I have been swallowed up by life.  As I very well should be.  Just busyness with four babes under 2.  That statement still blows my mind.  Here are some things we’ve been up to:

Maverick – This little mister has been walking for a couple of weeks now, and he is getting really good at it!  I so love to see him toddle here and there…his pudgy little feet trying to hold up his toddle-y body.  I could just eat him up because he is so cute with his curly sandy brown hair and round, chubby little cheeks and big, blue-as-the-ocean eyes. 

 

 This little cutie has also discovered that he can climb onto the couch, from there, climb onto the back of the couch, and climb up onto the bar.  Mommy DOESN’T think it is so cute when he does this.  Two words when I first saw this: heart-attack. 

Crews – Crewsie Bug (as he is known around here – I wonder if he will ever know his name is just Crews) is a funny, smart little boy!  Oh he loves his Mama so very much.  M & W come give me snuggles when they *want* to, but Crews would snuggle with me all the live long day if I could.  He has severe separation anxiety if  I leave him…sometimes even if I just leave the room.  The other day I went to Bible study at a friend’s home.  I take all of the boys with me & a precious lady watches the boys in a playroom upstairs.  Well, when I arrived, I took Crews inside and left the other two out in the car while I got him set up.  I left him in the arms of my friend, Kellye, and when I had returned with the other two, Crews had worked himself up so bad that he had barfed all over the floor.  Since I wasn’t sure if it was a bug or just a cry-so-hard-u-throw-up deal, we said hello and goodbye in about 5 mintues.  It ended up being just a cry-so-hard-you-throw-up deal (praise the LORD!  I dread the day the stomach enters our home).  Another little tid-bit about Crews is that he has been fooling us!  He will take a few steps here & there, but knows he wants to be carried everywhere!  The other day Bekah was here and she said Crews just walked across the living room!!!  I told her it had to be Maverick, but I look down at my feet and Maverick was right there with me!!  Lol!  I have yet to see Crews do this, but I totally wouldn’t put it past him…clever little guy!   Here is Crews doing his new kissy/fishy face – so cute!

Warner – Has been so funny lately.  He is constantly babbling away… no words, just lots and lots of babble. (all of them babble- it just seems that he is the constant one!) It made me worry a little bit b/c none of the boys have been talking & Harper was already saying about 10 words at her 1st b-day.  (once again the difference between girls and boys is just crazy!)  But, I spoke with the doctor and he said no big deal…as long as they were saying/signing 4 words by 18 months they would be right on track.  He also said it is not uncommon for there to be a delay with multiples because they create their own language.  Awesome…hope I can learn it!    Anyway, W is always babbling away or just yelling…we say he will be a preacher, politician, or singer b/c he HAS to be heard – LOL!  He definitely has his opinion about things. He shows no interest of walking on his own.  He will walk when pushing a toy, but he will not try to take any steps between two people, nor will he walk if you hold his hands.  He is a stubborn little thang, but is such a cutie patootie. 

Seriously, look at that hair!  It is styled so lovely with peas or apples or something.  I love how all my kiddos have curls.  My hair is stick straight.  The only curly headed person I can think of is Chris’ mom, Jo…so THANKS Jo Jo!!!

Harper – This big sister has been cracking us up lately!  One funny little girl!  She has been attending a Mother’s Day Out program at our church and is absolutely loving it!  She is learning so much and her teachers say she is a very good helper.  I am very proud of her as she is the youngest in the class, but is completely holding her own!  She pottys well, naps, is kind to her friends, and is a helper!  I think she enjoys being out of the house for a little bit, too.  So, a few funny stories about Harper:

#1- I love that she has started becoming quizzical.  The infamous ‘why’ questions are beginning!  Sometimes they drive me nuts, but I also love that her mind is trying to figure things out.  I was putting her to bed the other night, and we were saying our prayers.  Mid-prayer she asks me, “Mommy, I want to see Jesus.”  I tried to explain to her that we can’t see Jesus with our eyes.  He lives in Heaven, but one day He can live in her heart if she asks Him to.  She said, ‘ but I want to seeeeeeee him.’  I replied, ‘well, we can’t see him with our eyes.’  This went back and forth for a little bit until she said, ‘ But, I really want to see his hair.’  LOL!  She must have seen a picture of Jesus & how he has long hair.  Oh she cracks me up!

