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KeikiTweets

12:37 Oatmeal all over the floor. Blood on the walls. Toilet water strewn about. This is life with a one-year-old--and that was all before noon!

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Good Little Travelers!

When we started planning this month-long road trip I almost started to develop hives in anticipation of keeping a three year old and an eight month old strapped down for hours at a time.  Well, we have realized that the [near] hives were completely unwarranted!  Koa and Caspian have both done SO well with traveling so far.  When we made our impromptu 12 hour drive into Stafford, VA I think we were pushing the limits just a bit, but neither of them seem to be holding it against us. 

Koa is still most fascinated with his Legos and asks to get his "playgos" out every time we get in the car.  We did reveal another gift we had gotten him which is a dry erase note book for practicing letters, numbers and shapes.  We didn't think ahead of time to establish a rule that he is not really supposed to draw on his brother, but Caspian didn't seem to mind all that much.  Now that we have clarified that the markings seem to stay where they belong and he asks to draw on that almost as often as the Legos.  I am still in shock that we have made it the full distance across the country and have only pulled out those two items.  There have been a couple of other small things and snacks here and there, but other than that Koa has been pretty easy to entertain.  The strawberry fruit snacks that I made and left stuck to the parchment paper for him to unroll and pick off have been a big hit.  They are all gone already. 

Koa has had a lot of people to read stories to him along the way and that has been a lot of fun for him.  He is also getting more and more interested in reading to other people.  He had a little friend at Full Bubble, "Lilily" (Lily), who is about six months older than him and he read The Very Hungry Caterpillar to her several times.

Caspian...well...he has his toes.  So, who needs toys (or snacks) when you have toes.  This is definitely a month of changes for Caspian.  The folks in Portland are not even going to recognize him when we get back.  He is in the process of getting three teeth at once.  He is now a pretty proficient crawler (although he looks a little like Gollum) and is getting better at cruising all the time.  He gets brave once in a while and tries to see if he can stand by himself.  He gets really thrilled by the couple of seconds of success before his bottom meets the ground again!  He is also working on talking a little bit.  He has been saying "Dada" for a while now actually directed at Zak.  One day he said "Mama" right after one of us said it, but it was only one time, so it might have been a fluke.  I think he says "thank you" ("tay-tu") and we think he said "dog" when we were at Becky's house (they have two adorable dogs that both the boys loved!).  He has been working on signing a little bit here and there.  When I say, "More, please." he will give me his hands to help him make the sign.  He occasionally signs "daddy" when I do it first and he has signed "bird" (after me) when we were watching the birds in Grandpa Hunt and Grandma Myrna's yard in Colorado.

When we were in Paris for Full Bubble I would usually take him up to our room to nap during the day.  If we were downstairs and he started to get tired he would snuggle into my chest and act like he was going to sleep, but then he would sit up, wave his hand "bye-bye" and then snuggle in again.  He would do this until I took him upstairs to his bed.  If I didn't "listen" he would get progressively fussier about it.  He got pretty "spoiled" while we were there about getting to go to his own bed and sleep in a nice dark room by himself.  Now we have to fight it out a bit when there is no bed available and he has to go to sleep in my arms.

On Sunday Caspian went to his very first Bible class at North Stafford while Zak and I taught the adult class.  He learned that you cannot live on rice cereal alone, but the Word of God is a necessary part of the diet.  Pictures are being posted, as I type, of his Bible gnawing. 

Caspian has also been using the potty pretty consistently.  If we give him the opportunity and he needs to go he will go shee shee and poo-poo in the big potty.  We're not trying to get him out of diapers any time soon.  We are just giving him the opportunity to get used to using the big potty and he seems to understand the concept just fine.

We just discovered how far behind our photo albums are and submit a public apology to The People.  Sorry.  We (Zak) will get right on that.

My Baby Can Read!

OK, so "read" is an exaggeration, but he has memorized one of his favorite board books and now he will go through it and point at the pictures and "read" it to us.  It's pretty cool.  He's only recently started to pretend to read and the first day he did it I thought it was hilarious.  He will also try to read the signs when we are driving down the road and he'll say things like, "There's a Thai place."  We never know if he is right because by the time we realize what he said we are well past the place to which he is referring.

