Our Princess, On Her Throne

Lydia is obsessed, seriously! I feel like she spends about oh, one day, mastering a skill and it's on to the next. She's defintely our little miss Independence. The world better watch out because here she comes. Currently, she loves sitting on the potty. For the record, I'm not even interested in trying to potty train her, I don't think there's any use for at least another 6 months, and in all reality probably more like 18. However, that fact does not in the least diminish her enthusiasm. Every time she's in the bathroom she begs to sit on the potty. If she doesn't think you're getting the message she goes to the side of the toilet, reaches down and picks up the jr. potty seat and tries to lift the lid to place it on the rim. She then proceeds to sit there for several minutes and look around like she's the coolest thing since, well, ever. As you can see from the pictures it doesn't matter one bit to her whether she's clothed or unclothed, and she's never had any "successes" but you better not deprive her of her right ahem, opportunity to have a turn! She's also very into her toothbrush. Again, not that she really has need of a toothbrush. She'll be 11 months old tomorrow and still doesn't have even a single tooth poking through--but you know, that's no reason to miss out on toothbrushing fun. Basically, anything that Joshua does, Lydia wants to do too.
A final indicator of how our little princess thinks she is almost-1 going on 3: Yesterday James was watching Lydia while I was running errands and Joshua was napping. He had her on the main level with him and turned around to pick something up and found her on her way down the 4-stair drop to the family room STANDING UP. So, apparently she's decided she's way too cool for going-down-backwards-on-her-knees, she's now on to the oh so safe walking down the stairs. This truly makes me uneasy, but she's pretty resilient and when she tumbles, trips, or otherwise fails at whatever she's trying to accomplish she picks herself up and tries again. And really, who can resist this face!
Look out my fellow Americans when Election 2044 rolls around, this one has spunk!
And, just because it's cute--here's a picture of Joshua all snuggled up right after his nap and his new haircut. Also a bonus, finally a picture that is horizontally oriented. We seem to have almost all vertical shots these days, they just seem to capture action better!

Summer Fun!

I simply cannot believe we're past the halfway point in July. For those of us here in the upper Midwest, that means we're on the downside of summer. :(


Have I mentioned that we love Madison even more when the weather is warm--there's just so much to do outside and much of it is very family friendly. In the past few weeks we've enjoyed the farmer's market regularly, gardened often (and actually had our first "crop", snow peas, although the rabbits certainly got more than we did), and enjoyed several events around town.



On Wednesday night we went with our life group to Concerts on the Square, a mid-summer tradition here in Madison, involving the Madison Chamber Orchestra playing live music on the steps of the Capitol building. People either pack a picnic, or purchase food from local vendors set up on-site, spread out blankets on the capitol lawn and enjoy dinner and the music (and in the case of a group with eight kids 3 and under, a lot of child-chasing). This was our first time attending a full concert--the other couple of times we've planned on going it has rained or had too great of a threat of inclement weather, although we did happen on one by accident last summer. We had a blast and so did the kids, and they did surprisingly well for how late they were up past their bedtimes. Joshua enjoyed tearing around chasing a few of his friends and befriended a dog named Moxie, and Lydia played with her toys and her friend, Addie. :) Too cute!

Yesterday we headed out with friends in the morning for Madison's new splash park. It's hard to decide whether the best part is how much Joshua enjoyed it, or the fact that it is free so we can go often! The weather has been hot and muggy here all week, so he had a blast running through the sprinklers and splashing in puddles.

Speaking of Joshua, he's officially been in underwear for the past two weeks and this Sunday, assuming we experience no major relapses, we're declaring him officially potty-trained!!!! We've certainly had a couple of accidents along the way (most notably a nasty one at the park the other day, which I'll spare you the details of, but I'm sure you can imagine if you know anything about the lack of amenities in park bathrooms combined with the stickiness of a certain bodily discharge...ick!) but we've been dry most days and even most nights recently. I'm starting to not be constantly worried when we're out and about, but have definitely re-learned the value of keeping a full set of spare clothes on hand at all times. It's somewhat ironic, potty training has been one of the hardest things I've undertaken as a parent so far, and I've spent a lot of energy working on it over the past 18 months. For all that energy I don't really feel like it got me too far, but when he was ready to do it, it's really gone quite smoothly. As usual the first few times are the hardest, and that first accident in public is daunting, but after that you realize again that it's all just a stage... (I think that should be the mantra of parenting!)

Lydia's sitting on her own now and rolling and scootching wherever she wants to go. Her funniest move is a scootch which she does on her back that looks like the upside-down wiggle-worm crawl. She's decided to put real crawling on hold and focus on pulling-up and cruising instead--so watch out world! She's also eating all sorts of solids now, and it's super fun to watch Joshua get excited with each new thing she tries. :)



I'll try to keep this updated more often, but it seems that life happens way too fast to blog about these days! Have a great weekend.

Milestones

These past few weeks have brought several achievements for the kids. Nothing earth shattering, but still it's always fun to watch them grow and become more accomplished!




Lydia is five months old tomorrow and the days, weeks, and months continue to fly. She's reached the big event of starting "solid" foods this past week. What a messy happening given the relatively small amounts of milk and seemingly harmless rice cereal flakes! She made some confused faces at the beginning, but now just a couple of days later she opens her mouth like a champ and is quickly frustrated if she doesn't think you're re-filling the spoon fast enough. Joshua was so excited that Lydia could finally eat "real food" and loved helping me make the baby cereal. (Here are some pictures from her first cereal feeding.)

Finger Licking Good!

Joshua is continuing to work on potty training and had a couple very successful days this week. We had a nearly dry day on Wednesday (one accident and one completely missed event in the diaper) but he went all by himself and there were no hassles. I've been surprised by his potty-training preferences. I'd been prepared for a toddler who refused to go in any potty but his own and who I constantly had to remind and coax to try. However, now that he's realized that nearly every place we go (stores, friends houses, church) has a bathroom he prefers to try a new one. Also, he refuses to go when prompted, but more often that not he tells me he needs to go and he's almost always right. I also thought "big kid" underwear were supposed to be a motivating factor, but instead he is staunchly opposed to the idea of undies (he only wants to wear an "undie diaper" pull-up.) I have no idea however when we might be officially done with the process, my emotions regarding the subject swing like a pendulum depending on the day, and some days it is just too much to attempt!



Nothing much is new with James and I, we're just trying to get ready for a week-long trip that begins on Friday and takes us back to see both sides of the family the following week, ending with the wedding of James' brother Justin (Joshua is the ringbearer).