Just Some Craziness Around Here

As you can probably guess, things are pretty crazy around here. Jonas has his two bottom cuspids getting ready to bust through and it's making him a super crank. With this teething comes slight fever, runny nose and cough (from the runny nose), and of course the pain of teeth trying to push through his gums. Plus, Simon has been biting Jonas (unprovoked), also making Jonas a super crank. Jonas being a super crank means lots of crying & screaming on his part... and sometimes my part (but I mostly blame that on pregnancy hormones).

We're on potty training attempt number four with Simon (we gave up after attempt three because Simon got sick, Daddy had to travel and Mommy was sick and pregnant and then we were all going to be traveling for Christmas and didn't want to deal with it then). Simon has been saying he wants to be a big boy and go on the potty, so today was the first day of potty training... yet again. With the exception of peeing on his toy box, Simon has done a really good job today.

It seems that life with Simon is a battle. Okay, the entire day is not a battle, but every meal, nap time (which I gave up on and we have rest/movie time while Jonas naps), clean-up time, bedtime, potty training, etc. are battles. And a lot of those battles are just because of his will. For example, we can give him a dinner full of all of his favorite foods and he'll say he's hungry but will only want to eat two bites and then ask for a treat. Mealtime battles have nothing to do with whether or not he likes the food or whether or not he's hungry; he just has some control issue or something. It's the same with our last two potty training attempts; he understands the potty, has bladder and bowel control, and he even says he wants to go on the potty and be a big boy (and get rewards, of course)... but he would just pee and poop in his undies after getting rewards.

As crazy and frustrating as things get around here though, we have two very smart, hilarious and sweet boys. There are lots of kisses, hugs and snuggles. Simon looks out for Jonas and gets so excited when Jonas wakes up from nap. Simon can sing the alphabet with only two or three mistakes (...H-Y-J-K-M-&-M-O-P...) and Jonas can sing the alphabet a little, too (most of the letters are B)! Simon seems to remember everything, so we need to watch what we say around him. Jonas sometimes speaks in phrases (he said, "Car in'ere" [car in there] the other day!). Both boys like to imitate things we do and each other, too.

Oh, and we've narrowed Baby Girl's name down to two choices... probably! Of course, her name won't be revealed until she's born as we did with the boys. We're going to stay in our two bedroom place for this year (there's a lot more living space and storage [hello, garage!] than in the three bedroom places we've looked at, plus we have a great deal on rent since Chase does the yard work). So we've got some rearranging and purging to do and new furniture coming before Baby Girl makes her appearance. Things are only going to get crazier around here, I expect, until, well, maybe forever!

***Update***
So, Simon peed a little on the floor during clean-up. Gah! He still didn't do too badly for day one, though.