Speaking of Thai food, we have found a wonderful little Thai restaurant VERY close to our house.  Too close, really.  The first few weeks we were here before we had our kitchen in working order we were very tempted by their deliciousness!  In fact, one of Koa's pretend things that he likes to do now is take our order.  Any time he has a pen and paper he will cock his head to the side and say, "What you want?"  or "You want some Thom Kha?"  Sometimes no matter what we order he will tell us they are all out...except the thom kha.  At least he knows to keep the good stuff on hand...

He's gotten quite helpful around the house in lots of ways.  He likes to help move the laundry from the washer to the dryer.  Now that we have a front load of each and they are at his level I can ask him to do it and then walk away and he does a good job.  Sometimes I come back and both machines are running because he also knows which buttons to push to turn them on, but I usually don't go far enough that I can't hear the beeps.  

He also likes to help take things to the recycling bin (so much so that I found a plate in there the other day after Zak asked him to help clear the table...) and just this week he has started helping me wash the dishes.  Admittedly, he only does his job with scrubbing the dishes until he gets distracted by holding a puppet show with the two scrub brushes having a conversation, but it's nice to have company with my least favorite chore...and entertainment, too!

Edit:  I forgot to mention just how much Koa likes to help empty and clean his own potty now.  I also should probably mention that there are few things more likely to give a mom a heart attack than a two year old wielding a bowl of poop!

A while back we bought Koa a little fabric doll from the thrift store for like 10 cents.  It's been a great investment.  Recently Koa named the baby.  His name is George Mueller.  He plays with George all the time.  Occasionally he takes a nap with him.  He takes him to the potty.  (Fortunately he is fabric because there have been potty mishaps with the doll, as well, and he washes quite nicely in the washing machine.)  He straps him into the baby's car seat.  I'm curious how his relationship with George will change after the baby comes.  This should be an interesting saga to witness.

My one last little Koaism to share tonight happened the other day when he was on the phone with Grandpa Stimple.  Stimple was asking if he could come visit and then inquiring as to the protocol if he were to show up to the house.  It went something like this:

Stimple:  "When I get to the door do I knock on the door or do I ring the doorbell?"

Koa:  "No, you push the button and say, 'Mayonnaise!'"

Where does he come up with this stuff!?  

 

Potty Training Trials

I mentioned a while back that I would share some of our potty training trials for laughs and to remind me not to even bother with the next kid until s/he is ready to leave for college.  Well, one night I did that and then lost the whole post, so I shall try to attempt it again!  If it doesn't work this time--it's not meant to be!

Right before we left Hawaii we had gone to the mall (groan) for something and while we were there Koa needed to use the potty and they actually had a little kid's size toilet in one of the stalls.  The stall even had a sign that said "Keiki Potty" on the door.  It was really cute.  So, Koa used that one and then every time we used a public restroom in the future would say, "This is a keiki potty!" and was insistent that if it wasn't one of the really tall ones that he could "do it to myself".  (Add this to the ways malls ruin lives!)  As you can imagine the next several weeks as we were traveling, there were A LOT of public restrooms to visit.

One day while we were in Tennessee he needed to go to the potty and as I took him in there he insisted that I go in the stall next to him and let him "do it to myself".  He had been doing a pretty good job of doing that and since I needed to go, too, I apprehensively went in the stall next to him after reminding him to scoot all the way back and point down!  All of the sudden I hear and see this splash of "water" coming under the wall into my stall splashing all over the floor!  I don't even know how this is physically possible considering the height and position of a tiny boy on a large toilet, but this child can defy gravity when it comes to these types of things, I'm convinced.  So, I hurriedly told him to stay put and wait for Mama.  He did and I came over to clean up the mess.  While I was down on my hands and knees, in a public restroom with pieces of toilet paper wiping the floor, he realized he could reach the door from his comfy position and tried to close the door.  He only succeeded in smashing my head against the wall!  When I looked at him with fire in my eyes and started to scold him for doing such a thing, he said, "Mama, I make you crazy!"

