I know they grow up quickly but this is ridiculous!

So Liam has a girlfriend. An older woman. And he has a date. He's got quite the little crush on my fellow Mommies Group mommy, Kim. Yesterday, I taught him the word "girlfriend" & now he cannot stop talking about his girlfriend. When you ask him her name he says "Liam Nino's Girlfriend" - you just know it's with a capital G. Only sometimes will he say her name though, now she's simply Girlfriend.

He asked for her this morning when we went out to our (epic fail) playdate and I suggested that I could contact her to arrange a date with her maybe next week (and her two kids!) and he was quite pleased with my idea. I forgot to do it before nap time but it was the first thing out of his mouth when he woke up - "play with my Girlfriend?" so I emailed her (and he wanted to typetype himself!) and we've discovered that we will be at the same playdate next week at Chick-fil-a (the scene of their First Date, I'm sure he fell for her there) so we settled on that.

I told him when he was going to bed that I had arranged it all for him & he was happy with the date but requested instead that we go to the park. WHAT? Anyway, he's quite pleased & happy & adorably too old for his own 33 months and isn't this not supposed to happen for at least 8-10 more YEARS?

I asked Kim what color she planned on wearing so I could match her corsage. I'm only slightly kidding...wouldn't that be adorable if he showed up with a flower for her?!?

And another funny thing Liam has decided he's "old enough" to do...

...wait, now that I think of it, he told me TWO other things he's "old enough" to do today...

Thing the First - he's 'old enough' to clean his own dishes. My god if this was only truly the case. Which is cute & endearing & makes you want to pat him on the head & send him on his way to watch his beloved Go, Diego, Go!

Second Thing - he wants, again, to go to the beach (been reading a beach book) and when we recokened with him that cannot get to the beach by himself he said that he could drive the Blue Honda Car to which I nearly dropped the dishes he's not quite 'old enough' to clean by himself & very sternly said "you will not be old enough for another 15 years" and then quietly died a little on the inside & whispered to Matias "are you ready for him to be asking us if he can go to the beach for the weekend???" cause I sure as hell am NOT. And suddenly it was all very, very real.

Don't worry though, he's still going to the beach he's just driving his own car to the Outer Banks. He was not even deterred when I told him it would probably take him the better part of a month to get there. Didn't even blink. Just went and got his shoes, which ironically, he is not quite 'old enough' to get on the correct foot all the time & asked me to take him to his car so he could get a move on. He then proceeded to cry very sad, big, tears (red face included) when we denied him this inalienable right. To drive to the beach in his Cozy Coupe at 33 months old.

Next thing, he'll be asking Girlfriend to go away for the weekend to the beach. At least he'll clean up after himself.

Percy & Potty!

This week I got a nice coupon for 50% off anything in the store at AC Moore & even though we have about a dozen Thomas trains we have no track for those bad boys so I thought I would head over & grab us a starter track set at a nice discount.



I told the boy we would go today & buy some trains if we could find something he liked. Silly, right? He'll take one of everything & especially his beloved Percy.

I ended up getting him the Bridge & Crane Figure 8 Set and he could barely contain his excitement. He had to be the one to put it in the cart & take it out to pay for it.



I broke down & got it for him because of his success with potty training. Over the weekend, he started going do-do on the potty but only for Dada. He woke up numerous times, both from naps & nightnight sleep with dry & clean Pull-Ups. He told us in the car when he had to go potty and when we reached the closest stop, his Pull-Up was still dry. He went an entire 6 hour trip with no accidents & told us when he needed to go even though he had a Pull-Up on he didn't "use" it.



I started to get worried that he wouldn't go do-do with me since I'm the one who spends the most time with him. Even after we got home, he continued to only go with Dada but today after getting back from getting our train tracks he WENT DO-DO FOR ME!! And there was much rejoicing :)

He loves his track set. Couldn't wait to open it up & start playing with it. He's very excited about the draw bridge! He quickly proceeded to dump all his Thomas trains out of their home & started playing with them all. We had been using those trains on his Geo Trax, not expecting them to actually work, but just to use as a track for them in any case & I just thought it was the right time with the right reason to go on & get him his own Thomas track.


