Potty...Trained

Well, mostly, at least. She still wears diapers at night, but I'm not interested in crossing that bridge until we have a washing machine. Jane's motivation ... princess panties. When we got back to Phoenix Jane's best friend was potty trained, and Jane wanted to be like Brooklyn. I told her she could only keep on her panties as long as she could keep them dry, so for about two weeks that meant she wore them in the morning until her first pee, at which point her panties were wet and she got a diaper. But she figured it out and now only has accidents a few times a week.

Proud as can be!

 Some of the things you can overhear Jane saying to her friend:

Did you go pee or poop? I went pee. Did you go pee or poop?
What's on your panties? I have Cinderella.
Let me see your panties, Brooklyn. Hey Brooklyn, see my panties?

I finally had to tell her we don't ask people to show us their underwear, but I guess if it motivates her to not wear diapers, it's alright with me.

With a baby in her belly and Belle panties on.

My Current Parenting Dilemma

As if there were only one. But this one is particularly vexing at the moment. Jane and Audrey play pretty well together, but at least 300 times a day, one of them happens to play with a toy that the other one wants. If Jane decides she wants whatever Audrey has, she walks up to her and plucks it right out of Audrey's hand, at which point I have a dilemma. Do I pluck it out of Jane's hand while scolding her not to take things from people without asking. Or do I ask her nicely to give the toy back and then ask Audrey nicely for the toy, knowing full well that Jane will not in a million years give that toy back. Same problem comes into play when Audrey's got something she's not supposed to have. The easiest thing to do is to just take it from her and tell her she can't have it, but I know Jane's watching, and the last thing I want her doing is taking things from Audrey just because she thinks she shouldn't have them.

On another note...the other day, Adam had the privilege of witnessing a sight he doesn't often see - Audrey going in to get Jane up from her nap. He came out to the living room to tell me about the precious scene, which was pretty typical. Audrey, having gotten access to our room where Jane takes her naps, runs in to greet Jane, who is laying down smelling Jonas' ears. Jane sits up, arms outstretched, and Audrey runs to her. They tackle each other in a hug, and Jane stops, says, "I love you sweetie," and proceeds to give her a delicate kiss on the cheek. Adam thought it was very cute, as did I, but then I told him to wait for what comes next, at which point we started hearing the screams. Audrey had had enough of Jane's love and was feeling smothered. Adam had to intervene to get Audrey out of the headlock. But at least it starts out cute.

Here's a picture of the two while they still love each other.

Here's a few random pictures from recently. (Yeah, we've been wearing short sleeves outside these days).

Audrey in her element. I much prefer her climbing on this to the other things she chooses to climb...the piano, the bunk bed, etc.

Adam took this one of Jane for a photography class he's taking.

Jane being a cat.

Audrey on the picnic table.

Hey now! Hey now! My boyfriend's back!

Yes, it's official! 16 weeks of radiology rotations is officially complete, which means we get our Adam back. No more days or weeks of him being gone, just one more interview in December. I'll take that. Anyway, along with my awesome husband, I also get my computer back (almost as exciting as having my husband back). So that means lots of stuff to blog. I've decided to limit myself to October today in hopes that something gets published.

We flew out to Detroit to reunite with Adam in the beginning of October to stay with my sister, Amberly. Jane, Audrey, and their cousin Mikey loved pulling each other around in the wagon.

The big thing to do in the fall in these parts is to visit an orchard, complete with hayrides, petting zoos, playgrounds, fresh apple cider, and donuts. Jane liked feeding the sheep.

Audrey just enjoyed quacking at all the animals.

We went with Eric's preschool to another farm where we got to pick our own apples and a pumpkin.

We stopped in New York City for the afternoon when we dropped off Adam for his two week rotation in the Bronx. We happened to be in Little Italy in the Bronx, so we got some really yummy authentic pizza. Jane and Audrey were a little wiped, so they napped in the stroller while we walked around the neighborhood.

After we dropped Adam off I went up to Boston to my brother's house (he was out of town). Adam came up for the weekend, and we walked the Freedom Trail in downtown Boston. This is in the courtyard near the Old North Church (from the story of Paul Revere).

So Kurt lives near Cambridge, and we happened to be there the weekend of the Head of the Charles Regatta (largest rowing competition in the world - think of those guys in Social Network). Anyway, we went down to the river to watch and it turned out to be a big festival. Here's Jane on an obstacle course (Adam had to help her up the rest of the way).

On the river with some racers in the background.

The cousins came back for our second week in Boston.

Another fall farm. This one had a haunted hayride.

