Spring has Sprung!

I got a new diaper back pack and Landen thought it was pretty cool and decided to claim it. I think he looks like the kid in the frosted mini wheats commercial!

If you look close, you can see a bruise on Adellyn's chin and by the corner of her mouth...Landen shoved her earlier that morning. The bruises lasted several days.

Adellyn's new obsession...wiping the walls with a baby wipe!

Adellyn and Landen both hugged Peter Cottontail so much that they wore it out and it won't play it's song and hop and dance like it used to!

We put up a marker board for the kids in the play room...they actually drew on it side by side for a long time without fighting!


Things have been pretty normal around here. The kids and I are still going to MOPS twice a month and story time once a month. I still tutor, and the girls have been coming here more often than I have been going to their house...it's been working a little better because they usually come in the afternoon while the kids are napping. When they come in the morning, I don't have to work so much about the kids getting into something they shouldn't. I wish I could say that we are all healthy, but Wednesday Landen started to get a runny nose and yesterday Adellyn's started running. Both have been coughing a little, so I'm afraid they are getting sick again. We'll see how they are feeling after the weekend...but I'm worried we are going to start the week with a trip to the doctor.

Landen is all healed up from his meatotomy. He still seems to have a little bit of an upward stream, but it is not as bad as it was. Thankfully, he didn't back track in potty training! The week after the surgery, I let him wear pull-ups because he was sore and I had to put cream on twice a day that was kind of greasy (I didn't want all of his pants to have grease marks in the crotch). Once he was all healed, I told him that he had to wear under wear during the day and could only wear pull-ups at night. He fought it at first, but now he is fine with that. The best news of all is that he has started pooping in the toilet! I finally decided that his constipation was not going to get better unless I did something about it other than trying to include more fiber in his diet...I can't force him to eat it. I bought some Miralax and started mixing it in his juice everyday for a week now. A few days after starting him on Miralax (last Sunday to be exact), he had his first success in the toilet! Elliot was in the bathroom with him and Landen finished going potty and hopped off the toilet. Then, he got back up on the toilet and Elliot said he heard a "plop...plop." Landen had finally done it willingly, and he got his Hotwheels car that had been hanging in the bathroom for about a month! Later that day, he asked for a pull-up as he was dancing around, so I said, "You can get another car if you go poop on the toilet." Landen said, "OK," and ran to the bathroom. Later that evening we were at my parents' house and he asked for a pull-up again, but this time I couldn't convince him to try to sit on the toilet, so I let him use a pull-up. Since then, he has NOT used a pull-up and has earned 4 more cars! He has pooped more this week than he has pooped in one week for a very long time. I feel really bad that the poor kid had to deal with that painful constipation for so long, but I am glad that we have finally figured out what to do about it. I'm going to continue to give him Miralax daily for a while because I think we are still a ways away from saying he is over his constipation completely. However, he is just that much closer to being completely potty trained. We still need to work on staying dry EVERY night, getting him to go to the bathroom on his own (he wants someone to go with him for some reason), and using public bathrooms. He also thinks he still needs to take his pants completely off to use the toilet. I guess that is another minor challenge is to get him to keep is pants around his ankles instead of taking them off...maybe that would help with issue of him not wanting to put his pants back on! Anyway, enough about that!

Adellyn is really growing out of her baby stages and fully into the toddler stages...seems kind of sad. She is talking so much and she definitely has more words than Landen did at that age. I think her favorite work is "baby." She LOVES babies. I about couldn't get her away from our neighbor's baby the other day. I'm a little worried come August that she will either try to carry the baby like her dolls or she will smother the baby. I know she will give her little brother/sister lots of love, though! She really likes to help me around the house, too. The other day I had some packages of diapers to put away and she was bringing them to me one at a time! She also helped me put some pop in the refrigerator. She will follow my lead when I pick up toys. She is also very good about taking Landen's sippy cup to him. It is so cute to hear Landen say, "Tank you Adewyn," when she hands him the cup! The funniest thing she does is when she takes a wipe out of the box and starts to wipe the walls, floor and anything else she thinks of with it. She still screams just to scream or to get Landen in trouble. The ladies who watch the kids at MOPS have even commented on how she screams as her defense...she is the only girl most of the time and there are usually anywhere from 6 to 9 boys there. I guess there are some situations that I can't blame her for screaming!