I cannot believe my little Fellow is potty trained. Especially before 3 years old. I cannot believe that this was not a nightmare. I cannot believe how well he caught on and on his terms. I cannot believe that I am rarely changing/cleaning diapers. I cannot believe that wiping a bum on the toilet is harder than wiping a bum from a diaper.

I also cannot believe that he reads while going potty. Martha Stewart LIVING to boot. But I do believe that that is a whole other post in itself.

They grow so quickly & without warning. Soon he won't even need my help getting up on the potty. One thing I am sure of though is that he'll be needing me to wipe him bum for a good long while still. What's that saying about finding happiness in the little things?

Quick Easter Highlights

I love this little outfit so much on him. We had his Godmother, Carolina, take some candids of him outside playing & I'm so thrilled with the outcome because she totally captured his little boy, free spirit Fellowness.

Except on Sundays

I raising myself a good & proper Southern Fellow.

He woke up from his nap & requested Chic-fil-A for dinner! So that's where he is right now with Dada & probably scrambling up that playground as we speak.

First Day at the Park

At least he's cute when he's not talking

I'm pretty sure I know what I did to deserve this...

I was bugging Liam by dancing & singing (the horror) to Diego while he was eating (slowly) his dinner & he tried to reach out & smack me with his fork.

I innocently said "please don't hit me with your spoon, just ask me to stop".

To which I received the following reply with the accompanying look down at his fork:

"It's a fork"

Yeah, thanks for letting that one slide.

Hmph.

I just went outside to let Liam know dinner was cooling (doesn't like his food hot) & he was playing in the Honda while Dada cleaned his car (to put up for sale). He said that he wasn't coming inside & I said that yes, in fact, he was & that I was coming back out to get him when his dinner was ready.

I went back out on the front veranda/deck area and called down to him & he told me no again. But this time he said "Mama go away" and PUT THE WINDOW UP AND WAVED GOODBYE.

Stinky, little, stinker bug.

Spring is Coming!

Look what we ordered!

http://insectlore.stores.yahoo.net/butgarwitliv1.html (and I cannot figure out how to make that a neat hyper link with my own words! I've totally blanked on how to do that!)

Another mom in one of my groups started a discussion about this fantastic little kit & I knew Matias would totally be on board! How cool is it that we will be growing our own butterflies?!?!

And now I am officially addicted to that site. I want to grow my own lily pad!! I want to grow my own ladybugs!! I want a frog hatchery kit!! But I do NOT want an earthworm nursery!! (thanks, but no thanks) I want a praying mantis pagoda (!) with live egg case!!

MUST.HAVE.IT.ALL.

Sleep Training coupled with Potty Training

Yesterday, I had a little heart break moment.

Liam had gone potty before going down for his noni & we keep him in goodnights Pull-Ups during his sleeps cause he still goes pee-pee (sometimes) and is Nocturnal Pooper. He woke up crying about an hour into his nap & it was the Upset Cry/Possible Nightmare Cry so I ran up there to see what was up & he was standing in his crib (usually during this cry he is all fetal position and sometimes even still asleep) asking to go pee-pee! We went to the potty right away & he had already gone in his Pull-Up but managed to squeeze off a few more rounds in the potty. After that he asked me to "stay & read" because (thankfully) he wanted to go back to sleep. He cuddled himself all up with his Why (his pillow is named "Why") and fell back alseep in mere minutes.

He was really upset that he had gone pee-pee in his Pull-Up though and it broke my heart. I comforted him & let him know that it was ok, that he had done it while he was alseep & we know that he sometimes does that so that is why we keep a Pull-Up on him so that he doesn't have any messy accidents when he is sleeping. He hugged and snuggled me & I just hugged & snuggled him back.

