The magical fruit

Have you ever heard the bean song? Beans, beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat. . . For those of you who have and wish to skip the rest of it, feel free to move to the next paragraph. For those of you who haven't heard it, here are the words. Beans, beans, the magical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot. The more you toot; the better you feel. You should have beans for every meal!

For Ben, beans are the magical fruit, not because they make the desired results, but Ben LOVES black beans. He will eat them and eat them and just keep going for as long as I will give them to him. Here is a picture of Ben at Moes eating beans. I wonder if it's because he'd never had beans before he tried them himself. Although I don't eat them, he really does seem to think they're his favorite food. This picture was taken at Moe's Southwest Grill (a personal favorite of ours), and Ben ate half an adult's side order worth of beans.

Jackie is very well behaved at restaurants lately, and we are very grateful. She saw me taking Ben's picture with the cell phone, so she needed a picture, too. Here's hers.

Saturday Mornings

When I was growing up, I loved getting up early on Saturday mornings. If we were really quiet and didn't bug our parents, my mom would let us watch Saturday morning cartoons. Now, Jackie loves to wake me up and say, Mom, will you get me my cartoons? She will sit on the Luv Sac and watch cartoons for another 45 minutes to an hour, so I can get some blissful sleep. These cartoons aren't Bugs Bunny, Road Runner, and Wile E. Coyote, but they're alright. She either watches Mikey Mouse Club House or PBS. We don't watch Calliou though. I know that it's not an attached parent thing to do, but in the end, I need some sleep sometime. Last night I was up from 2:30 to 6:30. I woke up with Ben at 2:30; I was almost asleep. Jackie got up to pee at 3:15, and then I went in to sit with her until she went back to sleep. Then, I just couldn't get back to sleep until 6:30. My extra 45 minutes in the morning can make a real difference.

The Beauty of Cell Phones

The beauty of cell phones is that you can take pictures any time and anywhere. They may not be the best quality, but they're great for boredom. Here is a picture of Ben while we're sitting in the waiting room at the doctor's office.

ECing achievement

Before anyone reads this post, let me remind you that this is an ECing blog, and therefore, I communicate openly about elimination. If you don't want to read the ins and outs of my baby's poops and pees, this post is not for you.

Ben has hit an achievement with our ECing. Before, when he'd pee, he'd always want to play in the stream. I guess that's a boy for you; Jackie never seemed to do that. However, today, we were taking our morning trip to the potty, and I'd missed with his pee. I was too slow waking up, and I didn't worry about it because he had a diaper. I was slightly worried because I didn't want either of us to have to go through the poop scraping ritual that happens if I miss and he has to poop in his diaper. So Ben was sitting on the potty insert on the toilet, and he was trying to pee. He pooped and pooped, and he got them all out on the toilet. He was so happy! Then he stopped, and just waved his hand in front over and over again, trying to feel the wet. He knew that he was pushing, so the stuff should come out. The problem is that he's already pushed all the stuff out. But he knew that he was recognizing the feeling of letting go. I was so happy for him. The scientists who claim that babies have no control over those muscles until the age of two-and-a-half have obviously not given ECing their own children the old college try.

Life can be a real blur

Sometimes, I look at my three year old and remember what things were like when she was a newborn and wonder where all the time went. Sometimes, life just seems like a blur. Everything just seems to whiz by. Then there are other times when life really just seems like a blur. It's the same feeling as when I have lost my glasses. Oh wait! Maybe that's because I did lose my glasses earlier this week. And that day, I was so nauseous, dizzy, and sick that I put down my keys and my cell phone and could not remember where they could possibly be. When my vision is blurry, life gets yucky. Even though I've been feeling better a lot of the time, I understand now why the physical therapist says that it will be six to eight weeks before I'm fully recovered. I go back for my check-up to see how I'm doing on Wednesday. We'll see how that goes. I think that I may need to get my vision checked. Maybe that will help. Anyway, with everything that's going on, I hope that I start to remember things better, and I really hope I don't lose my glasses. I like it when my memory is clear.

Wednesday nights

Wednesdays at our house are probably our craziest days, followed closely by Sundays. I know that Sundays are supposed to be restful, but they throw off the kids' schedules, and then things are hard. Wednesdays, however, are crazy and fun. Jackie goes to school Wednesday morning, and then we come home and eat lunch. Luckily, we didn't have to do any errands yesterday, and we got a LONG nap. (That's rather unusual). Then, we ate supper and Rob and I put on Sunday clothes. At 7:00, Rob needs to be at the church for his Branch Presidency meetings, and after Young Women's I teach seminary at the church. Therefore, when Rob gets home from work, we get busy. Wednesday nights are fun though. The Branch President brings his four kids, and the Young Women's President brings her two kids, and Jackie has friends to play with. She loves it! I'm grateful for good friends.

ECing and the media

There have been some ECing articles in the news this week. I subscribe to ivillage.com because they often have some good ideas on parenting. My inbox came up with "Diaper Free Baby" from ivillage, and I clicked on it. Here is the link: http://slideshow.ivillage.com/parenting/pregnancy/calendar/your_babys_development/diaperfree_babies/?nlcid=pb09-17-2007 I thought that the description was fair, but the comments about it were harsh. Here is the article that is attched to it from MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20464264/ Although I am not a diaper-free mom, I am definately a part-time ECing mom. Ben even pooped and peed in the potty this morning. With Jackie, I caught all but six or seven poops since she was a year old. She would hiss when she needed to go potty. Even at my mom-in-law's house, she started hissing, and fussing, and my mom-in-law kept checking her diaper. She wouldn't poop in her diaper. When I got back from my meeting, Jackie came up to my hissing, so I took her. My mom-in-law was shocked. I bought her a little potty that day, and she used it. Babies cannot be able to "hold it" for a long time because their muscles aren't strong enough, but they are able to know the sensation and purposely cue the parent. That is being potty trained. What is the difference between "SSSSS" and "Mommy I need to potty."? I feel that there is no difference. The child is aware of the sensation and purposely communicate a need.

