some reason is that we don't have a lot of down time with just the two of us, so we always want to try to squeeze in some time together after the kids go to bed.  But the kids did let us sleep until almost 7 this morning.  Then it was just the typical dragging our feet, trying to wake up, and trying to get everything organized.  It's amazing how much stuff two kids need just for a day trip.

But we made it to Seaport Village just a little later than scheduled.  We just had time to change Joy's diaper and take William to the potty before Lindsey, Britney, and Annika arrived.  After general all around greetings, during which both Annika and William suddenly decided to be shy, we headed to our first order of business: lunch at the Fish Market.

It was a nice walk down the waterfront to the restaurant.  William was so excited about all the things to see that he soon lost his shyness.  Especially when we came across a giant statue of a face that he got to climb all over.

Lunch was really nice.  We got a table on the glassed-in porch so we had a great view of the water without the wind.  The kids were all surprisingly well behaved.  William and Annika sat next to each other in their highchairs and got to know each other a little bit.  William tried to catch a fly, and Annika sang a song for us.  When the food came, William shared his fruit with Annika.  I particularly enjoyed just being able to sit and talk with Lindsey and Britney.  I can see why Omar remembers them so fondly; they are lovely women.  Oh, and my lunch (Dungeness Crab Ciabatta) was sooo good.  Joy liked the crab, too.

After lunch, we headed back towards Seaport Village.  Omar split off from the group for a while, so I got a chance for some good mommy talk with Lindsey and Britney.  I don't really have mommy friends near home, so I always love that opportunity.  At the village, I found a bench where I could sit to nurse Joy, and Omar caught up with us.  Omar and Britney chased around William and Annika while I sat and talked to Lindsey while feeding Joy.  Then Lindsey bought everybody ice cream so we could validate our parking.

We ended our day walking out to the peninsula and claiming a spot of grass to lounge on.  Annika and William ran all over, and they tried to catch the kite that someone was flying.  Britney took some family pictures of the four of us; I need a good picture to frame on my living room wall.  When William had a mild meltdown, we knew it was time to head home so the kids could nap in the car.

Good byes and hopes to see you again were passed around and we parted ways.  I hope we really do get to see them again.  It was just such a nice day.  There was no formality, just hanging out and chatting and watching the kids play together.

The ride home was a little rough.  Both our kids had the classic overtired-child syndrome.  They fell asleep within minutes, but both woke up fussy a couple times during the trip, and we had to stop to feed Joy once.  We walked in the door at home and immediately began our bedtime routines.  After rolling around and getting stuck against the rail of her cribs a couple times, Joy is asleep now.  William just got back up to go potty, but he should be asleep soon.

I'm going to head to bed soon, too.  Sooo tired.  But very satisfied.  I've really been craving some good fellowship, and I got that in bushels today.

Buzz Lightyear to the Rescue

William finally earned his Buzz Lightyear!  Daddy has been promising a Buzz Lightyear for a good poop in the potty, and we've been trying for a week, and finally had success this morning.  It's been a discouraging week with lots of accidents, but it seems like something finally clicked in William's head this morning, and I feel like we're going to make good progress now.

We stayed home from church this morning because William had a fever last night (turns out he's been fine all morning, though).  I was on the phone with Omar, and had just commented that William was in underwear and hadn't gone to the potty in almost 2 hours, so I'd better try to get him to go, when William started rolling back and forth on the floor saying, "poopy! poopy!"

I hung up on Omar and rushed William to the bathroom.  We were downstairs, and the stool down there isn't quite tall enough for William to rest his feet on.  He sat down but got very upset and didn't want to try to poop.  So I took him upstairs where he could rest his feet on the stool, but he still didn't want to try, and started crying and asking for his diaper.  I said, "William, you're about to get your Buzz!" and he sat down and pooped.  I think partly, he just couldn't hold it anymore, because it was a little bit of diarrhea.

But we celebrated with a little dance.  And we called Daddy, and first thing out of William's mouth was, "I want my Buzz!"

Family Moments

Yesterday was the laziest Saturday we've had in a long time.  The only person in the house to get dressed was Joy, and that was just because of diaper malfunctions.  Oh, wait, Omar did get dressed: at about 6pm to go get Chinese take out for dinner.  But what I loved more than staying in my pajamas all day were the quality family moments we had throughout the day.

In the morning, Joy went down for an early nap.  And William actually sat down to look at books with me.  I'm thrilled that he is finally showing an interest in books (I credit my brilliant idea to buy him a Cars book for Christmas).  He even "read" one of Joy's books to me (each page is "Where's the baby? Is he behind the ____?" then lift the flap and see the baby "Peekaboo...").  He told me that the exclamation point on his Sesame Street book "Everybody Dance!" was "too loud."

When Joy woke up, she and William played ball together (see video on Facebook).  It was the most precious thing.  They were both smiling and laughing at each other.  And when Joy managed to push the ball towards William, he jumped up and down exclaiming, "She did it! Baby did it!" The more that Joy is able to interact with William, the more he loves her.  And Joy is crazy about William.

At some point in the afternoon , we all ended up on the couch together, Joy on my lap and William on Omar.  Omar and William were playing, and Joy was watching and laughing at them, and I felt so blessed at that moment to have such a wonderful family.

When William got down to play, Joy discovered that she could get passed back and forth by a little fussing and waving her hands at the other parent.  She's getting such a sweet little personality now.  She's getting really good at sitting up too.  I had her in her rocking chair to eat dinner, and she refused to lean back, just sat straight up the whole time.  She loves chicken and apples.

Just an all around lazy, loving, wonderful day with my family.

And a bonus story from this morning:
Joy was crying, so William handed her his Elmo, because "Joy likes Elmo."  But when she started chewing on Elmo's eye, William said, "No Joy don't bite Elmo!  He does not go your mouth."  But he still let her hold onto him.  Love.

Faith Like a Child

William prayed his first prayer all on his own tonight.

We were late getting home, and late getting dinner, so I was feeding Joy and Omar handed William his dinner while continuing to make dinner for us.  William started eating his hot dog, then stopped and said, "I forgot to pray!"

We quickly gathered round and held hands.  Usually, Omar leads William in a prayer, and William just repeats, but tonight, Omar told William to go ahead on his own.  Here's his prayer:

"Thank you for hot dogs.  Thank you for bananas.  Bless us. You're awesome. You're the best. You're so cool.  You're soooo cool. Amen!"