UPDATE!!!

DISCLOSURE: This is about the potty again. So feel free to skip if this reading doesn't pertain to you. :)

We have progress...major progress!!!

After my last potty post where I was beside myself begging for advice and frustrated, I woke up Saturday to a different tune from Lincoln!

Saturday was the day we had set for celebration at Chuck E. Cheese for his hard work on the potty. Though I'll confess, I was hesitant to take him cause I felt like there was no progress, but we decided to go ahead as planned because he was working hard and it wasn't fun for him all the time.

And then on Saturday morning, before we were to go (by which he was nuclear excited!), he asked me to go poop, then about 20 minutes later asked me to go pee! He then went 3 times while at CEC, and never had an accident all day!!!!

Then today, he came in while we were getting ready for church and told me he had to poop...then told me later this morning that he had to pee...again - 2 days in a row!!!!! He went at church in his class and has had zero accidents so far today as well!

If that wasn't enough, as a bonus, today he was mad when he had to wear a pull-up to church because he wanted to wear his "undies"...this was a first as he has been begging to only wear diapers for the past week!

So just like that, we took a huge step in the right direction! I feel super encouraged about this.

In all honesty, I would have stopped trying to train him last week, except I really don't wanna start doing it in the middle of basketball season b/c we just aren't home that much at all. My goal is to have him rolling pretty well by the time season starts.

Thanks so much for all the encouragement!!!!!!! :)

And here's a pic I took with my phone from CEC:

Dinner Woes

When Jason and I got married in 2007, we both quickly realized that we ate completely different. We even drank different!
We had two pitchers in the fridge - one of his lemonade he would make and one of mine.
Mine was crystal light...his was a mixture of pure lemon juice, water, and (it seemed) 5 bags of sugar (it was an insane amount of sugar!). He claimed he didn't like my lemonade and I wasn't about to take up drinking sugar water with a dazzle of lemon!

Before we had kids, we would often eat at the same time, but eat different things. I liked the vegetables, he liked the potatoes.

Jason always claimed he hated all vegetables except corn (which some would not consider a good veggie), and at the time I felt like that ruled out 90% of the recipes I cooked from!

But through that year I was able to find some things we both liked...and that included changes on my part as well. For instance hamburger meat: I had never bought this (much less cooked it) in my life before I married Jason!

But I discovered a lean option to ground beef, and also discovered Jason liked it too, as long as it was not hamburgers. So this opened up more dinner options instantly.

And now, folks, I wanna fast-forward you to present: In this week alone, Jason has GLADLY eaten asparagus (this is now his favorite), a salad (this is AMAZING), and green beans mixed with other veggies I cooked in a small crockpot (he went back for seconds on these).
Not only did he eats these...he now enjoys them.

And as for the lemonade? He hasn't made the sugar water now for at least a year. He now loves crystal light...we literally go through 2 liters/day.

So though coming up with recipes and meal planning isn't my strong suit, I have a hearty rotation now of things we both enjoy, and I'm willing to try new things just like I get him to do.

Oh. Except frying things.

I never have and I refuse to. Fried porkchops is his favorite meal, but I leave that for his mother when we go visit! 

I do cook his second favorite - chicken fettuccine every now and then.

Need Your Advice

I'm frustrated. And advice is WELCOME.

I feel like I do a pretty good job of getting babies on sleep patterns and getting them to sleep good and that stuff SLEEP related...but when it comes to the potty I. AM. LOST.

So here's what we're doing. Since Monday, he has only worn undies during the day, and diapers at nap/night time. One of those days, I put a pull-up on him cause we made a trip to Siloam to watch some basketball.

I take him to the potty every 20 minutes or so.

I praise him.

The mornings are usually better. Sometimes with zero accidents. But I feel like it's because I take him so often. I don't think he cares if his pants are wet. And the kid also pee's like 20 times a day!

After naps are when we can literally go through every pair of undies he has - literally.

He gets tired of having to stop playing to go to the potty every 20 minutes and this can frustrate him, but if I don't take him, he'll pee on himself.

He knows he's only suppose to pee in the potty and can tell you that, but seriously has no problem going in his pants and I only discover it if I see it.

So we've finished day 5 and I honestly think he's the same as he was on day 1.

So tips PLEASE. And is this normal?

I Promise I'll Stop Talking About Poop Soon

You have my word.

Buuutttttttttttttttttttttt....

Lincoln's been doing it in the potty like none other;

And Noah did it at the pool in his swim diaper. Have you ever experienced poop in a swim diaper after a swim? I hope you never have to.

But we only had one accident with Lincoln today! Granted, he did wear pull-ups when we went and watched basketball games (and he went once in those).

I was actually frustrated today because I thought yesterday would be bad, today would be significantly better, and tomorrow he'd be trained. That's how it was sleep training him...why not be that way this time, right?

Apparently I am not right.

In fact 2 friends (kindly) laughed at me when I shared this philosophy tonight.

So when did your little one actually start telling you they need to go and then holding it till you got there? The only reason we had 1 accident today was because I took him every 20 minutes!

And I'm serious. I will stop talking about this soon. :)

Oh the Potty

I'm gonna log the "no-diapers-by-friday" progress from yesterday. I would call it "Day 1" but come on - we all know this is my third time to try this in the past 7 months, and, well - another "Day 1" post probably sounds like a joke now (boy-who-cried-wolf sort of thing).

