Hanging Out with the Cousins, Part 2

Earlier this year I bought a Groupon to Wonderscope, the local children's museum. Being raised in St. Louis, I'm totally spoiled as to what a children's museum could be like, and Kansas City is definitely lacking anything comparable to the Magic House. I had heard positive things about Wonderscope, so I figured a Groupon would be a good way to check it out without spending too much money. I didn't realize, however, that the 4 pack of admisions needed to be used all at the same time, and expired at the end of June. So when Linda mentioned they were going to be in town and looking for things to do during the work week while Jill was at work, I figured that a morning at the museum would be fun for everyone.

Friday we met up at Wonderscope after Benton's morning nap and breakfast for the boys. The museum is located in an old elementary school, and the first floor classrooms have been converted into individual play spaces focusing on different things.  We spent the most time in the first room, where the boys could take golf balls and race them down ramps of various sizes and heights. They even had a few built in sections so we could put Benton down and not worry about him getting trampled by the bigger kids.

It took a little convincing, but the boys eventually figured out that playing in the water table in the water room was a lot of fun.

 Another room had a play veterinary space in the back, with a baby doctor's office in the front for role play. Ethan really had a lot of fun in this room, and Joseph just followed along, for the most part. Joseph really enjoyed the art room, where he was able to paint with water colors, and draw on the chalkboard walls.

There was one room specifically for the under 2 crowd, so we made sure to spend some time there as well so Benton could explore. After a couple hours, it was definitely time for lunch, so we headed our separate ways for the rest of the day.

Later Friday night, Joe's cousin Robert, his wife Sara and their son, Bobby, drove up from Oklahoma City to KC for the weekend. They are living temporarily in OKC for the summer while Robert completes a summer internship, and it was great that we were able to plan a weekend so we could all get together and meet the newest cousins.

Saturday morning we hung out while trying to accomodate the variety of nap schedules, but managed to plan a trip to Fritz's, the famous train restaurant. I'm sure Ethan didn't remember being there when he was about Benton's age, but Joseph loves the restaurant, and we knew it would be a hit with Ethan as well. The littlest boys seemed to enjoy all of the distractions while we ate.

They hand out train conductor hats for the kids as we were seated, and Benton got one as well. His was just a little too big, though...

 There he is! Such a happy camper, and a super eater. I'm pretty sure he ate more than Ethan or Joseph all weekend long.

We opted to just hang out Sunday morning and take it easy. While Bobby was napping and Joe was out for his long training run, Robert borrowed Joe's guitar and started playing for fun. Ethan and Joseph were pretty intrigued, so Robert tried to teach them the words to "This Little Light of Mine." Ethan caught on fairly quickly, and as usual, Joseph was just copying Ethan as much as possible.

Robert let the boys strum the guitar and play with the strings. Joseph really enjoyed hearing the music he was making!

After a long week of playdates and late naps, Linda and I opted to let the boys relax for a couple days and try to get back to a normal schedule. Mid week we got the news that Ashley was going to be headed to the hospital late Wednesday night to be induced, so we re-arranged our schedule so we could head to St. Louis after Joe's last Thursday morning appointment. Baby Mason finally arrived early Friday morning; more pictures and details of that new cousin visit coming next!

We stayed in St. Louis through Saturday morning, then headed down to Clinton to meet back up with Jill, Gary, Linda, Ethan and Benton, who all had been in Clinton since Wednesday evening for Old Glory Days, a 4th of July celebration. Not knowing when Mason was going to arrive, we had tentatively planned to spend the weekend with them, and figured we could at least spend most of Saturday together. We arrived just in time to eat lunch and watch the little dog races, which Ethan and Joseph seemed to enjoy. Joseph was definitely overdue for his nap, so we headed back to the house so he could sleep for a bit before the big event of the night - the carnival on the square.

After waking up and playing in the baby pool outside for an hour or so, we decided it was cool enough to head to the square for the carnival. Joseph saw all of the rides and quickly got very excited about all of the activities. Check out this face!

He's only recently started showing any emotion at all while going on rides, so it's really fun for us that he shows how happy he is now. At least we know he's having fun!

After a few rides on the cars, the boys headed over to the train. They don't look too excited in this picture, but if you blow up the next, you can see that Joseph once again has a big smile on his face.

Jill purchased "all you can ride" wristbands for Ethan and Joseph, which worked out great and probably saved us some money. They were quite content to ride the same rides over and over, and luckily some of the bigger rides that required an adult didn't seem to mind that we didn't have tickets for us.