It's supposed to be really nice next week, so hopefully we will get to spent lots of time playing outside. I hope it's nice wherever you are! We are definitely ready for spring!

Landen's Meatotomy

Just a quick update on Landen's Meatotomy (mee-uh-tot-o-mee). In case I didn't make this very clear before, Landen didn't pee straight. The meatotomy was make his "v" shaped opening into an "o" shaped opening. We checked into the surgery center a little after 6am on Friday morning. A little after 6:30, they called us back for pre-op. Landen was scared of toilets there, so when he couldn't hold it anymore, I had to force him to sit while he was screaming. Once he finished, he was ok with it, but the loud flush scared him again. He finally was able to settle down and relax after going potty and the rest of pre-op was pretty easy. We got him to leave the stickers with the leads in place by having him name the colors. The nurses and doctors were all impressed with how smart he is! They also couldn't stop talking about how cute he was that morning! We sent him off with the nurses for his surgery a little before 7am and at about 7:10, the urologist came out to tell me everything went great and to tell me how to care for it for the next week. He woke up around 7:30. He wasn't even confused like they were telling us he would be. We sat in the recovery room and watched cartoons until Elliot got back from running a couple errands. We were leaving shortly after 8 and we went to Perkins for breakfast! We decided Landen was doing well enough to stop a few other places before heading home. He slept most of the way home and we got there around noon. He wouldn't nap the rest of the day and even got to go play at Grandma and Grandpa Hoefs' house! He did scream and cry the first couple of time going potty on Friday and a couple of times on Saturday, but today it looks much better and he hasn't been saying that it hurts when he pees. The only thing that hurts now is when I have to put the antibiotic cream on. I have to stick the tip inside to dilate the opening twice a day to keep it from closing up as it heals. When I am finished he says through tears, "That's sharp, Mommy." I feel so bad, but it would be worse if it healed completely shut. We are all finally healthy...well mostly. I am on my second round of antibiotics, but I am feeling much better and the baby it moving a lot now! Thanks for checking on us.

Is winter over yet???

Wow! Where did February go? It’s bad enough that it is a short month, but it really seemed to fly by! Unfortunately, I was sick the entire month. I started with a little bit of a runny nose and a cough at the end of January. I kept putting off going to the doctor; thinking is was a cold that would go away on its own. I even went in for a prenatal check up (more on that later) 2 weeks into my cold, but the doctor didn’t think it was anything more than a cold. When I did finally go to the doctor, it was actually for the kids because they were also sick. Adellyn went 4 nights in a row with a low fever at bedtime and then when she quit running a fever, Landen started running one, only he still had it in the morning. When Adellyn coughed for about 5 minutes straight and Landen just looked miserable one morning, I decided to get them to the doctor. While there, I mentioned I have been fighting a plugged nose for 4 weeks, so she looked at me too. Turned out that we all had sinus infections. I’m still a little plugged up, but not near as bad (the antibiotics are still working) and the kids definitely feel better. They still cough a little, but their noses have pretty much stopped running. Elliot did not escape this round of illness. A few days later, he complained that his head felt like it was going to explode (that’s how mine felt, too). I called the doctor and explained that the rest of us had sinus infections and Elliot had the same symptoms, so they just called in a prescription to the pharmacy without having to see him. I guess we were due to be sick since we had been pretty healthy all winter up to this point.

My prenatal check up went really well. I was pleasantly surprised that I did not gain even an ounce since the last appointment! We also got to hear the baby’s heartbeat for the first time. It was between156bpm and 159bpm. That was at 12.5 weeks, I am now at 15.5 weeks. I have another appointment next week.