#2- So, Harps has been doing fantastic potty training!  Staying dry all night & day!  I’m so proud of her.  She is finally not asking for M&M’s anymore – maybe once a week.  Anyway, the other night she announced she needed to go potty.  I told her she could go by herself.  So off she went.  The next thing I know she is crying/yelling at the top of her lungs. I am thinking she has seen a bug or she has fallen into the potty.  Well, I walk in there and she is standing by the potty with her panties and shorts around her ankles.  I asked her what was wrong.  She told me she tried to wee-wee like Daddy and it didn’t work.  Sure enough, I had missed the giant puddle she was standing in!!! (On the off chance you are wondering why she watches Chris go to the bathroom – she doesn’t/hasn’t in a very very looooooong time!  She must have remembered from a while ago.) Poor thing will *really* want to stand up to go potty once her brothers start potty training!!

Also, that reminds me, I recorded on twitter the other day that for the first time in 14 months we ran out of diapers!  Our church family has been so amazing to us!!  In fact, we didn’t even run out because our sweet Jean (who comes to watch the boys for me on Thursday) came to our rescue with diapers in tow…and she wouldn’t even let me pay for them!  God has truly provided, and we are so thankful.  I also roughly estimated that the boys (not including Harper) have used more than 9,000 diapers in 14 months!  Crazy! 

And one more pic of the boys eating at the BIG table.  Still haven’t made the complete switch over, but it’s fun every now and then.  I cant wait for the day where we all sit down to dinner as a big family & all the seast are filled at the table! 

 That’s it for now.  I finally unloaded all the pics from my camera, so I have a ton of things to blog about.  I just need to find the time to do it!  Can anyone spare a few hours?!  😉

Night night~
ML

…that’s our pooping battle cry!!!

(FYI: A very long post that is filled with lots of poop talk…don’t say I didn’t warn ya!  Read the first paragraph if you want a quick summary… continue to read added details if you want the looong version.)

To sum up the day(Wednesday, August 25)… Harper pooped in the potty around 7:55pm tonight. Yes, I documented the time because that is how much it meant to me. And this poop was initiated on her own.  After a very loooooong day of her rebelling to the idea of pooping on the potty, she finally gave in without a fuss. Well, maybe I should revise that and say, after rebelling to MY idea of pooping on the potty.  Maybe she didn’t need to go earlier & I was trying to hard to make her.  Once I left her alone…success!!

And, here is the much longer version for my records when I need to potty train the boys.  Let’s back up a bit.  I am almost certain my memory will shut this day out.  So, here’s the potty 411 on Harper.  Since Harper was 18 months old or so I have had her sit on the potty before bath time.  She was always very interested when I would go potty, so I would let her try.  She would be so proud when she would tee-tee!  I never made it a big deal, though.  Just let her try here and there.

I bought her princess and Minnie Mouse underwear right before her 2nd birthday.  Every now and then I would pull it out and tell her when she was a big girl and wanted to go weewee and poopoo on the potty, she could wear these.  She would smile and say okay.  I may have let her try them on once or twice, but I told her to tell me when she was ready.  Off they would go and we would put a diaper back on her bummie.

I kind of started freaking out, feeling pressure that i should train her back after she turned 2.  So many of my friends were training their little ones; however, I would always go back to the fact that we would be going to NC for 2 1/2 weeks and I didn’t want to ride on a plane with a newly potty-trained child (and 3 other babies!!).  While we were at my mom’s house, Harper *loved* how the potties were so much closer to the ground than ours are at home.  She could get on and off without a step.  She just about ‘weewee trained’ herself there because the potties were so fun for her.  She would just whip her diaper off, go weewee and ask me to put another one on!  She also did NOT like being wet & wanted to be changed immediately.  I knew that these were very positive signs!  I started talking up potty training while we were in NC – telling her when she got back home, she would be able to be a big girl, wear her panties and go on te potty like Mommy and Daddy. 

