Joshua Used the Potty!

Well ladies and gentlemen, he may not be talking much yet, but my 21-month-old son has now gone pee-pee in the potty.  Twice.

On Thanksgiving Day, my mom sensed that Joshua needed to use the potty, so put him on just for kicks, and sure enough he did a little tinkle.  I was shocked, and tried myself on other occasions, but I had not been able to replicate that until tonight.

Sure enough, he sat on the potty before bath time, and I decided to give it a try.  I unzipped his pajamas, took off his diaper, sat him back down, and whee!  he let it go.

I'm so proud of my little boy!  He got so much attention (which he loves, as you can see from the photo above) that he spent the rest of the evening trying to sit on the potty again.

Congratulations, Joshua!  Any chance you and your sister will be potty-trained within a year of each other?  After all, Katie only was potty-trained in August.  :-)

Little Princesses

Today we went to our favorite dinner theatre to see Rodgers' and Hammerstein's "Cinderella."  John, Katie and I went with John's parents and brother, and family friends Bev and her granddaughter Audrey.  Katie called Audrey "Laundry" and had a great time dancing around with her and watching the show.  Here are a few photos and video from our time.

Audrey and Katie meet one of the wicked stepsisters -- yes, that is a man in drag.

Katie's Christmas Song

Katie performed in her first Christmas sing-along yesterday with the rest of her preschool class.  She's in the plaid skirt and her best friend Daniel is in the green shirt.

I didn't know until the performance that she has now learned how to bow.  And how!  The end of this video reminds me of the woman at the end of "The Sound of Music" -- the woman in the singing competition who wouldn't stop bowing.

Big thanks to her daddy and her Oma for making sure they were in the audience for Katie's Christmas debut!

Quick Joshua Update

Joshua has a few new words, including "ball," "bubble," "book," and "mock" (milk).  Again, he is motivated to learn how to say things he wants.  :-)

Also, I wanted to jot down a few of his growth statistics before the paper gets lost on my desk again.

18 month appointment:
Weight: 26 lbs, 4 oz (50%)
Height: 32 1/4 inches (50%)
Head: 48 cm (50%)

He is 50th percentile across the board.  Take that, those of you who talk about how huge my baby is.  :-P  He's just broad-shouldered!

I don't think I ever wrote down the 12 month statistics either:
Weight: 23 lbs, 12 oz.
Height: 29 1/2 inches
Head: 46.8 cm

Joshua's Growing Vocabulary

Hi!  We're still busy unpacking and organizing, so I'm going to skip the photos and just fill you in on Joshua's growing vocabulary.

Katie was much more of a talker; Joshua is much more mechanically-minded.  He is always trying to push any button he can find and figure out how things work.  He would be content to flip light switches all day. Once I needed to keep him occupied in a hotel hallway so I showed him how to use the ice maker.  He pushed it and pushed it and pushed it -- I could have been Pavlov since he just couldn't get enough of the reward of watching the ice fall.

So needless to say, he hasn't been all that interested in talking until recently.  He enjoys making noise, mostly by screaming, but also "singing" along to "Jesus Loves Me", "Elmo's World", the ABCs, and the "Muppet Babies" theme song.  Singing here refers to making random noises including grunting and raspberrying, but I can tell he's trying to do it along with the song.  Make ANY joyful noise, Joshua!

Last time I wrote, Joshua had three words: "Dada", "Mama", and "Caca" for cookie/cracker.  That night Joshua kept saying "Caca" as he pointed to his diaper, and I was wondering about that since "caca" is Spanish for "poop" (but I was pretty sure he wasn't bilingual).  It turns out that he was pointing out that Cookie Monster (aka "Caca" for "Cookie") was on his diaper.  I was so excited to see him break through and express a new thought with his words!

In fact, Joshua's vocab mostly consists right now of Sesame Street characters: "Caca", "Melmo" for Elmo, "Buhbuh" for Big Bird, "Bird" for Bert, "Gaga" for Grover, and my favorite of all -- "Tsss" -- his word for Ernie because that's how Ernie laughs.  I love it.

I should mention Joshua's fourth word though: "Muppet Babies."  Yes, he said dada, then mama, then caca, and then "MuppaBaby".  REALLY?  But I promise you that's true.  He first said it as John came to  pick him up from his crib after naptime.   And now he uses it to ask to watch TV -- and of course, his favorite show, Muppet Babies.

Other words/ understandable sounds:
"Ligh!" (light)
"a i a i"  (trying to sing the ABCs, as in "H I H I")
"hi"
"goodni"
"ooh ooh" to bark at Bella and other dogs
sheep and horse noises (sounds more like a laugh)
"geh down"
"baby" (mostly used to ask in shorthand for Muppet Babies)
"Daniel" (taught to him by his Uncle Daniel but said repetitively as he chases Katie's best friend Daniel around the yard)
"Papa" (Grandpa)
"No" (used for both yes and no)
"Peasss" (please)
"ball"

I'm sure I'll think of more and then I'll add them to this list.  Thanks for reading!

Happy 18 month birthday, Joshua!

Happy half-birthday, Joshua!  

You're no longer a baby and I love the little boy you're becoming!

Katie's First Day of Preschool

Katie's first day of preschool was today! We've signed her up for three hours a day, two days a week, at a Christian preschool about three minutes from our new house.  She has a few friends that attend this preschool, including her best friend Daniel (who is in her class) and another friend named Caitlyn whom we were surprised to see today.

Katie picked out her own outfit this morning, and was most excited about having a lunchbox for the first time.  When we got to her classroom, she and Daniel ran into the class without even saying goodbye to their mommies (Daniel's mom is my best friend Sara).

 

While some moms may cry over this, I was thrilled to see Katie so excited and happy to be there.  I've been talking about preschool with her for months, and part of her potty training motivation was that she'd get to go to school when she was always successful.

Here's a video of her discussing (rather distractedly) her first day of preschool, just before we head home.