Landen is staying dry all day now. He even naps in under ware and wakes up dry. He still is not going poop in the toilet. I have a Hotwheels car hanging on the cabinet handle in the bathroom to give him when he does finally go. For a while, I don’t think he quite understood why he couldn’t have it and he would get upset when I told him he had to poop in the toilet to get it. Tonight, he was telling me that he can have that red car when he poops in the toilet, so now I know he understands. Hopefully he will do it soon! I have been trying to give him any foods that he will eat that will make his bowels move. I have even been adding wheat bran to some food such as malt-o-meal and spaghetti sauce. I am hoping that he will quit holding it for so long. He is also VERY independent and refuses help in getting dressed and doing many other tasks. If you flush the toilet for him, expect a melt down. The phrase heard from him several times a day is, “Let ME try it.” He also prefers to run around the house naked, so getting him dressed (in the morning and after he goes potty) is quite a struggle. He spent most of last week wearing pajamas because I couldn’t convince him to put anything else on. I figured as long as we were not going anywhere, why fight with him. I have found the best way to get him to get dressed is to say, “you do it, or I will.” When he gets distracted, I will tell him to be done by the time I count to 10. This doesn’t always work because I also have the rule that I count to 3 then spank if I want him to quit doing something or do something I tell him to do like get into his chair at the table. So when I am counting to 10 to get him to put on his pants, it makes him nervous and he gets upset because he is afraid that I will spank him if he is not dressed in time. As we keep working on that (and I remember to explain why I’m counting better) he will be less nervous when I start counting as a way to get him to hurry and stay on task. Landen is still a picky eater. If you ask him what he wants for lunch, he either said tomato soup [and grilled cheese] or fish sticks. He does occasionally surprise me and ask for something completely unexpected. The other day he asked for some raisins! I was happy to give him all he would eat. I could go on about Landen, but this is getting long. The only important thing I have left about him is his trip to the urologist. I mentioned in my last post that Landen pees up. The urologist said that having that extra piece of skin is not rare, but it is not that common either. He said the procedure to have it removed is simple and quick and he should only need Tylenol afterwards. It will probably take longer for him to go in and out of anesthetics than to do the surgery. It is scheduled for March 12 (next week). He has been talking about the doctor that is going to fix his pee pee and he seems okay with it. I’m glad we are getting this taken care of now so he won’t remember he even had this done.

Adellyn is little miss attitude. We have occasionally started letting her sit in her booster seat at the table for meals and snacks. If she sees that the booster seat is not in the chair, she throws a HUGE fit. She thinks she is pretty special when she gets to sit at the table! She is still a little too messy to give up the high chair completely. I’m pretty sure that when I am not watching (or when she thinks I’m not) she screams at Landen to get him in trouble. I have a tendency to blame him for her screaming, so I’ve started trying to observe the situation before bursting in to ‘rescue’ her. I even saw her walk away from Landen, throw herself down and scream. If I catch Landen doing something to her, I give him a time-out. If I don’t catch him, I ask him what happened and with the right questions, I can get him to tell me. Then I make them hug and kiss and say sorry. I try to avoid time-outs if I don’t see or hear what happened because Adellyn often instigates the problem by trying to grab something he is playing with. I have given Adellyn time-outs, but it is a challenge to get her to sit. Heck, it’s still a challenge to get Landen to sit even though he knows he is supposed to stay in the corner. She also likes to tease people. She teases with kisses…acts like she is going to give you a kiss, the turns away. She also does this when she holds out a toy or a piece of food, she pulls it away right before you try to take it. She has started doing something funny with our old cell phones that are now toys. She likes to put the down her shirt! I don’t know where she learned that, but it is hilarious to watch, especially when she has on footed pajamas because it gets stuck in her leg. I’m pretty sure she slept all night with something in her pajamas once. Adellyn is also talking a lot now. Most of what is says either not understandable or repeating what we say. The other day, Landen asked for some M&Ms for going potty, so I gave him 2. Adellyn saw them and started signing please to me. I said, “what, you want some M&Ms too?” She said, “M M too.” That was just too darn cute to refuse. She has Daddy wrapped around her finger and she knows it! All she has to do is she “DAAAdeee” and he will give her what she wants. Ok, so not always, but he gives in more often than I do!

Well, that’s about it for now. I will try to update after Landen’s procedure to let everyone know how it went. Enjoy the pictures.

February