When Jane heard her cousins excitedly talking about the scarey things on the ride, she got a little too scared. She kept her eyes covered for the first five minutes until I threatened not to let her get any candy corn at the end if she didn't open her eyes.

On our way back from Boston we stopped at Palmyra, NY and went to the Smith farmhouse and the Sacred Grove.

Back in Detroit with Amberly, we enjoyed Halloween. Jane wanted to be a princess, but I had already decided they would be gypsies, so we told her she was a gypsy princess and she was pretty happy. Gypsy costume = tunics from Morroco (thanks Karl), belly dancing skirts from Turkey, headscarves from Russia, and the icing on the cake, gypsy skirts made by Grandma Maggie. Besides, we've pretty much felt like gypsies this year, so it seemed appropriate.

The true meaning of Halloween.

Going door-to-door with her big cousin Sam. Even Audrey got into it once she realized the people behind the doors put candy in your bucket.

Playing in the leaves. Being in Detroit for the fall was awesome for this very reason.

There you go! An action packed October. I have to acknowledge Amberly/Ivan and Kurt/Jenn for letting us invade their houses and their lives this month. It's not always convenient to have extra people in your house, but we loved every minute of it, and Jane and Audrey loved having their cousins for playmates.

Play Time!

So, I really wanted to send Adam some videos of Jane and Audrey, but I don't know how to compress them enough to email them, so I'm posting them here.

Audrey loves those cheerios for breakfast.

Jane got to wear panties for a few days, and I think she looked so cute!

Jane was very proud that she could walk in heels.

We made chocolate chip cookies for Family Home Evening and decided to eat them outside. The chickens came over and tried to steal them from us (and succeeded a bit), but overall it was lots of fun.

Notice the flour all over Jane's face. Yep, she was very helpful making the cookies!

Audrey just enjoyed eating the cookies.

These last two are of Audrey trying to get her drink of milk from a cup. The quality turned out pretty poor - not sure why...

Happy Father's Day!

So I tried to get a video of Jane singing "I'm so glad when Daddy comes home" (and it's really cute when she sings it), but instead I got a medley of Mary Poppins songs. So here's a Mary Poppins tribute to the world's greatest dad!

Happy Father's Day to all those dads in our lives!

Surprise! Half-Marathon!

Yes, you read that right. I ran a half marathon on Saturday in 2:00:48 (so close to the two hour mark - and yet so far). A month ago, I did not plan on ever running a race longer than a 10k and a week ago I thought maybe I'd run a half marathon at the end of the summer to keep me motivated to run after the Ragnar in June. My brother (who trained for and ran a marathon with only a handful of people knowing beforehand) suggested on Monday that I run it with him, so with my hubby's encouragement we signed up on Wednesday. And that was that.

My only previous experience running a race was a free 5k that I didn't actually run, so I was really nervous about this (I was so nervous I had to push back the tears as the start neared - and one pushed it's way out anyway). I wasn't quite sure what to expect for my overall time. I knew that 13 miles is a very long way, so I decided to take it easy for the first few miles, then I progressively increased my intensity until I neared the end. I thought I could make it in under 2 hours if I kept up the intensity, but around mile 10 I got sick of running and thought I'd distract myself by running faster. I quickly realized that starting your final push 3 miles before the finish line is a bad idea and by 12 miles I was dead. Because I started out easy and sped up as the race went on, nobody passed me from about mile 4 until mile 11.5. It felt great effortlessly passing by all those runners, but not so great watching a huge pack pass me one by one the last half mile as I struggled in vain to find the determination and the energy to pick up the pace and stick with them. Either way I was really pleased with my time and averaged 9:02 the second half and 9:13 overall.

My computer is dead, so I can't download my pictures, but I'll post some when the computer fiasco calms down.

Prescott - Part 3

I can't believe our Prescott time is over! We always knew we were only there temporarily, but it's still hard to say goodbye. Anyway, I never got a picture of our street! Oopsies. But luckily I know that we will visit Prescott again soon, so we can go get a picture then if we want. So here's the last installment of our favorite places in Prescott.

Ken Lindley Park was the closest park with slides to our house, so we like to go there on walks sometimes.

Carter is one of Jane's friends, and he lives just a couple blocks away.

Giving each other a hug. They actually fight most of the time. Jane used to grab him like that and tackle him when they were fighting over a toy, but now she just screams.

There was a Whataburger down the street from our house, and Adam swore he would eat there before we left Arizona, so we went there after the kitchen was packed up. Notice Jane getting at that shake with two straws.

Believe me, she gets her eating habits from her dad.

A great helper for me while I packed.