This is Thing 3 home sick today. Although he did throw up once during the night, he is in pretty good spirits because he gets to watch movies all day which is one of his favorite activities. And he also gets to play with his little sister’s toys that she got for her birthday last night. Coincidence?
Today will be torture. For Thing 3. And even more so for me. Today we go to the dentist.
To avoid a complete catastrophe when the event arrives, I have been casually mentioning it over the last week. Like when I brush his teeth, I told him he can get a NEW toothbrush when we go to the dentist. You’d think a kid would like something new. But not Thing 3. He doesn’t like change at all. He prefers his old, bent bristles, ratty toothbrush. “Nooo! I don’t want to go to the dentist!”
I didn’t mentioned it again until last night at bedtime, I reminded him that I would pick him up at school at 10:30 and we’d go to the dentist. “Nooo! I don’t want to go!”
Apparently, he was worrying about this all night. He woke up in a bad mood and, with no prompting, and has told us 137 times (I counted) that he doesn’t want to go to the dentist.
I don’t know why we even bother. A dentist visit with him consists of him kicking, screaming, and fighting while I hold him down and the dentist peeks at his teeth for 3 seconds. Money and time well spent to teach a 3 year old the importance of taking care of your teeth.
The snow is long melted and with it, the delusional thinking that comes with thoughts of warmer weather and longer days. Right now, it’s easy to have idealistic pictures in our heads of lazy summer days at the beach, kids frolicking in the sand. And so, we are contemplating resuming our family trip to the beach this year.
It had been a yearly tradition since Thing 1 was born seven years ago. But we skipped the last two years because one year we had two family weddings to travel to, and then last year with the arrival of Thing 4 it just seemed too much to take on while sleep deprived.
Luckily I have this website to remind me of the true nature of family beach vacations. There was this trip to Virginia Beach just months after Thing 3 was born. The following year we went to Bethany Beach, which turned out to be the tale of two trips. It was both the best of times and the “why the hell did I do this” times.
This year we’re looking at the Outer Banks in North Carolina. It is just at the edge of the important 6 hour drive radius. That is the maximum amount of time that is possible to drive in a car with four kids without going insane. We have outgrown the ability to stay in hotels or condos, so the extra space and relative quiet away from boardwalks that is the Outer Banks seems like a good way to go. If nothing else, I should have some great blog material in a few months.
Thing 3 has really started to get into Wii. It’s really amazing how he is able to find his way through the menus and screens to play the games he wants. Maybe it’s from watching others do it, or memorizing from trial and error, or maybe he’s actually reading the words. I’m just glad he wants to do it on his own. His favorite games are Mario Kart, Bowling, and Just Dance Kids.
We have settled into a new pattern with Thing 4. She has started waking up around 4 in the morning. She is wide awake and wants to crawl/walk around and play.
I guess she isn’t needing as much sleep anymore. Except, shortly after being wide awake, she is so tired, she’ll fall asleep anywhere.
This is what she looked like at 5:30 this morning, after getting up at 4:15. Passed out in the high chair.
When you are a fourth child you get a lot of hand me down toys. And when the three before you were boys, those hand me downs include a lot of cars, trucks, trains, and blocks.
So I guess this was expected. Thing 4 likes to play with cars. And bang on drums. And climb.
She does NOT like to play with dolls. She doesn’t just prefer other toys. No, she is actually *afraid* of dolls. Especially the ones that look like real babies. She cries until you take it away. We need to change this. So SuburbanMommy has already bought some to give for her upcoming birthday. We’ll see what happens.
We’ve had a big week or so over here at the SuburbanDaddy household.? A lot of “firsts” and big milestones reached within a very short time.? I’ve already posted about Thing 3’s potty training breakthrough.? We’ve also seen Thing 4 start to walk.? She took her first steps about 2 weeks ago and is able to walk 10 or 12 in a row now without falling.? She taught herself to climb stairs and can make it up the 15 stairs to get to the bedrooms.? At least, I think she taught herself.? If I find out one of her brothers taught her they are in trouble.
This week we all went out to a restaurant.? And not the kind where you order food standing up.? True, we took separate cars and SuburbanMommy arrived first and put the orders in.? But still, this was an accomplishment.? I can’t remember the last time we attempted to eat out.? Certainly not since Thing 4 was born.? I wouldn’t call it a relaxing dinner, with Thing 3 running all over the place, but it wasn’t too bad.? And, unbelievably, Thing 3 went potty in the restaurant.? Twice.? And he actually TOLD us he needed to go.? And, he went #2.? Did I mention this was in a restaurant?? And then he also told everyone else in the restaurant what he just did.
Unprecedented.? Unexpected.? Unbelievable week.
There are some things I didn’t think were possible. I never thought we’d get as much snow in DC as we did last winter. I didn’t think the Redskins could get any worse, but they manage to do it every year, much to my enjoyment.
And, I never thought Thing 3 would be potty trained. But now he is! It’s something we’ve been working on for upwards of a year. It was going so poorly at one point we abandoned potty training completely, hoping he’d eventually come around. He was the only one left in his preschool class in pull-ups. Just getting him to give up diapers for pull-ups was an enormous struggle that took months.
Last week we went to Target and Thing 3 picked out the underwear he wanted. They were two sizes too big, but I didn’t care. He can wear a bra and panties for all I care as long as he doesn’t pee and poop in them. When we got home, we put all his pull-ups in a trash bag and threw them in the garbage. That was about 10 days ago. He cried for the pull-ups for a couple days but I told him they are all gone, he has to wear underwear now. We’ve had some accidents but for the most part he’s been peeing in the potty, especially at school. Pooping was where Thing 3 made his final stand, but I’m happy to report that tonight we had our first “splash down”.
We’ve been offering Thing 3 as many desserts as he wants for the last year if he’ll just use the potty. Tonight, we happily made good on the promise.