Oh, how right he is!

When we got to Portland and had been here for several weeks, we were on Multnomah's campus for some event and as we were getting ready to leave with a group of people, I decided I better take Koa to the restroom before we left.  So, I asked folks to wait on us and took him into the restroom with the very shiny floor.   

He had had several weeks of practice by now and was doing pretty well by himself.    So, when he insisted on going by himself I conceded (because, once again I needed to go myself and thought this would be faster...my naivety is almost charming, isn't it?)  This time, however, he had figured out how to lock the door and insisted that he needed to do this--before I could stop him.  I could see how this could be bad, but I confidently reminded him to scoot back and point down and went into my own stall. 

Yep, you guessed it.  Shee shee all over the floor again.  This time, however it stayed in his stall.  Which would seem like a positive thing---except, remember the shiny floor and the closed stall door.  I explained to him that he was going to have to get down and open the door but would have to be very careful to not step in it!  Wasted words.  He stepped right in it and promptly fell to the floor, very upset.  I encouraged him to get up and get the door so I could help him, but no progress could be made.  Every time he stood up, he would fall down getting angrier with every fall. 

Try not to picture this, it will scar you!  Eight months pregnant mom on the floor, reaching under the door grabbing toilet paper and pulling it to the ground wiping up the mess (yes, this was one of the bathrooms without hand towels!), crying toddler sitting in it.  At this point I was also laughing deliriously because, well, what else was I going to do!?  Between delirious cackles I tried to soothe the angry toddler, but that didn't seem to help much.  I was just very thankful that no one walked it on that scene.  We eventually got everything cleaned up, the door opened and all of Koa's clothes changed.  As I walked out shaking my head and laughing, Zak said, "What took so long?"

These are the times I hope the next child is a little girl!

A Fun Story

I know most of you read this blog for information on the under-aged in our household, so I figured I should give you a little update and one fun story just to keep you interested!

When we got our first small shipment it was partially ours and partially the Couser's, so there were a few things here and there that were starting to look familiar.  When Koa went in to use the potty one time he noticed that he recognized the bath mat.  He looked at me and said, "Is this ours?"  I said, "Yes."   He asked, "From our green house?"  I affirmed that and added, "This is our new house and soon we will have all of our stuff here."  He said, "This is our new house?  CONGRATULATIONS!"

As you can see from that little story, his vocabulary is really exploding and he says all kinds of interesting things now!  He is quite the little evangelist, too.  He will sing or talk or shout about Jesus whenever he gets a chance!  Sometimes he will be out on our front steps all by himself just telling anyone who will listen about Jesus.  Yesterday we were at Ikea rummaging through the scratch and dent section and the whole time we were there he had a lamp he was using as a microphone and he was singing/yelling, "Run to Jesus!  Run to Jesus!" the whole time!  I kept asking him to lower his voice and he would for a time, but the message just could not be suppressed and in very little time he would be yelling it again.  Can you really discipline for that?

He is getting pretty good at using the potty all by himself.  When we are out somewhere he will insist that I carry on with whatever I am doing and he will do it by himself.  There is usually some part of it that he can't quite do completely by himself (sometimes it starts with getting the door open to get in the bathroom).  I can't really suppress myself from going in and keeping watch, but one day he went in the men's room and Zak was perfectly willing to let him try.  We were sitting where we could see the door and when Zak did go in, the only thing Koa couldn't do by himself was reach the paper towel.  However, you should have seen the look on the poor guy's face who walked in on the little two year old sitting on the potty!  That was priceless!  There have certainly been some adventures along the way as we make this transition to independence.  I will have to blog about some of them for posterity sake at some point--mostly to remind me to just wait until the next child is 18 before we embark on this milestone!

