Rocky Has a Girlfriend

He turns 3 in July and she does in August. It was love at first sight... or first toy squabble. They have been inseparable ever since, bickering like an old couple whenever together but miserable apart. Everyday Rocky asks me, "Mom, what's Lydia doing?" They are in nursery together and the reason every Sunday he drags me out of bed and says, "You need to go to church Mom." As soon as we get there, he scans the congregation for Lydia and then yells out to her. When they find each other in the halls, they grab each other's hand and race to the nursery room. She is the reason he has conquered his fear of the park slide, and he is her protector. Last week at the park, some older girls started picking on Lydia, even hitting her. He marched up to them (who were twice his size) pointed and angrily yelled, "Don't hit my Lydia!" Then to drive the point home, he picked up some bark and threw it at them. Lydia beamed. She plays the damsel in distress well, often faking a fall and calling, "David help me." If I try to help her she pushes me away until "the David (as he calls himself)" comes and takes her hand. She always introduces him as "my David," and her mom reveals that she calls for him in her sleep. A few weeks ago, she announced that she was going to "put on a pretty dress and take David to the temple." Earlier he had told me, out of the blue, "I'm going to catch Lydia and marry her." I think Rich and I had been showing him our wedding pictures earlier. The funniest incident was last Sunday. She spotted us and ran over plopping on our bench next to Rocky. Immediately, she says, "David, I have a cough" and faked a little one. He looked at her sympathetically and said, "Oh, are you okay?" then "Do you want me to hold you?" "Yes," she replied. So they stood up and he embraced her, then stumbled backwards. The two of them went rolling down the aisle locked in a hug until, scared, Lydia, burst out crying. By then, everyone was watching the scene. Momma C and I were laughing so hard that it took us a minute to retrieve the still-embraced toddlers off the floor. Soul mates? .... Only time will tell.

Mother's Day Visit

First off, happy Mother's Day to all you moms out there! We had the privilege yesterday of having one of the greatest moms on the planet with us visiting for the day, Coralie, whom we like to call Momma C. You can tell what a good mom she is by the five incredible people she raised, one of whom is the uncontested world's best husband and father, my Rich. She and Rich's brother Rob were here for a short visit, but fortunately, she will be back in exactly one month to assist us during the birth of unnamed boy and the C-section recovery. Then, my mom will be coming out to help. Yea for moms! What would we do without them? Rich and I are blessed to have 4 of them, whom are all amazing women and very involved in our lives. Rocky loves each of his grandmas dearly. It's nice to have so many examples of the kind of mom I want to be. Momma C also brought us more Bob's Red Mill rice (woohoo!) which we can't find out here. (If you haven't tried it yet, you really should). It was a beautiful day, and we took some great pictures in our backyard, a few of which I will share (but not the ones I'm in because nobody needs to know what I look like right now... if you saw me last pregnancy.. well you've seen enough). We love you moms!

We've updated our slide show!

I'm a Big Kid Now!

We are proud to announce that David Rocky has graduated from pull-ups to Thomas the Train undies. It hasn't been an easy process, and though I'm sure it's far from over, I can't explain the overwhelming elation I feel every time I hear that tinkle in the potty. One of the quirks of parenthood... you find your joys in simple things like well-contained and easily disposable poop. We bought the mini-potty nearly a year ago and used it as a step-stool, while Rocky used it as a place to stash pocket cars. All of his stuffed animals were trained before him. Fortunately, none of them made it to the big potty. His curiosity over the porcelain throne never turned into a desire to try but fostered instead a potty phobia. He was sure it would swallow him up. Even the mini potty was intimidating, as he would panic every time the seat stuck to his bottom when he tried to stand up. Since he never showed any signs of being ready, like wanting a diaper change or even noticing the lump at the bottom, we had to use force in order to meet the second baby arrival deadline. After discovering he was too scared to get off the potty, I would plop him on whimpering, then let him sit there with a stack of books until something happened... which sometimes took an hour. It gave me a chance to clean his room uninterrupted. It nearly took a crowbar to pry his bum off the seat when we were done but eventually the magic happened. After receiving candy bribes and parades with each success he decided it wasn't so bad. We tried the bare-bum approach. The downside was asking him every 10 minutes whether he needed to go and interpreting his "no" as true or false. There were messy repercussions when I misread him. Only Grandma K (and her bag of M & M's) was able to receive prompts from him. Finally, a few weeks later he is complying, being a big fan of his big boy undies. We haven't tackled night-time training yet, but we're on our way. If anyone has suggestions for that one, let us know!