But in all seriousness...I'm serious this time.

So, yesterday's progress?
If you would have asked me last night I'd have told you it was no progress.

I lost count of how many times he peed his pants, and then when we ran out of undies and just had shorts on him, he decided to poop his pants with nothing significant to catch it - yeah. I'll just stop there on that one.

But TODAY (ta-da!) we have had no accidents thus far and have had a successful #2 in the potty!

A few have asked my tips/secrets??

Well, I have none. I actually feel like I'm probably doing this all wrong. Never read a book. Never made him watch a video. Never bought all these rewards and made a big plan for it. In fact, I pretty much decided on a whim it was time. Actually I decided when I paid $14 for his pack of diapers 2 days ago.

I have talked to a few friends over the past year, but that's about it. We use undies and the big potty (backwards). He has yet to ask me on his own. I make him go about every 20 minutes. I'm waiting for the golden day when he says "Mommy, I need to go potty!"

We'll see. I predict we go through all his undies yet again today (not-so-high-expectations will never let you down).

Now off to the pool!!!

Almost Forgot!

Can't believe I almost forgot this one!!!!

Evidence #13:

My precious dad. He has a bad knee. Yes, that's him who likes to get into the hot tub when the temps are 100+. So on our last full day, we were at the pool, and he heads over to turn on the jets and get in the hot tub to help relieve some knee pressure.

While he's in there, a 6-year-old little girl comes and jumps in with him.

She sits there for a while, looking at him, then says:

"My mama tells me to come in here and pee-pee."

Then she gets up and goes back to the pool.

Needless to say, my dad returned to the pool as well. Pee-pee + powerful jets in a small, confined space are no good.

Redneck Riviera

Our trip to Destin this year was the first time I had heard our pleasant little destination referred to as the fabulous "Redneck Riviera".
So this time around, I thought I'd pay special attention as to where in the world this name may have come from.
Consider the evidence with me:

1. Tourists all identify themselves by their favorite SEC teams, sporting their colors loud and proud.

2. Our parking lot in the condo area consisted of such identification from about every SEC state...Alabama, Tennessee, Us, Florida, Georgia... (some would consider these redneck states alone).

3. In one day, I witnessed my husband have 3 lengthy conversations with complete strangers about who was going to dominate the SEC in football this upcoming year.

4. We had a balcony in our condo and I witnessed Nathan yelling down from the balcony for Amy to bring over a trash can (she was on the lower level) so that she could catch a poopy diaper in it. He missed.

5. One night after dinner, we were at the car getting the boys out of their strollers and realized Noah had peed through his pants. We decided to change him their in the parking lot (if that's not redneck enough) - only when I pulled down his pants, poop started falling out in chunks on the parking lot! We went to look for wipes and found NONE. So Jason held him up in the air while I wipe him down with a paper towel we found in the car. Their was no trash can in site, so the diaper (and paper towel) were left on the curb - along with the turds that fell to the ground. Please don't judge.

6. Nathan was walking on the beach one day when some people started calling the Hogs...of course they started talking instantly :). Then Nathan proceeded to tell these strangers how our beach chairs were next to Alabama people. The strangers got upset yelling "Oh we hate Bama! And we saw LSU people a bit ago and we hate LSU, too!"

7. Jason and I were at the outlet mall on night and my parents brought the boys to us. When we saw Lincoln, he had on these tiny boxer shorts from his nap still that looked quite ridiculous. If that wasn't bad enough, though, within an hour, we noticed he had peed all over himself (I swear I change my kids diapers!). I did what any shopper would do - I changed him in the dressing room while simultaneously trying on some cute workout clothes! I realized quickly the shorts were no longer wearable, so our big boy continued the shopping trip without pants! I thought if I kept him in the stroller, maybe no one would notice. But the minute we got out of the store, he saw something "cool" and jumped out in the midst of a crowd and ran to it...without pants and without shoes. Total redneck.

8. That same night, Jason and I found ourselves talking to a man we didn't know but was super nice. We got into a lengthy conversation with him (all the while I was wondering if he was noticing my pants-less child), only to realize way into our talk that the man was the super famous Sammy Kershaw (country singer who sings "She Don't Know She's Beautiful"???). Yeah.

9. Then, right after we left Sammy Kershaw (with our pants-less child), we got a ways passed our last store, looked down, and realized our sweet Noah had two packs of men's jockey underwear in his hands - unpaid for. His first theft experience (we took them back).

10. One night all us sisters/husbands went for a swim in the ocean around midnight. We thought it would be fun to then go jump the gate to our pool and take a late-night swim. The pool closed at 10:00. We're being all stealth when Amy drops her phone and shatters the case in to pieces, then Kristen starts dying out laughing, while I am half way over the wall and into the pool (apparently everyone said I did a cannonball...whatever). Within 5 minutes we see lights headed our way and we all just go under water (Navy SEALS style)...but when we come up (cause we're not SEALS), security is staring us down. They threatened us with a $600 fine and cops - including a night in jail - but we got out of it all and headed back home to our kids. Yes. We are responsible parents.

11. I wore my Razorbacks shirt to the outlet mall one night and got stopped a lot. Some fans and some absolute haters.

12. And then there was this guy...running up and down the beach everyday.

Okay - so just kidding. I found this picture online. But it's pretty stinking hilarious, huh?

So there you have it.

Why is it called the Redneck Riviera?

Well, because we go there, my friend. :)