After a scary ride on the big swings (Joseph thought they looked fun, but got freaked out when they flew higher and faster than he was expecting... and too be fair, they were definitely geared toward the older kids!), Nana figured an easy ride on the ponies would be fun. Joseph looked like he was getting into it, but after a half trip around the circle, he decided a pony was not fun to ride, and started crying and signing/saying all done. The gentleman working the ride gave Jill her money back and let Joseph back off his pony.

Toward the end of our evening, Joe bought a funnel cake and Jill bought a shaved ice, which they shared with the boys. Linda and I were hanging out, waiting for them both to come back, when we realized that Ethan had stopped, squatted down, and Joseph promptly copied him, down to the placement of his hands. These two were such good buds by the end of the visit!

Joe had scheduled a very early morning run with Scotty for Sunday morning, so we packed up and headed back home around 8:30pm. Joseph had lots of fun playing with both Ethan and Benton, and has been asking to play with them since they left, over a week ago! I know he's going to be so excited when we see them again at Thanksgiving, and maybe sooner if Linda is able to bring the boys back out in September for her high school reunion. It's too bad they don't live closer, but I'm really glad we were able to spend so much time together.

Time to Train

We just registered Joseph for his first running race, the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead "Georgia's Chicken Run, on July 28th." It looks to be a great first race, and since it is grouped by age, Joseph will be one of the oldest in the baby run (2 and under), so he has a great chance of winning (except he generally runs fastest when he's chasing after someone else!) I love that every kid gets a race shirt, goodie bag and a finisher medal, since he's always interested in the medals from our races. Apparently they have the kids participate in the chicken dance before everything begins, and have carnival style games set up around the farm to play while each race is going on. Hopefully it will be a fun experience for him... Time to start training for his sub 1/8th mile course! :)

Best Cereal Box Prize Ever

The alternate title for this post is "why recycling really pays off!" Today I opened a new box of cereal for breakfast, and after church, decided to clean out the bottom shelf of the pantry to make some space for it. We had a couple boxes of half-eaten cereal that hadn't been touched in a long time (like months) so I figured it was time to throw them out. Instead of just throwing the whole box of Count Chocula away, though, like usual I separated the bag from the box so I could recycle the box. Imagine my surprise when I felt something bouncing around at the bottom of the empty box. I assumed maybe it was a prize of some sort.... but I never expected to find our missing RAV 4 key! I can only imagine that Joseph had been eating from the box when he was playing with the key, which has been missing for months, and it fell inside. I'm so glad that I didn't just throw the whole thing away, as we had pretty much figured we'd never see the key again after tearing the house apart and not ever finding it. Hooray!

Hanging Out with the Cousins Part 1

For two weeks between Father's Day and July 4th, Linda, Ethan and Benton came out to KC for a long visit. We missed their first weekend in town/down at Clinton as we were at the Lake for Father's Day, but we did manage to meet up at one of our favorite pizza places, Pizza West, for dinner. They have a good, relatively cheap pizza buffet 3 nights a week, and the buffet is actually set up in their back room, which is totally geared toward kids - chalkboard walls, arcade games, a train table, and they even have a large scale train running about 8 feet above the floor, around the perimeter of the room.

Needless to say, the boys were well entertained, ate a decent meal and had a good re-introduction to each other, since they hadn't been together since Thanksgiving.

Tuesday night Jill and Gary took everyone to T-Rex, a great themed restaurant out at the Legends, complete with anamatronic dinosaurs, big and small, that move and roar. Joseph got a little freaked out, but managed to have fun playing with the new dino toys Nana bought while we were waiting for our food.

After dinner, she took Ethan and Joseph to their version of Build-A-Bear/Dino, where she let each of the boys pick a dino to make. They each had a lot of fun helping to pick a heart, stuff and fluff the dinos, and then name them.

Wednesday Linda brought the boys to our house to play for the day. Joe and I managed to get away for a bit to have the ultrasound we posted about a while ago, while Linda stayed at the house and watched the boys. Joseph and Ethan had a blast playing inside and out, especially with Joseph's train table. By this time, Joseph and Ethan were really getting comfortable with each other, and settled into their respective roles for the rest of the trip - Ethan in charge, and Joseph copying just about everything Ethan would do/say.

