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I was so hopeful Aden would want to use the potty more!  I’m still hopeful as Aden will be moving into the next class at daycare soon and they definitely do the full out potty training in that class.

Kevin is off to the ancestral home this weekend and I’m heading in the opposite direction to visit my friend in Tampa.  It will be interesting to see how Aden fares staying the night in a new location.  Since our spring disaster of trying to stay in a cabin with him we haven’t tried staying anywhere else with him. 

In that instance he kept getting up in the middle of the night and would wind up in weird places.  He sleeps in a very deep crib at home. The first night at the cabin he was stuck under the bed.  The second night he was on a shelf in the kitchen.  I don’t know if he sleep walks or was just looking for something more comfortable but it freaked us out every night!  So this will be a great little test run for our October mountain trip.  I’ll find out how well he travels!

Forget trying to potty train while on the road…I won’t go there, especially by myself.

~Life as Mom

Potty training with the frog potty

 Potty Training.  The big moment has arrived!  It has begun. I am so NOT ready! 

Aden is asking to use the potty (without prompting from me)!  Due to no effort on our part, the bumbling parents, the child is doing what he is supposed to!  All I can say is, “Thank You Daycare”!  That’s the good part.  The other part of this new adventure in parenting is that I am overwhelmed with sadness at how quickly he is growing up.  This is one of the biggest challenges as a parent that I have been dreading.

I was completely floored when he asked to use the potty earlier last week after waking up with a wet diaper.  The second time, whoa, this was momentous!  Success!  He sat on the potty and did what he was supposed to! A proud moment in parenthood!  But alas, that was last week and this week we haven’t had as much progress. 

I feel like the babysitter here, just hoping the kid knows what to do because I sure don’t.  I’ve read everything there is to read about potty-training methods but somehow spending a whole weekend with a naked child forcing him to sit on the potty every twenty minutes doesn’t seem like a great way to teach a kid.

Where do we go from here?  I’ve been trying to take the wait and see approach.  Aden is extremely independent and I know that forcing him will mean disaster.  I don’t want to rush the process but it was definitely a lot easier teaching him to eat solid foods.

All of this leads up to the TERRIBLE TWOs!  I’ve tried to prepare Kevin and myself for what could possibly come.  This past year has just been such a pleasure and probably one of the easiest we will ever have.  I sincerely hope not but I hope our sweet child doesn’t turn into a clinging, raving lunatic monster that no one wants to be around.  I think that will make for a couple of raving lunatic parents and I don’t think that is a good scene.

~Life as Mom

Blogging about parenting and life in general has been enlightening for both Kevin and myself.  We’ve learned a lot about blogging!  We’ve also learned a great deal about ourselves.  Sometimes my husband and I are able get a perspective on each other through our writing that we aren’t quite able to get across in talking to each other. 

Here is a quick synopsis of our past two years blogging as parents!

Getting Closer
Here is our first post, pre-baby!  Short but sweet.  My inspiration to start blogging was dooce.com.  I found her through an article somewhere.  I actually kept the article somewhere in the mess of my desk to always reference.  Here was someone laying her life experiences out there for the world to see!  If I could only be that brave!

Two posts I enjoyed writing the most were Nature Attack! and part II, Nature attacks, the House with the Mouse.  The situations were so funny and I still can’t believe I had a mouse in bed with me! UGH!!  Not too mention there have been updates that I haven’t blogged about yet.  How many times can one man get poisen ivy? 

Fall Behind on Spring Cleaning
Here is a post that had an interesting discussion comment in part due to my naivete and part due to my, shall we dare call it?, sarcasm!

I’m supposed to put in a post of something I wish I had written here by another blogger.  Can I say that every day I don’t write I wish I had and everytime I read another person’s blog I say to myself; that could be me.  There are so many brilliant talents out there working hard to let the world know.  Every day I find more and more bloggers I want to follow.  I just wish I had time to read them all!

Our most helpful post seemed to be Strategies of a Working Mom.  This was the most popular post of our blog!  I definitely need to write more posts like this as there seems to be a need for them, but who has the time now that the child is mobile?

All I want for my birthday is my son’s poopie diaper
One of the best titles we could have, or rather Kevin could have, ever come up with!  I don’t know what could possibly embarress our son more for years to come, unless it’s the picture of him on the potty!

Keeping Toddler Occupied
This is a post that I wish more people had read.  I asked my friends to pitch in and they had a lot of brilliant ideas.

Thanks for sticking around!!

~Life as Mom

Aden at Dudley Farm

I have been dusting off the rusty photography skills in contemplation of moonlighting as a photographer next year.  As I have been doing so I have been combing the Internet for photographers that I admire and look to for inspiration. 

I used to work as an event photographer back in the day before digital photography.  Man oh man, have things changed!  Way, way, way back in the day I used to edit pictures by hand with colored pencils!

It occurred to me that perhaps I should share this list as well as my passion!  This particular list is of children’s photographers.

They are all amazing and all have a unique style which is why I study them as I am working towards a style of my own. 

Zena Holloway www.zenaholloway.com
Pure Magic!  I can’t tell you how amazing this photographer is.  You just have to see for yourself!

Footprints Photography www.footprintsphotography.com
I aspire to be this great!

Audrey Woulard in Chicago, modern children’s portraiture www.alwphotography.com
Absolutely Beautiful!

Do you know of any wonderful photographers that you would like to share? I hope to share more as I find them.

Enjoy the eye candy! 

~Life as Mom

We got our driveway fixed and paved yesterday.  If anyone recalls we had to take down the tree, that housed the squirrel, that ate our cars, that cost us thousands in the house that nature built!

It looks lovely now.  Although you can see the patch, at least there isn’t a huge hole in the middle of our driveway anymore where the tree used to be!

Easter is coming up and I’m looking forward to hiding eggs for Aden.  I just can’t believe how smart he is becoming.  We colored eggs this week.  Martha Stewert I ain’t but it was fun anyways.   I’m am trying to relax about this holiday.  I don’t want to go crazy over a basket or the perfect outfit. It’s about family and hanging out and making memories, ie: laughter!

Aden is quite the parrot now which means I have to curb my language, which is not good; the language I mean.  I need to remember words like, “sugar,” and “fiddlesticks.”  Somehow those things just don’t come to mind when I’m falling over with my son in my arms and his sippy cup just hit the truck tire that I just ran over roadkill with.  Hmm.  Yum.

It wasn’t a rabbit.  At least I don’t think so.

Happy Easter!

~Life as Mom