Life With 2 (+ 1) Redheads

One of my best pastimes is dancing. I danced for many years competitively and with the Greensboro Ballet. It was one thing that I felt I really had a niche in. So, it's not hard to imagine that every year when "So You Think You Can Dance" premieres that I go into memory mode.

But on with the post.

Today, I got to meet up with one of the dancers I danced with, Tracy. She lives not but 35 mins from me and with the grace of Facebook, we found each other after close to 10 years! Tracy has a little boy, Caleb, who is 18 months old. So, I went to meet up with her in her neighborhood which has THREE parks and one nice pool! Though we didn't go to the pool, we enjoyed a morning at the park and then went to lunch afterwards. We had a great time!


And just as a visual...

1993 San Antonio Finals and several gold medals

Do you see me?

*Skinny alert!*





I'm the last one on the back row (on the end).


Tracy is the last on the front row (on the end).


And 16 years later (and much better camera technology)...





Mom, are you crying yet?

I thought I'd update a little about how Tyler's doing both developmentally and in general since I haven't done an update on just him lately.

He is truly talking now. I waited a LONG time for it, worried over it, and even thought to get speech therapy for him. Now, he and I can actually have conversations which is so much easier. In the past weeks especially, he is amazing me with the progress. I guess it really does happen when it's supposed to! He says some of the craziest things though! Pronunciation is still a work in progress. Honestly, a lot of it is laziness for him. We know he can say words clearer.

Potty training=not happening. Honestly, I just don't have the stamina for it. I'm not going to spend my weekends trying hard to make him do it for it to go downhill during the work week. He's still not into it, so I'm just dropping it. I'm not worried. Just like the talking, it will happen. I read somewhere the other day that boys, on average, potty train at 3 1/2. Just like the speech thing, I just have to learn to stop comparing his progress with those around me.

Beginning June 1, Tyler will move to the 3 year old room. His current teacher, Ms Cathy, will be the lead teacher in the 3 year old room, so that will be great for him. She knows how to make him listen! She's like a grandma to him! I was looking at the things that the class works on, and one of them was tracing their name. It's amazing to me! And um...hopefully, potty training is on the list too! Luckily, many of the little boys aren't yet. So, Tyler's not the only one. Tyler's looking forward to his class ice cream party tomorrow as a "farewell" to those preschoolers going off to kindergarten and the transitions to the new classes.

On the sleep front, Tyler can't make up his mind about what time he wants to wake up in the morning. Last week, it was before 6am along with the sunrise. Not cool. With the sun rising earlier, we are having issues with Tyler's window getting bright. However, as of last week Tyler no longer cries when he wakes up (FINALLY!). He will now get up out of his bed and come to get us. I wondered how long he would do this!

Tyler will be getting a long visit with Mimi and Paw Paw towards the end of June while I travel for work to San Diego (first time for me). After I get back, and after Mimi and Paw Paw recover, we will be leaving a few weeks later to go to the beach for a week!

This past Memorial Day weekend our family went to the NC Zoo. I've been anxiously waiting to take Tyler until he was old enough to understand. He was so excited to be there, and immediately wanted to see the zebras. Unfortunately, we started with the North American Continent, so he had to wait until afternoon to see Africa, which housed all the animals he was really anxious to see. He walked the entire 5 mile span. He's never been a stroller baby, so I didn't even bother bringing it. He loved being there with the family, especially cousins, Kaitlyn and Garrett. We spent way too much money on food and snacks, but overall it was a fun time. He passed out the second we got into the car! We were there from 9am to 2. It rained a little off and on, but overall it was a great day that wasn't too hot!

Here are a few select pictures from the zoo. All of the rest are on www.dropshots.com/elizabeth043005

Come on!



Polar Bear



Kaitlyn and Tyler on the slide



Tyler being silly



Family pic (not the best of me, but it's the only one we got!)



Cousins



Chimps



Zebra



Tyler in awe of the giraffes



Giraffes



Elephant



Josh and I in the humid/rainy weather



Kaitlyn and Tyler



OUT!

1. Kris Allen won on American Idol last night. Perhaps it was a shock to him, but ooooh it wasn't to me! All those Danny Gokey fans were bound to vote for Kris over Adam, and it looks like they did. For the record though, I was NEVER an Adam fan except for two moments. The first was several weeks back when he sang the subdued "Mad Man" song and choose against wearing that awful manliner. The second was last night in the finale. He still wore the manliner and the hideous clothes, but he belted those songs out. He doesn't really need the title to make it big. My guess is Kris does. Regardless, Kris won and I win a lot of bets! Victory is mine his.
   