Koa is really loving the new way of dressing that the rest of us are hesitant to adapt.  He loves to wear long pants or "hot pants" as he likes to call them.  He reminds me to bring his jacket when we go out the door even though he doesn't wear it for long when we do put it on because he usually gets too hot.  We got Koa a pair of galoshes (Locals) before we moved to Portland and packed them with the rest of our belongings, but he did not forget in the month that he did not see them!  He asked for them multiple times and when he saw me putting on covered shoes one day he insisted that he needed his "bootses".  We got them out and he started wearing these bright blue boots everywhere we went!  To Zak's dismay he doesn't even want to wear slippers anymore!  So, I went to a second hand store the other day and bought him a couple of pairs of regular shoes and he danced around like a crazy man with only one shoe on while Zak was trying to see if they fit.  For the rest of the day we could hardly get him to take them off.  Surprisingly, he can put them on by himself and gets them on the right feet.  I thought that was just a product of wearing slippers all the time, but apparently not.  I can't tell you how grateful I am to not have to bend over and put them on him!  

Speaking of not being able to bend over for any length of time without almost passing out...I am certainly getting rounder!  I have had a bit of a cold for the past week which makes breathing even more of a challenge.  Other than that, I am still feeling pretty good.  My weird back issue rears its ugly head from time to time, but I cannot even begin to tell you how thankful I am that it hasn't been any worse during our move!  With all of the plane flights and different beds and moving things from place to place I know it could have been SO much worse, but I have really done very well.  I haven't been exercising as much as I would like, but I do some stretching every now and then and it seems to help keep everything working relatively well.  Praise God!

Little BZ2 is getting slightly less busy.  I don't feel him or her moving all day and all night anymore--there are occasional breaks is the action, but when he/she is moving it feels like there is furniture being re-arranged in there!  Sometimes I feel my entire upper body move in response.  I don't remember Koa ever keeping me awake at night with his movements either (there's isn't much that will keep me awake at night!), but this kid can definitely do so.  One night at like 3 AM it actually felt like my whole belly was vibrating and then the baby was running laps on the inside.  It was the weirdest thing I have ever felt--and I could NOT go to sleep!  Koa likes to tell me what the baby is doing in there--it's usually a sport.  "She's playing baseball!"  (Yes, he still insists the baby is a girl and she will have green eyes, green hair and a green shirt.)

We have chosen a doctor/midwife very close to us.  She does home births and birthing center births.  We haven't totally decided which we are going to do, but I think it will probably be at the birthing center.  We figure you kind of lose the "comfort of your own home" benefit when your own home still feels a little foreign.  We'll see.  We still have a couple of months...

We're still not certain on a first name for a girl or a middle name for a boy, so if you have any ideas we are still open to suggestions!

More Potty Talk

Sorry, Stimple, I know you would rather talk about more sophisticated things, but this is what I've got for you!

I realized a while back that I never posted about something that is apparently a very big deal in a little boy's life.  Koa can now stand to pee!  I don't know if this normally comes naturally for little boys, but for the longest time Koa would only go if there was a potty under him.  Now he will go outside or wherever which makes things a little easier and less disgusting when our only option is to hunt down a public restroom.  One day he even announced to me after using the potty that, "Boys stand!"  I have no idea where he got that, but I'm sure one of his adopted uncles has been indoctrinating him with proper boy behavior!

The other big development (which is probably more exciting to me than anyone else) is that he can now take off his pants by himself and go to the potty.  Conventional wisdom would say that you wait for that stage to even start potty training him but who wants to be conventional?  Yesterday he even went in and used the potty all by himself without telling me or being reminded.  That is only like the second time ever that he has done that, but I count it a small victory!  Can I also say to those of you with little girls that you need to count your blessings that you don't have to teach the skill of "pointing down"!  This is an important skill that has still not been entirely mastered by our little one, but I really look forward to the day it is!  So do my bathroom rugs, if they survive that long!

Right before Zak left for Guam Koa had started his six week cycle of really testing his boundaries and this was an especially rough one!!  It looked like there was no end in sight when Zak left, so I thought this was going to be a terrible week, but so far he has really turned the corner and is acting like his normal self again.  He definitely is missing Daddy and seems to be a little more sensitive to stuff (getting his feelings hurt over little things), but he is being pretty obedient and generally fun to be around again.