The difference between Elimination commucation and traditional potty training is the attitude. Im am not potty training my babies. I'm helping them be more aware of their bodies, and I am helping them learn to communicate their needs with me. I love ECing, and I'm glad.

Sick kids then a trip

Teething seems to be the bane of Ben's existence right now. He's the most happy-go-lucky, laid back kid 95 percent of the time. However, teething is not that time. His nose just starts running like it's the third mile of a marathon, and he goes around trying to bite everything. When I say everything, I mean everything--Jackie's head, my arms, the book shelves. . . While this was going on, Jackie started running a low grade fever. She stayed home from school on Friday, and we had an interesting day. It was full of movies, lots of cuddling, and a long naptime. That night, Jackie's fever broke, and Ben started feeling better. Since the kids were well, we went to Atlanta this weekend to the baptism of a child of one of our close friends.

What's with the Kleenex?

Ben's new favorite thing is to pull Kleenexes out of the box one at a time until they are all scattered all over the floor and the one-at-a-time pulling system is no longer possible when I actually have to use a tissue. Jackie seemed to have an affinity for that type of thing too. I gave up putting wipes in a pull out box because that never worked for more than two days before all the wipes were scattered all over the floor, and they had carpet lint stuck to them. You'd think I'd learn. I thought I had. For a long time the place of honor for the tissue box has been on top of my TV stand where the children cannot climb on top of it even if they try to the best of their abilities. Even I have a hard time reaching the top from a two step ladder. However, I made an error today. Ben and Jackie both have allergies, so I have been wiping noses for two and a half days straight. Therefore, today, I decided to go for convenience with the Kleenex box. Big mistake. I left the room for about 10 seconds, and when I returned there were Kleenexes scattered all over the living room floor. However, I didn't check to see if they'd been mangled or not. I just rapidly scooped them up, stuffed them back in the top hole of the box, and put the whole mess back on top of the TV stand. In the end, Ben had a fun 10 seconds and now, I have a Kleenex box with tissues piled haphazardly all over it and more runny noses. Oh well, maybe I'll learn next time.

Not your common aerobics

I previously commented that I would post about my physical therapy exercises. These are things that seem to be easy, but looks can be deceiving. They are things like focus my eyes on one thing held at arms length and shake my head from side to side as rapidly as I can while still staying in focus. And then shake my head from top to bottom while focusing. Another exercise is for me to stand in the corner on a pillow with my eyes closed for 30 seconds to a minute and try to balance myself. Rob needs to be standing in front of me for that one. He also needs to stand in front of me while I stand in the corner on the floor and put my feet, heel to toe together while I try to stand there with my eyes closed for 30 seconds to a minute. I do it once with my eyes closed and once with my eyes open. One of the hardest exercises for me is to sit on a chair, bend over my knee, focus my sight on my toes, and then quickly sit up and look over the opposite shoulder. This one generally makes me very sick. Although they do not take very much physical strength they are actually quite hard for me. I enjoy doing them, but some of them make me very sick, and I am often nauseous at the end of them.

On the bright side, I really feel better through most of my days when I do them twice a day! Yay!

My children CAN share!

My marimba is one of my most favorite posessions in all the world. My kids seem to feel that way, too. Ben tries to crawl underneath it, and Jackie begs, "Mama, can I play your marimba?" I was astonished to find out that my children can share very nicely. Here is a video.

First Day of School

Jackie had her first day of school on Wednesday of this week. She has now been to two days of school. The first one was not a fluke. She loved it! She can't wait to go back! Here are a couple pictures of her first day of school.



This one is me holding Jackie right before I took her to the school. Rob took the picture.





This one is of Jackie underneath the welcome sign to the school. She goes
to the First United Methodist Church Preschool.













This picture is of Jackie's very first activity at school.

Our Labor Day Trip

The name of this post is slightly skewed because our trip is in the process of concluding, (I'm writing this post while Rob is driving south on I-75 with Rob's most awesome cool new toy, the Moto-Q) and it isn't Labor Day. I named the post Our Labor Day trip because we took this trip with our friends, Kim and Erik, and their little girl Tolina which we planned specifically over the Labor Day weekend because Eric had Friday off of work. Therefore, here is the beginnings of our Labor Day weekend.

Kim and I were planning on driving up (or more accurately Kim driving all of us due to my current balance condition) to Atlanta with the kids on Thursday morning or afternoon. Then, the guys were going to come up Friday after lunch when Rob got off work. Due to the Dr. and Jackie's preschool open house, our plans had to change. Kim and Eric also had to change their plans because Kim had homework. Rob, Jackie, Ben, and I left Friday at 2:00 to go up to Atlanta. We only had to stop once, and we made it to the north side of Atlanta in good time. We had fun. We got to go to the temple together while Kim and Erik watched our kids. Then, we went to the Georgia Aquarium with them. That aquarium is really cool. It's the largest aquarium in the world and there's a part you walk through where you walk through a tunnel and see hammerhead sharks above you. It's incredible. Then there are big tanks. Here is a cool picture of a turtle that I took.