My Ramblings

My goodness. It has been over a week since I have blogged. AGAIN.

This is getting ridiculous. Pregnancy has obviously infected my brain. Before I was preggo I was blogging almost once a day! Now I am down to once a week. And its not like I don't have the time. I have a two hour window when Z is napping (or not napping. Regardless he is in his room for two hours), but I completely forget about this poor little blog!

And it isn't like I am lacking content. I have a couple book reviews to do, I have some paintings of Zachariah's I want to show off, I would like to show you Z's favorite birthday gifts that he received... but I just cant remember to do any of that!

Anyway. Enough excuses. Allow me to fill you in on things.

First things first. We went to the doctor yesterday for the 20 week ultra sound and found out we are having another boy!!! We are oh-so-excited. I would love nothing more to have a house full of boys, and it looks like we are well on our way!! We haven't decided on a name yet, but we have a couple that we are heavily considering. Hopefully sometime in the next week or two we will be able to make a decision!

Second, we are in the process of painting. Not painting a nursery mind you, but painting the play room. You see, the current playroom is stationed in the last available bedroom in our house. So that will obviously become the nursery, and the playroom is being moved to the "junk room". Also known as the closed in carport. It is a good sized room and I think it will be PERFECT for a playroom! Anyway, we are smack dab in the middle of painting that. I am hoping we can finish it this weekend!

And by we, I mean my husband. I started out helping him paint, but then I woke up the next morning not able to move my neck and one of my shoulders. And when I say I couldn't move, I am not even joking. Daniel had to help me out of the bed by literally supporting my neck AND back. I couldn't so much as lift a glass to my mouth to take a drink. It was ridiculous. Anyway, I went to the chiropractor and he helped me out. I am now able to get out of the bed unassisted, which is a plus! It still hurts to do some things (you know, like yawn.) but I am on the road to recovery. But needless to say, my chiropractor has restricted me from painting for a while. Which is a bummer, but my sister and mom are stepping in for me, so that is much appreciated!

And last but not least... Zachariah is still not potty trained. Shocker, I know. If it makes you feel any better, it is completely my fault, not his. What? That doesn't make you feel better about the fact that my son is three and not using the toilet yet? Ah well. I tried. :)

I promise to think about blogging more frequently next week. Ha. Seriously. I hope to get my act together soon. I may even pick my camera up and take some pictures of my oh-so-adorable three year old here soon! :)

Hope everyone has a good Thursday and a great weekend!

A Picture

On the night of Zachariah's third birthday we threw away his paci's. It was a sad moment for him, and it took him well over 2.5 hours to fall asleep that night. But it has been over a week and he has done really great.

Well, except at nap time.

We have always had a bedtime routine that we follow. As he gets older we have tweaked it a bit, but for the most part it has stayed the same. Change into pj's, brush teeth, sit on the bed while dad reads a bible story, lay down and cuddle with mom and dad for a minute or two (which usually involves a bit of giggling), then we say our goodnight's and leave. The routine is something we all look forward to and I love that we have it. I think it helps him get in the mindset that sleep is coming. He knows what to expect when we start doing these things, and because he knows bedtime is coming he doesn't protest or argue about it.

I am realizing that we need to start doing the same thing with nap time. In the past we would change his diaper, tuck him in bed and leave. His paci would put him to sleep in no time. We never really needed a routine. But now it is very apparent that we need one. He has only napped once since we threw the paci's away. Once in nine days!

Help me Rhonda.

Anyway, to make a short story long, we have started a nap time routine in hopes of getting those coveted nap times back. Part of this nap time routine involves story time, and let me just say that I am loving it. Especially when Daniel is here. (He will generally schedule his lunch break so he can be home and eat with us, play with Z for a bit and then be able to be here to see him off to his nap. Is that not wonderful?) Because we both like to read to Z we split the reading up evenly. Z likes for Daniel to read his book(s) on the edge of the bed and he likes me to read laying on his pillow with him. :)

I don't know if this new nap time routine is going to help at all, but I sure do love reading with my two boys!