Zak made it safely to Guam and we have been able to web cam with him twice already.  That seems to make him seem not so far away.  Koa asks if he is home every time we come home and points out that his truck is here.  Today, as we were walking, in I told him that Daddy was in the computer because I knew we were probably going to get to Skype with him when we got in the house.  He thought I meant Daddy was on the computer, so he ran to Zak's desk and said, "Where's Daddy?"  I turned on my computer and said, "No, Daddy is in the computer!"  He said, "Where's Daddy's top?" (laptop) and got very upset.  I thought I was helping, but I guess that was a cruel joke to him!

Guam is a day ahead of us, so Zak was getting ready to go to church this morning when we Skyped with him.  Since he has been there about a bazillion times he knows the little church there pretty well, but the last time he was there was about three years ago (that is so hard to believe it has been that long!).  So, I will be curious to hear if any of the same people are there.  The former preacher there went to school with Zak's granddad.  Everybody knows a Zumwalt!

To give you an update on me, I'm 14 weeks along and have been feeling much better!  Most days I still have an insatiable appetite and I get headaches pretty easily if I don't eat plenty, so I keep lots of snacks with us, but at least I am not getting nauseous any more.  My belly is definitely getting bigger faster this time.  I already look like I did at five months last time, but I guess that is just the way it goes with second babies!  We played Ultimate Frisbee tonight and I could really feel a difference this week.  We didn't play last week, but the weeks before that I felt more tired and I would have to rest a little more between plays, but today I could really tell I was much slower.  The guy I was guarding had it pretty easy!  Boy, pregnancy is hard on my pride!   

I can already feel the baby moving occasionally.  With Koa I felt him much earlier than they said I would, but this seems really early to me.  I started feeling this wee one at twelve weeks!  I guess once you know that feeling it's hard to ignore!  It's pretty cool!  It makes me very conscious of the miracle that is going on inside me.

This baby has certainly high jacked my brain.  I have had so many ridiculous moments of "pregnancy brain" that I don't even know if I could sum them up but here are a few that stand out in my mind: 

• One day I went to teach Stroller Strides and forgot my socks.  The next day I forgot my shoes.  I had to teach class in slippers.
• I was leading an exercise at Stroller Strides near the four baseball fields that I have always referred to as the "quad area" and for some reason that day I decided to count the fields and came to the conclusion that there were five fields.  I launched into this explanation of why I had always called it the "quad area" because I thought there were only four fields and I felt so silly to realize that there were five fields.  One of the girls stopped me and said, "Kathy, there are only four fields!"
• The other day I went to make coffee and put the coffee grounds where the water should go!

Ahh, the things motherhood does to you!!  One more sweet little thing...last night Koa and I had already said prayers and he was ready to go to bed and as I was walking out of the room he asked if we could pray for the baby!  Tonight he remembered to mention the baby in the first prayer.  Ahh, the things motherhood does for you. 

Warning: Bathroom Humor

Koa has said this before, but he did it again today and I just had to share--mostly so I can use it against him in the future...

Sometimes when he seems to have rushed through the bathroom experience and I am not really sure he has spent an adequate amount of time to take care of business, I will ask him, "Are you sure you're finished?  Do you need to go more?"  and sometimes he responds with, "No, I full poop!"

Priceless!

Mele Kalikimaka!

Merry Christmas!  We hope you all had as fun a day as we did!  And what a day it was!  Can you believe that Koa actually slept in on Christmas?  Of all the days...  He is usually like clock-work and wakes up at 7:00 AM sharp (especially if it is a day we could possibly sleep in), but Tuesday he didn't wake up until after 8:00.  We would normally be happy to let him sleep in but we were having a whole group of people over for brunch at 10:00, so we had to open presents pretty quickly after he finally woke up.

We got up and opened some presents and cleaned up that mess just in time to start another one.  We had about 12 or so people here for brunch, so I made batter for pumpkin waffles and blueberry waffles and we set up a DIY waffle station.  I also made cinnamon rolls, scrambled eggs, bacon and spiced cider.  Other people brought sausage, fruit and drink.  It was quite a spread and we were very full by the time we were pau.  We all sat around and chatted for a while and then busted out Cranium for a rousing game!  It wouldn't be a party without food and Cranium!