While we were in NC, one of the last nights, Aunt Nancy took her to the potty.  Harper said she wanted to talk and asked Nancy to sit down.  According to Nancy, they talked about emotions – happiness and sadness -LOL!!  And, about how when you are a big girl you poop on the potty.  Nancy was telling H that she poops on the potty, and Mommy poops on the potty, and, well, you get the idea.  (sorry, Minks, for outing you…I think she had Will convinced bf they were married that she was the one girl on the face of the earth who didn’t poop…oh, young love.)  Ahem, back to the story…  and then, all of a sudden we here, ‘SHE POOPED!!!SHE POOPED!!!’ coming from the bathroom!  Harper was just as surprised as all of us were!  It was soooo funny!  But it showed her that she could do it!!!  She was ready!!!

Once we got home, I had planned to start training on a Thursday – was actually planning on starting tomorrow, August 26 , so Chris would be home and we could watch her like a hawk.  Well, last Thursday she woke up and told me, “Mommy, I’m ready to wear those panties.”  I had pulled some out and laid them on her changing table the night before to put something away. I forgot to put those back!  So, yay!   I told her she needed to keep them dry.  She did great.  I just let her lead me when she was wet.  I figured she would tell me if she needed to go, or if her panties were wet.  I didn’t ask her at all if she needed to go potty.  She stayed dry & went potty a couple of times before naptime.  I told her we would put a pull-up on for naptime…to which she said no to.  She stayed dry through naptime.  She stayed dry through the afternoon.  At bedtime she wanted to wear panties.  I triple-sheeted her bed (stacked fitted sheet/ then ultimate crib sheet – USC (waterproof)/sheet/UCS/Sheet/UCS/Sheet) so we could have fast middle of the night bed changes.  To our surprise, she stayed dried!!! 

She did have an accident the next night & totally freaked out.  But she has stayed dry since then!!!  I do make her wear a pull-up at night b/c I have been sick & need sleep, but we will soon tackle that! 

Poop has been a bit of an issue. I ended up calling two of my friends to share my potty training woes (which are next to none – thankfully!)  Both had great ideas of prune juice, sticker books, making sure her feet were flat on an object (which I think was the ticket), etc.  It was so nice to have other mommies to talk to about the stress of messy potty training. 

So that brings us to today…well, tonight.  I was, ironically, up to my elbows in poop (the boys’ not hers) when she told me she had to go potty.  I told her she had to go by herself b/c I couldn’t help her.  She went into the bathroom and was in there for a while.  Thankfully, she wasn’t yelling for me to come sit with her.  I think she knew I was at my limit as far as what I could do.  The boys were yelling and I was trying to wrangle them into their pjs.  After a few minutes she yelled, “MOMMY!!!  I did it!!!  I poopooed in the potty!!!!!”  I jumped up (I think I left a baby half naked, but I was soooo excited!)  Sure enough, there was a poop!  We both squealed! After getting all cleaned up, she celebrated by having not just one m&m, not just two m&ms, but a little bowl of m&ms!!!  I told her she could have so many because she pooped on her own! 

It is official!  Since August 25, 2010 at 2 1/2 years old (30 months), she has done fantastic!  I definitely try to keep her fiber intake up.  And, I do have her drink a little prune juice mixed with apple juice each day, but other than that I haven’t had to do anything else!  She is a pooping machine & poops several times a day now!  Very much unlike her diaper pooping.  Just the other day, she told me she needed to go potty.  I was in the middle of doing something I couldn’t leave, so she went by herself.  She was in there for a little while, so I guessed she was pooping & would call for me when she was done.  Nope! She did poop, but she also wiped, flushed, & washed her hands by herself!!  I checked to make sure all was clean – lol!  And she did a perfect job!!!  Where did my baby go?!?  I didn’t think the independence would swoop in so fast!  Well, it is nice not to have to deal with 4 diapers 5 times a day…now, only 3! 

Good job Harper!  I’m so proud of you little lovey!  Have I ever told you that you are the most perfect sister to three little boys?!?!  Well, you are.

Love you, darling
(written on August 25, published on blog Sept. 9th)