My Son, The Hitter

I don't even know where to start with this post. I am somewhat of a hormonal basket case right now, so it may not make any sense... but ah, what the heck. I am just going to jump right on in and hope you can keep up. :)

We have been attending a certain church here in town for a little over a year. Just last week we joined this church, and that is actually a big deal for us. We don't just go around joining every church we attend. We have been searching for YEARS for a church that has a proper emphasis on Scripture, and we finally found one. Not only does this church have a proper emphasis on Scripture, but the people are for-real-deal-genuine. And if Scripture emphasis and genuine people weren't enough to make me giddy about this rare find, the fact that my son loves to be there and loves to go to Sunday School just makes me happy as a lark.

So... all that being said, there are a few things you should know.

1) Zachariah loves Sunday School.

2) Zachariah is one of the youngest in the Sunday School class and he loves it.

3) The teachers are fabulous. Z loves them. I trust them with every fiber of my being. Nothing but positivity coming from this Mama!

4) Zachariah has always been really well behaved for them. Everyone tells me what a sweet boy he is. How he shares, how wonderfully he gets along with the kids, how he participates... it makes me happy to hear such good reports about my baby!

I don't know what happened, but last week my well behaved son became a "hitter". He doesn't hit out of anger, he just hits for the heck of it I guess. And he has even done it right in front of me when I would come pick him up. He and another kid will be happily playing and all of a sudden he will just hit them. I think its mainly a playful hit, but its a hit nonetheless.

Since he is not hitting out of anger I can only assume he is hitting out of excitement. I have seen the hit and it's not forceful. It is almost like he just cant figure out a better way to communicate at that moment so he just gives them a little hit on the arm. And the fact that he does it in front of me makes me think that it is so innocent that he doesn't see anything wrong with it!

Tonight after church I was told that he hit so many times that he was put in time out. And guess what? After time out he hit again. What the what?!?! He HATES time out. So the fact that he would hit again after he has already been in time out makes me even more sure that he doesn't"get" that it is wrong for him to playfully hit.

I don't know what to do. He does not hit at home. He does not hit at his grandparents houses. He does not hit when we have play dates during the week. So why does he hit at church?

Yeah. I don't know either. But I really wish I could figure it out!

I left church tonight in tears. I actually haven't stopped crying since we got home, and that was quite a few hours ago. I blame a lot of it on pregnancy hormones, but the other part is pure frustration of not knowing what to do to about this whole thing. I know he could be doing worse things, and I know it is probably just a phase and it will eventually be fine... but not knowing WHY he is hitting is driving me absolutely bonkers.

Anyway. Thanks for listening to my Mommy woes. I hope to be back later this week with a less boring and more thought out post. I just needed to vent and get my thoughts together before I could move on in the blogging world. :)

Birthday Boy

Monday, my son turned three years old.

Holy freaking cow. That just blows my mind.

But then again, I think I was kinda prepared for it. For the past 3 months or so he has been acting very much like a "big boy" and not so much like a toddler. It makes me sad to see his baby/toddler phases fly right out the door, but it is very fun to see him turn into a little boy. And if he were reading this he would make sure to tell me that he is NOT a little boy, he is a big boy. :)

I don't have a ton of pictures to show you yet, and that is because his party is not until this weekend. But I do have two pictures from his birthday morning I can share if you want! They are pretty cute, if I do say so myself.

We started with pancakes for breakfast (his request). He called them his "birthday pancakes" and was VERY excited when he saw birthday candles sticking out of them. All through breakfast he kept thanking us for his birthday. It was THE cutest thing ever.

After breakfast he opened his gifts (which I will blog about later.), played with said gifts all morning, we went to the riverquarium (his idea), came home and played with his toys some more, went to Mimi and Poppie's house for a family celebration, ate cake, and came home and crashed. Even though it was not the official party day, he enjoyed the heck out of it.

