Monday, November 17, 2008

Naughty Step Reflection

Olivia had a great day but her behavior deteriorated as the day wore on. George placed her in timeout on the Naughty Step and because she wouldn't sit still, and kept sassing him, her time kept increasing from two minutes up to six. He'd say, "if you don't be quiet, you'll get more minutes" and she kept replying, "No!" After a few minutes of quiet, he looked over and saw this:


I asked her what she was thinking when she was in timeout and she said, "not being in timeout anymore" and "daddy gave me three minutes."

It's been interesting that just recently, when given a timeout, she's actually begun to connect her infraction with the punishment. She's always able to tell me why she was in timeout, whereas before, she wasn't making the connection.

Later, George asked Livy why she was such a handful. I told her, "tell him it's because you have a mind of your own." Just as prompted she said, "I have a mind of my own."

That's my girl!

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Slides and Storytime



We just recently used Nate's birthday money to buy a Step 2 All-Star Climber. He and Olivia have been having so much fun climbing up the rock wall and going down the slide. It's the perfect thing for us to have inside as the weather turns colder outside. The first few days, they wore themselves out on the slide. Nate really likes to play peekaboo through the hole. It didn't take him long to figure out how to climb up the slide either. Look at that smile - you can tell he's having a ball!


Olivia has been getting adventurous with her sliding, doing it on her belly, and on her back looking up. She even tried to ride a little cart down the slide but it was too wide and got stuck. I'll try to capture some of her antics and post them as well.



It's been a few weeks since I've posted so I'll give you a little update: Olivia is doing well with her potty training. She almost never has a pee pee accident and is staying dry through her naps. She is having a hard time with the #2 though. Will not put it in the potty but has no problem making a deposit in her panties which makes getting the dirty pants off her tricky. Overall though, I'm happy with the progress she's made.

Nate is really trying to talk. He has a few words in his vocabularly already: ball, dada, mama, baba and I think he said "el" for elmo the other day. He grunts and points a lot and for the most part I usually understand what he's trying to tell me. He's not using his sign language as much as Olivia did. He does tell me when he's "all done" or "thirsty." He's also become interested in books lately. For the longest time, I couldn't get him to sit still to read to him. He only wanted to grab the book and rip the pages. He's bringing me books to read to him now, which is really neat. Storytime at the library is cute. He makes his way to the front of the crowd and stands right in front of the book that's being read. He points at it a lot also. He's also very social so he'll make his way around the room, flirting witht he mommies. There was an elderly lady there with her grandaughter that he was fascinated with. I don't think he had seen anyone that old before. Here are a few pictures of the kids at a recent storytime with a special visitor!


Nate worked his way right up to Pooh and kept poking him in the side of his belly. Olivia waited very patiently in the line for her turn to snuggle with Pooh.


So, that's about it: we've just been keeping busy with fun things like our new slide and storytimes. I'm sure we'll be posting more often as the holiday season nears. Olivia is already asking to have her picture taken with Santa!



Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Precious Pirates

Here are a few pics of our little pirates trick-or-treating. Olivia was sooo funny. She would march right up to the door, bang on it with her little fist "knock knock knock" and say "Trick or Treat!" She was invited in to one of the first houses we stopped at, so she marched right into every other house we visited. She got pretty brazen towards the end, and would say, "Trick or Treat! I want some candy." If no one answered the door, she'd stomp off mad, saying, "Ohhh, no one's home!"

Cute as Olivia was, Nate was even cuter. He was tromping right through the yards, following his big sister up to the doors. Looking a bit unsteady on his feet as he tried to keep up, it seemed as though our little scaliwag had too much rum. Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum. My sister's legs are longer and I'm trying to run.


We worked up a scary appetite while trick-or-treating so we drove down into the city for an authentic philly cheesesteak sandwich. I wish I had a picture of our dinner. They were huge, filled with beef, cheese, and yummy green and sweet peppers. None of us thought we'd finish ours, but they tasted so good we just couldn't stop eating. Kathy was sharing hers with Nate and she couldn't shovel it over to him fast enough. The next day, daylight revealed a carseat covered with shards of cheesesteak. We were in a food coma by the time we returned home. Arrrghh! It was a perfect fall night. I can't wait for next year!!