I'm wondering how big of a Sign this is though for doing away with Pull-Ups during noni though...we might be getting there soon but it might get messy if he doesn't fully empty his bladder before going down. Do most kids wake up from naps to go potty? And then do they go back to sleep after that?! He's been doing so great with potty training (no accidents in close to a month!) that I don't want to set us back or hurt his feelings by leaving him in his underwears (unwees, as Liam says!) and 'letting' him have an accident while he sleeps, you know? I have no problem with keeping him in Pull-Ups during sleep time but I am curious to know if this is HIM trying to train himself for sleep time potty training?

And on the Nocturnal Pooping front, Liam typically poops in his sleep. Mostly during the night & if he goes then, he is done for the rest of the day. If he doesn't go during the night, he goes during his nap. There have been a handful (ewww, wrong choice of words there) of times that he has gone while awake & we have been able to get him on the potty to go and the ONE rare time before noni that he asked to go on the potty & went (YAY!!). So this, clearly, is going to take longer (and hence the no rush to be rid of the Pull-Ups) but I don't want to confuse him with doing so well with the pee-pee but keeping the Pull-Ups for do-do, you know?

I know it all works out in the end (again, wrong choice of wors there...) and no kid goes to college pooping in his sleep (RIGHT??) but I'm just trying to TRAIN MYSELF here and give him the chance to do what he needs to do (when he needs to do it...!) to make this go smoothly. What would really suck if he wakes himself up to go potty and then doesn't go back to sleep!

Any suggestions or encouragement gladly accepted ;)

Snippets of my day

Today was your typical, average, rainy Monday but for some reason there are a few things that Liam & I did or said today that have stuck out in my mind & I thought I would write them down to commit them to memory.

While he was eating lunch I bent down to cup his face in my hands & give him a kiss. This is not something new for me to do but this time he grabbed my wedding rings & asked me who gave them to me. I told him Dada gave them to me when we got married in our church and he said "no, Nana gave them to you" and I laughed & pointed out my earrings & said "no, Nana gave me these" and he grabbed my rings again and said "no, Pa gave you these". The conversation doesn't mean much but I loved that he sat there twirling my rings around trying to guess or figure out who gave them to me.

Just now when I was saying goodnight to him, instead of him telling me he loves me (Which, hello? Melty heart!) he told me "Mama, I miss you".

When he woke up from his nap he asked if he could "go to Kim's again & play with the blue Play-Doh". He had asked to leave the playdate this morning, several times, in fact and when we finally left, I asked him once we got settled in the car why he had wanted to leave so badly and he said "I miss Dada, I wanna see Dada, please". So we came home to see Dada cause Liam missed him.

He already knows our new car is a Honda (Oh yeah, I owe you a post about that, don't I?!) & will point out & count all the Hondas on the road. We call it Our Car, as opposed to Mama's [green] car or Dada's [blue] car, and he will call out "another Honda, it's Our Car!"

I gave him an older model iPod shuffle to call his Own & he's loving it. Took it shopping with us today & skipped through just about all the songs loaded on there while we were on the road. He recognizes all his music loaded on there & happily calls out "Baby Einstein" whenever his classical tracks come on. So now, Dada has the iTouch, Mama has the Pink iTouch (old school mini) and he has his White iTouch.

This week seems like a bust to an extent cause of Spring Break - why are all OUR classes cancelled cause others aren't in school? Both art class & soccer have been cancelled & I think that bites. I've been able to filly up our time with playdates & I've got some errands to run but he loves his classes so much that I hate to have them missing from our schedule. We are heading to CT for Easter this weekend so I've got plenty to do before we leave to keep us busy, I suppose, but I just like our Scheduled Events to help fill our days.

I've posted some pictures from Nana & Pa's Monthly Fellow Fix on Dropshots - some are in March and some are in Feburary from their prior visit. There's some especially adorable ones of Liam at a Valentine's Day playdate wearing his tuxedo ;)

Until next time; may all your rainy, typical, Monday bring you immense happiness & bebes telling you they miss you before you have even left the room.