Everyone left around 3:00 and we did some minor clean up and then busted out the toys.  I guess this is just the way it goes when you have a child, but I'm pretty sure we had the most fun watching Koa open and play with his toys.  He was actually pretty uninterested in the whole Christmas/Santa/presents thing in general.  This entire week (or however long we've had gifts under the tree) he has not cared about them one bit.  He hasn't really even been all that enthralled with the tree.  Once he realized that he was not allowed to throw the "balls" on the tree he lost interest pretty quickly.  However, after we started opening gifts he got pretty excited about a couple of his presents.  The vast majority of his presents were books, and we had to stave off reading each one as we opened them.  He also got quite a few Signing Time DVDs, a couple Singing Bible Scripture CDs, some mini John Deere tractors and the best for last, a little laptop.  One of the funniest things that day was when I asked him if he wanted to take his lap top to the potty with him (his dream come true!  He made up his own sign for laptop a couple of weeks ago and has been asking to use a laptop when he is doing his business).  He actually ran to the bathroom pulling his pants down along the way!

Aahhhh, Monday...

What a week this last one was!  We had near hurricane force winds (around 60 mph) blow through here on Tuesday night and we spent the rest of the week recovering from that.  We had no electricity for two days last week--one for no apparent reason and one from the storm.  There were trees torn out of the ground, terrible traffic woes, flooding, high surf, and 18 power poles knocked down on the leeward side of the island.  It was a little crazy around here to say the least.  I wasn't feeling well for a couple of the days, so Koa and I mostly stayed home to ride it out.  Zak had to work and was teaching a class so he couldn't stay home.  Fortunately his building had power, so he showered there in the morning.

Zak had two of his three finals of this semester a couple days ago.  On Friday he finished Ethics in Leadership and on Saturday he finished Philosophy of Religion.  He is now one final away from having his bachelor's degree complete!  He doesn't officially graduate until March, but he will be done with classes on December 15th!  Yea!!

Zak also wrapped up our Malama Group Leadership Training yesterday, so we had a little celebration with ice cream and brownies at our final meeting.  It was rather emotional for some folks, and I think the nervousness about this whole thing is starting to set in with most of us!  We'll have our first group meetings the week of January 6th, so we have about a month to get ready.

Yesterday seemed like a culmination of the rest of the week as we rushed around to get last minute things done and nothing went smoothly!  It was a day of Murphy's law, I think.  Everything went wrong from a broken copy machine at the church to running in the commissary for a couple of things and having someone set off an alarm, so I was stuck there while they did a "thorough investigation."  Of course it was my idea to go to the Hickam commissary because I thought it would be quicker!  That was how our whole day went.  By the time we got home we felt like we had participated in the Honolulu Marathon along with several of our friends.  Fortunately we have fewer blisters to show for it today.  I think we have mostly recovered.

Koa was happy to begin the week with mow-mow day.  That is what he calls the lawn mower (or any other small engine he hears).  He spends most of his Monday mornings dashing back and forth from his step in the window of our bedroom to the step stool that I usually set out on the lanai for him.  As the mower leaves one area Koa runs to the other area to try to catch a glimpse!  He can't get enough of it!

In addition to all the madness this week an important evolution has taken place at our house.  Koa has moved on to slippas (flip flops) without the additional strap to hold them on his feet.  Prior to this week if we even so much as thought about putting a strapless slipper on his foot he would have a meltdown right there in front of the house and refuse to take another step until the offending shoe had been removed!  However, this week he decided he wanted to try wearing his shoes around the house sans strap (usually shoes stay outside at our house), so I let him try it.  Eventually I went to him with the scissors and chopped off the extra strap.  From that day forth he has been sans straps.  He's still learning the art of clenching with his toes to keep them on when we pick him up or he is sitting in a chair without his feet touching, but he is catching on very quickly.  I must say, I don't know if I have ever seen a prouder Zak!