2. Tyler's latest phrases: "it's mine" "is it mine?" "no, it's mine" "mine, mommy!"
   
3. Speaking of Tyler and wanting things, I got tired of him asking for an umbrella. That's right. Not asking for a truck or a bicycle. An umbrella. Every time there was even a chance of rain in the sky he'd say "we need an UMbrella" Notice the emphasis on the "um." So, Tyler, in a week you'll get this in the mail courtesy of ebay's bargain prices. Then, it will be all "yours." Until then, let's hope the rain holds off.
   
   

So, I'm able to walk without pain now, and I'm up to level 2 (which by the way made me almost cuss out loud). Today, I opted to workout at work for 35 mins (360 calories) so that tonight I could focus on Tyler. I figure I'll do that on days that Josh is working. So, my weeks would look like this:

Week A:
DVD M, T, F
Gym W, Th

Week B:
Gym M, T, F
DVD W, Th

And weekends happen when they happen. I can't make promises but I imagine I'll try to do it!

By the way, I've been recording my measurements but I won't share them until I start to loose :)

So, there are two evil pandemics going around right now. The swine flu is one of them, and the other is Gillian Michael's "30 day shred" workout dvd. While I don't have experience with the swine flu, I do recently have experience with the "30 day shred." In fact, I've just finished day 2 and plan to keep going. That is if my quadricep muscles don't explode first.

I'm pretty sure that if I had to describe a workout, I would not come close to using the word "shred" in it. Shredding is what you do to bills you want to get rid of or lettuce on taco night. Shredding is not something I tend to think of when it comes to my body or workouts.

For those "Biggest Losers" fans, you might be familiar with Gillian Michaels. I don't watch the show, so I really had no idea who she was before now. Oh, ignorance is bliss. She's the workout nazi, the "get down and give me 30" drill sergeant. And nothing is more intimidating than her mocking you in the dvd saying that she's had 400 lb people do more jumping jacks.

I started day one on Saturday and to appease Gillian in her cut-off sweatpants, I began on level one. It was hard but not killer. I thought to myself that all of these people who have been telling me it's hard are just wusses.

Day 2 was an experiment in pure hate.

Not only did I think my entire body might collapse to the floor afterwards, but I thought I was going to vomit. Every inch of me hurt. I don't know who made up this "good hurt" business, but they closed the shop in my house. There is a muscle in my arm throbbing so badly and requesting abdication from the rest of my body.

On the upside, if I keep this up I have no choice but to be buff. It may only be 20 minutes, but it's 20 minutes of pure exercise hatred.

If anything is going to harm me, my money is on Gillian Michaels and not some lame pig virus.

Look at her. She's practically taunting you with her eyes.




Stay tuned.

Talk about a bad sickness season! Tyler started off with a cold which turned into an ear infection. Halfway through it, he gave it to Josh and I. We are still battling with it. My ears have been closed since last Saturday. Not. fun.

Josh is coughing so bad that it sounds like he will lose a lung soon. I think he might actually (shudder) go to a doctor tomorrow!

I haven't worked out all week which makes me very grumpy.

The good news is that it's just a cold. When I say it that way, I feel like a baby complaining. It could be worse. It could be what I went through a month ago. Or even worse, it could be the swine.

:)

We left Friday to go to my parent's house for the weekend. Tyler had lots of fun outside in the water on Saturday. Despite his cold, he was having a blast in the baby pool and playing with the water hose.






That afternoon, Tyler told us his ear hurt, so we initially figured he had water in his ear. After motrin, he said he felt better.

After a rough night, Tyler hung out with his cousins on Mother's Day as Josh and I were still sniffling and fighting the cold that Tyler ever so graceously gave to us. As you can see they had a blast running through my parents' irrigation system!



I took Tyler to the dr this morning to find out he has an ear infection! So, I guess he was definitely trying to tell us something! So, we hope it gets better soon!

1. Potty Training is at a hault. Tyler was refusing to use the potty at school which made him frustrated as well as me. So, long story short, we are taking a break and coming back to it. He's still sick, so this just isn't a good week.
   