He told me, "Mamma, I am so happy. My birthday makes me happy." It melted me. I just love this kid, and I love that he loved his simple birthday so much.

I'll be back soon to tell you how the party went! :)

Training the Potty

Is it just me or would training a toilet be easier than training a toddler to USE the toilet?

Oh, its just me?

My bad.

We have had some serious potty training issues. (And by serious I mean inconvenient.) You see, I missed the first window of opportunity with potty training Zachariah. I saw signs of him being ready, but I had ZERO desire to start potty training. So I ignored the signs and figured I would start when I got my act together. Well, by the time I was ready to start potty training I found out I was pregnant. And then 4 months of constant puking ensued. I couldn't potty train a toddler while staying in the bed/hanging over the toilet all day, so I put it off again.

So by the time I was done puking I had missed the window of opportunity. He was not interested anymore. But I decided to try anyway. I was actually convinced that if I potty trained a certain way he would "get it" in 2-3 days and I wouldn't have to worry about it ever again!

Yeah. I'm dumb.

To make a long story a little shorter, we tried a certain method and it failed. While it works great for some kids, it did not work for Z. We tried another method and it still didn't seem to do much. I then realized that Zachariah was not recognizing the "urge" to go. Once he would start peeing he would obviously know he was going, but he just was just not getting the whole tell-mommy-BEFORE-you-pee-thing.

In four days he peed in the toilet once. One time. And that was accidental.

Needless to say, I was discouraged and very aggravated. He wasn't "getting it" and I felt like a big fat failure for not doing this when he was showing signs of being ready months ago. I'm not going to lie... there are not many times where I feel like a failure as a mother. Quite honestly, I think I do a pretty darn good job at being a stay at being a mom. Sure, I could use some work in a few area's. But for the most part, I am rocking it. So this whole failing at potty training thing hit me hard. I was in a mini-depression for a few days because I just had zero desire to try anymore. So we stopped the potty training process. We put him in pull ups and decided to let it be for a few days/a week and then try again once I could re-energize myself.

And do you know what happened? Within two days of being in pull ups and me not saying a word about using the toilet he started telling me when he had to pee. He wouldn't catch it completely, but once he started peeing in the pull up he would stop and finish on the toilet. He then started becoming VERY uncomfortable in pull ups and diapers. (Seriously, when he pees or poops in them he waddles around like a duck. It cracks me up!)

Now, he is still not potty trained, but I am planning on starting the process again with full force in the next day or so. And you know what? If he still doesn't get it, thats ok. I have decided that I am ok with the fact that he may not be fully potty trained at age of three. As with any other milestone, kids move at different paces and I need to keep remembering that.

Anyway! As of right now, that is my potty training story. When he is fully potty trained I am sure I will be posting pictures of him in his Lightning McQueen underwear, so watch out! :)

Sneak Peek

We have some friends from church named Chris and Corrie. They have an adorable daughter named Ariana and she is turning the big UNO this month! So what better way to mark that milestone than with a photo shoot?! Ariana is SUCH a cutie pie, and she did a great job putting up with my camera in her face for an hour! :) Here are a few pictures!

Enjoy!

Aren't they cute? They are such a fun couple. Always laughing and always in such a fabulous mood. I love it! :)

That's all for now! Thank you guys for giving me the opportunity to dust off my camera and spend some more time with you and your cute daughter! :)

Beach Trip 2010!

See! I told you I would get some pictures up this week!

Ok. No unnecessary babbling. Lets just dive right on in, shall we?

This is the view from the living room in our condo. If I could walk into my living room at home and see this every day I think my life would be complete. This view did not get old!

And we didn't just stare at the beach from the balcony. Our first full day there we ventured down and parked it in the sand for a while. Now, the ocean was NASTY. And by nasty I mean there was nothing but seaweed in sight. So we stayed out of that grossness, but Z really, really enjoyed playing in the sand!

