Alex had his first swim lesson today

Alex had his first swim lesson today. He did SO good with the instructor. He listened intently, did everything that he asked him to do, and was just awesome for an entire 45 minutes! BUT...he had a 25 minute total meltdown after the lesson because he "wasn't done". Nothing I said to him would stop it, I had to carry him out kicking and screaming. He proceeded to throw the fit for 25 minutes in the locker room. It took both my mom AND myself to get him dressed. Then he was fine. Ugh! We go every day Monday thru Thursday for the next 2 weeks. I hope he doesn't have a meltdown EVERY time. I was glad to see him in the water and doing something though. I always feel guilty because we haven't done much since Cadence was born. Who, by the way, is doing good! She slept on my mom in the air conditioned lobby while I was outside watching Alex's lesson. Tomorrow I think I'm going to bring my OWN bathing suit and see if I can't get some swimming and exercise in while he's having his lesson!

We get the older kids on Thursday evening for the 4th of July weekend. We are going to go see fireworks...although I'm debating finding some sort of earmuffs for Cadence. But I figure if we are far enough away it won't be TOO loud, right? Well I'll blog ya later, gotta go!

She reached for me!

Just a quick note...Cadence reached for me today! My mom and I went out to lunch with the kids at Luigis and when I went to pick her up from my mom who was holding her, she reached for me! How cute is that?!? I haven't been able to wipe the smile off of my face since!

Pictures

Figured I'd share these photos taken of Cadence today. She's so freaking adorable! Of course, I am biased being momma!

We have a naked toddler and a pee on the potty!

Well Alex has been fun today. I got a pull up on him, then he went poo-poo so I think that is why he was begging for a diaper. So I took the pull up off and left him naked. Well lo and behold he just told me he had to pee, and we went and he got on the potty all by himself with his step stool and spongebob seat and he held his little wee-wee down and went pee pee! Then told me he was all done! I made a HUGE happy deal out of it. Hopefully we'll have some repeats today! I read to him on the potty and I think that relaxed him enough to go...so we'll try reading a book when he's got to go potty so he's not concentrating on going and saying "I can't!"

Urgent Care trip yesterday..potty training today

Yesterday afternoon I was holding Cadence on my lap on the back yard swing/hammock and Alex came running by with a water bucket (plastic) and swung it and it bopped her on the head. She screamed for 10 solid minutes and scared me to DEATH. Although there was only a small little bump on her head that was a little red, we loaded her up and took her to Urgent Care. They did a quick neurological exam to make sure that she was okay. She was fine, and the nurse and the doctor both must have thought I was neurotic. But it was so close to her soft spot I was scared to death of bleeding by the brain or something. Thank goodness she's okay though. It about gave me a heart attack!

Today we decided to start potty training Alex since he's been showing all the signs. He's been changing his baby doll's diaper, and having it sit on the toilet to "pee". He's wanted to pee on the toilet several times. He has been asking us to change his diaper BEFORE he pees or poos. AND he was also very interested in his take along sign and talk potty yesterday and sat on it naked for 2+ hours yesterday. So we dove into it today by putting him in underwear and training pants. Well that didn't last long. As soon as he sits on the toilet he starts screaming that "he can't". So I immediatly re-dress him. Then he had several meltdowns begging for a diaper. So I just put him in a pull-up because I don't want to push him too soon and make him think he HAS to potty on the toilet. I'm sort of disappointed, he was showing ALL the signs of being ready and then when we decide to try it, and put 100% effort into it, he freaks out. Ugh. It doesn't help that I don't know WHAT THE HECK I am doing in potty training a child. And I keep calling my mom and Shawn to ask them what to do. I hate second guessing myself.

Oh well, maybe we'll get rid of the bottle. That needed to happen at least 6 months ago. Everytime we've decided to get rid of the bottle something big happens that is stressful top him..either he gets sick (really sick), or I do and don't want to deal with it, or we move, and then Cadence was born. So maybe we should get rid of the bottles tonight and just do it cold turkey. Get them out of the house and tell him there are none left and basically if they aren't in the house I can't give in (my biggest fault!). Well I have to study for my Childhood Behavior Disorder exam for next week, so I'm going to cut this blog short!

Cadence is sick...

Cadence has been fighting the same thing that both Shawn and I had, as well as her big brother. Alex was really really sick, with an ear infection, eye infection, and croup. He's finally over it. I was really sick too. I thought Cadence had luckilly missed getting it, but now she is sick. The past three days she wakes up early morning (5-6am-ish) with horrible congestion. I put saline drops in her nose and then put her in her swing where she sleeps for a few more hours pretty comfortably because she is sitting up. Now she has a BAD cough. It's not croupy or anything thank goodness but its forced and dry and yucky sounding. Poor thing is sitting here hacking away while swinging, but she's sleeping! No fever, thank goodness. But I have a doctor's appointment for her today at 1:30pm. I have to take both kids as WELL as my 7 year old nephew, Dylan, because I'm helping watch him when my brother and his girlfriend are working.

Anyways, its a real bummer that Cadence is sick. I know what they will tell me....saline drops, prop her up to sleep, if the congestion gets really bad to sit in the shower with the hot water running and let it steam up. As it is I'm already running a cool mist humidifier by the bed at night. I hate it when my babies are sick!

On a brighter note, here are some cute pictures of her taken this morning with my NEW digital camera!

Pictures

I thought I'd share a picture of each of my sweethearts. I could totally laden down this post with hundreds of pictures (I'm addicted to taking pictures), but just picked a few this time around!

Here is Alexander at 3 months of age...

Alex at 2.5 years old..

Cadence at birth..

Cadence at 2 months old..