2. I had a great recognition moment at work the other day. I was working a booth at Duke Hospital for their career day for the med school graduates basically telling them about what options they have for doing research with DCRI, and the COO came to our booth and said to me that she heard glowing remarks about me. Apparently one of the Principal Investigators that I helped get a grant out for a few weeks ago has been talking me up. She's the same one that sent me flowers afterwards too. She, the COO, raved about how much she (the PI) loved working with me. Talk about an ego boost! And to make it even better, my two managers were standing right next to me!
   
3. Speaking of work, Duke recognizes employees at 5 yrs, 10 yrs, 15 yrs, and 20 yrs of service. I hit my 5 year mark this May, so I was presented with an engraved plaque, certificate, and an engraved keychain.
   

Tyler stayed home with Josh because he still had a slight fever and bad cough. I was a little nervous about leaving Josh in charge (no offense, Josh) but he did a great job on the potty front. Because Tyler was not feeling his best, he didn't really use the potty much, but when he did it was in the potty. So not much practice, but he did make his first trip to the grocery store with big boy underwear on rather than diapers and stayed dry!

Today started questionable. I wasn't sure how Tyler would feel considering he went to bed last night with a fever and then woke up this morning with a fever. I didn't do anything right away a) because it was 6:15 am when he graced me with his presence and b) because I didn't know if I should with him possibly being sick. However, after an hour he started to rally, and I started to wake up! I decided to put him in undies and then right before Josh left for work at 9:30, Tyler announced he had to go potty, and then peed on the potty! From then on, he's been awesome! No accidents! I did put a pull up on him during naptime, which I hoped would last a while, but he only slept about an hour and a half. I think the cough woke him up.

At best, we know that Tyler is ok with wearing underwear. He was not a fan before, so this is progress. And we know that he is capable of using the potty. He still waits to the last minute before going, but I assume that this will get better with time and practice. The main thing I struggle with is what to do about preschool. I made a very big deal about throwing away the diapers and that pull ups were only for nap and bedtime, so I really feel like for him to understand and learn, he needs to be in underwear at school. I know he will have accidents, but I'm more scared that he will refuse to use the potty there. I guess I'll have to see what works best. I don't want to regress and lose everything I just trained him on this weekend. If anything, I can at least stress that undies are required at home all the time until the preschool thing gets figured out. But honestly, I think he needs to learn at school the same way he learned at home. We'll see though!

I'd call today a total success! He made HUGE progress from yesterday! I hope the diaper/pull up bill will be vanishing soon!

**Not for those who don't want to read about bodily functions :)




Progress as of 2:30pm:
This morning went ok. When Tyler woke up, I made a huge deal about throwing the diapers away (which truly scares the crap out of me). I made HIM throw them away. We put on the first pair of underwear on, and I told him to tell me when he had to go potty. I read a lot of different strategies and heard a lot of opinions from others and decided that instead of making him try every 20 minutes to let him discover when he needed to go. I think this works better for him especially since he wasn't too excited about the potty anyway. We went through A LOT of underwear this morning. I've already washed them all once today. I had 13. We trained his teddy bear. I got a medicine dispenser and filled it with water, and he watched in total amazement as the teddy bear peed in the potty. And I won't tell you how I got creative with the other, but he was amazed too :)

He went a long time this morning staying dry and then the fluids kicked in and he realized he had to pee. That's really when all the accidents happened. I stayed as patient as I could each time, though I really wondered why in the world I chose to mop the floor the night before. Anyway, we were in the middle of coloring when I realized he peed again. I told him to go to the potty. Nothing happened. We went back to coloring and he told him he needed to go. This time he peed. There were screams, a present, and a sticker on the chart. He really wasn't that enthused though. There were a few more accidents after that, and then it was lunch time. More accidents, and I was getting frustrated. I could tell he was tired, so at 12:30 I put him down IN UNDERWEAR, and he fell asleep fast. At 2:00 I went in to check on him and accidently woke him up. But....he was dry and was really excited about that! He started to pee a little in his underwear, but I got him to the potty where he proceeded to pee. This time he was truly excited! So, that's where we are now at this point. This morning we had underwear on, but actually now I just have him naked from the waist down ,and he's not upset about that. This helps the laundry situation. And actually I think he pays more attention this way.

3:15pm:
Tyler pooped in the potty! I seriously am so excited! This is a complete first!

6:30pm:
Strangely, Tyler started to get warm and refused dinner. He has a fever so he's in bed early. I hope this is just a random bug. We made great progress today and Tyler really started understanding that he must use the potty, so it would be sad to not be able to continue tomorrow.

Stay tuned...