Along with the big-boy shoes apparently comes imagination.  He has really started to use his anyway.  For a while he has done things like pretend he has food in his mouth when there is no food in the vicinity just to get a reaction out of me because I always think he has stuck a rock in his mouth or something.  Sometimes he will take my pack of gum and mess with it and then pretend he is chewing gum.  Well, today he decided Daddy was in the computer desk and he would get me to open the little door to the tower for him (because the magnet is too strong for him to open without a handle) and he would yell inside, "Hi, Dada!" and shut the door real quick.  Then he wanted me to do it, too.  So, we took turns saying, "Hi, Dada!" and "Bye, Dada!" into the computer desk and he thought this was great fun.  For the rest of the morning anytime he closed a door in the rest of the house he would pretend that Dada was on the other side.

I think he is also getting the concept of sharing a little bit.  I'm sure we're not home free, but there have been some good steps made this week, I think.  When he goes to the potty I still give him one chocolate chip for going without a fuss and one if he tells me he needs to go.  So, when we get out the candy container I tell him if he gets one or two.  (If he only gets one he tries to plead his case by holding up four fingers and saying, "Two?")  Well, one day this week he got two, so he very carefully reached in and got out the first one and put it in his mouth.  Then he reached in and got the second one, looked at it and offered it to me.  I thought it was so sweet and I let him know that it was very nice and told him "thank you."  Then he prompted me to open my mouth because he wanted to see it.  I had already started to chew it and I put the remainder on my tongue for him to see and he exclaimed, "Oh, it's a mess!"  It's so funny when he does stuff like that because most of our communication is done in one word sentences.  So, when he makes a statement like that it always catches me off guard.  Since that day he has shared his candy with both Zak and me, and twice it has been when he only got one candy.

He's also learning a lot more about language through his signs.  One day this week he had been drawing on an envelope from a card we had received and he brought it to me and I looked at it and said, "What is this?" and he gave me the sign for "surprise!"  I would never have even thought to teach him that sign, but he learned it on Signing Time.

I absolutely adore those videos.  I never thought I would say that about a children's video series.  However one day this week he asked to watch them and Zak said, "No, how 'bout you go get a book?"  Normally that statement would have been met with much rejoicing and running to get a whole stack of books, but this time he just got kind of sad and never would go get us a book.  That happened a couple of times so we decided the videos needed to go back to the library for a while.  They were due anyway, but normally I would have checked out some more or at least renew some of the same ones.  This time however we left empty handed.  We still work on all the signs and he still uses them very well, but we figured a break from the videos was a healthy thing.  Even though the videos are educational, Zak and I don't want to raise a child with the TV.  Ya know, I don't think I have woken up with "The Silly Pizza Song" in my head once since then!

We get to wrap up this week with another vacation to the Big Island (this will be our 4th!).  We are celebrating the end of Zak's BA in Religion and using this as our family Christmas gift to each other.  We get to stay on Kilauea Military Camp which is a very nice area and it gets nice and chilly there during the winters, so we can indulge in hot cocoa and fires in the fireplace without sweating while we do!  They have been having blizzards over on Mauna Kea and got a foot of snow a couple of days ago, so we may actually get to see some snow while we are there!  Then we can go to the beach when we get tired of the cold!  That's the beauty of Hawaii!! 

The Prodigal Returns!

This post is probably not all that exciting to anyone but me, but I thought I would share.  Koa did, in fact, return to the potty.  He has resumed using it regularly, but he still will not tell us he needs to go.  My theory is that one day when he was bouncing from person to person between Sunday activities he didn't want to go to the potty so he kept telling everyone he didn't need to go.  He ended up holding it for about 4-5 hours and I think it might have made his little muscles week again so that he got to where he couldn't hold it and he couldn't predict when he needed to go.  I started noticing that he would shee shee a little when I tickled him or something like that and he didn't do that before.  So, I think it was more of a physical thing.  I also started thinking back and every time he has relapsed from potty training it has been after he was really stubborn and held it for a long time.  See where stubbornness gets you?  In a big mess!  Let that be a lesson to me.