And this is what happened when I asked him to look in my general direction and smile. Yeah. Not so much.

And no, I have NO clue what Daniel is talking about in the background.

And here is Zachariah's favorite cousin, Collin! See Zachariah, Collin smiles for the camera!

*sigh* We will have to see if Collin can help Zachariah out with the whole posing for the camera thing. :)

And what did we do after we were done playing in the sand? Hit the pool of course!

I'm not going to lie... this pool was pretty great. Half of it was in the shade and half was in the sun. I LOVED that I could choose to bake or not to bake. It was great. And grand. And lovely.

Oh, and we don't know that couple there in the sunny part of the pool. Our crew was in the shade at that point and these people creeped into my picture.

Rude.

Each afternoon when we would come back to the condo from our fun activities this is what Zachariah would do. He did not take a nap the whole time we were there, but he would definitely come close resting on the couch waiting for lunch to be fixed!

Ok folks. Hold onto your hats, because this was one of Zachariah's favorite part of the whole trip.

The skywalk. The convenient covered walkway that connects the condo to the parking garage. It can be called a skyway, catwalk, skybridge or skywalk. But in reality, it doesn't matter what you call it because Zachariah will only yell at you and insist it is a spaceship. That's right. A spaceship.

And this kid LOVED going in the spaceship. It was the highlight of every day. Anytime we need to go to the car (rain or shine) he would beg to walk in the spaceship. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever.

Yes, we could have just walked across the street to get to our car. And yes, it would have only taken about 30 seconds to do it that way. But we very rarely did that. We decided to take the extra 2-3 minutes to ride the elevator up, walk through the spaceship, ride the elevator down and THEN walk through the parking garage to our car.

Because, lets face it, there is no way on earth we could refuse such an adorable and giddy boy the experience of walking through a spaceship several times a day. :)

And seeing him walk through the spaceship may have been one of my favorite parts of the trip too.

No, wait. This was definitely up on the favorite part of the trip list as well. We went down to the beach to take a group family picture and seagulls were flying EVERYWHERE! Zachariah was basically in heaven.

Every morning Z and I would take a walk on the beach before breakfast, and every morning he would chase the seagulls in hopes that he would be able to hold one. He never got upset when he couldn't catch one, but he was a little discouraged that he couldn't even get close to them. So you can imagine how giddy he was when they started flying very low and very close to him!

Watching this kid run with/towards/away from the seagulls was probably one of the cutest things ever. I mean, EVER. He loved every second of it. :)

And just in case you were wondering, here is our Titus Family group picture. :)

The morning after the seagull fun we started packing up to leave. It was a sad moment when Zachariah realized we were leaving the condo and heading home. We had packed everything up in the car and came back into the condo for one last look around to see if we had left anything. We decided nothing was left behind and started heading out and he quietly said, "I don't wanna go home. I need to stay in condo." and from there it was just downhill. For the first 20 minutes of the drive he cried about not wanting to leave the beach. It wasn't a bratty cry. He wasn't pitching a fit. It was a genuinely sad cry.

And that made me cry. I wont go into how long I cried, but lets just say that Z dried it up well before I did. Darn these pregnancy hormones!

And here he was, about half and hour into the ride home. My sweet baby was exhausted.

So yeah. We had a blast. And while it wasn't his first beach vacation, it was the first one where he was able to soak in and enjoy the wonder of the beach. It just made my year to experience this trip with him! And I owe that all to my wonderful in-laws. This yearly family beach trip is a fabulous tradition they started and it is because of their hard work planning this trip that we were able to have such a great time!

I guess that about wraps it up! Well, not really. I still have a post about going to Gulf World while we were in Panama City, but you will all have to wait for that one. I am beat! :)

Until next year...

Well, ok. Until the next post...