We decided that since the plans were to go to the Tonganoxie pool on Thursday, that Joseph and I would head out there after breakfast in the morning and spend the day in Tonganoxie. Linda found the VFW park and a neighboring playground, where we spent a good portion of the morning playing.

Ethan wanted to check out the tank; Joseph wasn't really sure what he was supposed to be doing...

 So he just wandered behind Ethan, taking it all in.

In the next field over, there was an old helicopter perched high in the air. Joseph is much more into helicopters, and wanted to get close to check it out. There wasn't too much to see or do around it, though, so the boys decided to run back to us so we could head to the playground.

For whatever reason (probably because Joseph knows he has to hold someone's hand while he's near a road) Joseph grabbed Ethan's hand and told him to hang on. They were so cute walking side by side, holding hands.

They managed to stay this way until one of them had the idea to run, and they didn't let go of each other's hands. Lots of giggles ensued, until Joseph tripped and wiped out.

If you enlarge this picture, you can see how much fun these two were having running together!

Once we made it over to the playground, the boys had lots of fun chasing each other around and around. For the most part, Joseph just wanted to run after Ethan, who was happy to be chased. It took a bit of convincing to get them to stop for a lunch break.

After lunch they continued to play together until it was time to head back to Nana and Papa's for naps.

After naptime, we headed over to the swimming pool, where they have a great zero-entry toddler pool. While Ethan practiced his swimming, Joseph wasn't sure what to do with himself as we wanted to go to the deeper pool, but didn't actually want to be in the pool. So we hung out at the toddler pool where he made friends with a few little girls.

And then was perplexed when they decided to stop playing with him. Joe and Jill both came up to the pool after work, where we hung out for a bit longer before heading back to the house for a quick dinner.

Loving My Two Year Old

Don't get me wrong, Joseph has plenty of moments that make me want to trade him in on this year's model and start over. Then I remind myself that he's just two and testing me a lot. And more frequently than not, he gives me plenty of glimpses of just how amazingly sweet he is.

Case in point:

While it took over 2 years for Joseph to start saying "I love you" to us, his new favorite game to stall at naptime/bedtime is to quickly respond, "I love you too!" as I'm walking out of the room, so that I'll turn around and tell him I love him, thus starting a round of "I love yous," which I am happy to give him a few more seconds of time and relish his giggles as he thinks he's getting away with an awesome stall tactic. Which he is.

Another example:

Lately he's been more interested in baby sister, especially since Mason was born last week and Joseph has seen his crib and rocking chair set up in the new upstairs nursery. Instead of showing no interest in my belly, he'll climb up next to me, pull up my shirt and tell baby sister it's time to wake up and give my belly a kiss (since he'll "wake" us up by kissing us). He'll then promptly put his hand on my belly where he kissed, and if he doesn't her kick, he'll give me this confused look and let me know that he kissed baby sister and she didn't wake up, and do it again. Like a true big brother, sometimes he'll push a bit on my belly, as if to say, "hey in there, I gave you a wake up kiss, play along!" Usually she'll respond after a few tries, and he seems to enjoy feeling her move. He'll finish up their hang out session by hugging my belly, and runs off to continue playing. Could he be any more sweet?

Potty Training

I've been waiting to write this post for a while now, so that I could accurately record our whole potty training experience with Joseph. I'm proud to say we started whole-heartedly potty training Joseph on Tuesday, May 29th, and we've had a great month with lots and lots of success! The first few days were much more fun for him than me, as I committed to unplugging from everything else, so I could concentrate on Joseph and helping him figure this process out. The first few days, we had about a 50% success rate during the day, which was just enough to keep us going.

I didn't follow any specific training method, but basically let him spend 3 days outside, naked from the waist down, with the potty chair hanging out in the screened porch. I wore my new apron, and filled the pockets with a variety of candy to use as a reward for each successful trip trip to the potty. To be fair, we first introduced the potty chair last October, but didn't force the training then when it was clear he wasn't ready.

This time, we read potty books, watched a few potty training videos and decided that once we started, there was no turning back! Joseph responded pretty well for the first wee - turns out he was very responsive to the alarm clock I set for every 30 minutes, calling out "clock time!" and agreeing to try and go. I'm really glad I started from the start with a loud timer, as he quickly wouldn't listen to me if I asked him to take a potty break, but the alarm clock saved us! After 4 or 5 days, we really didn't have pee accidents anymore... partially because I was still taking him to the potty every hour. I was beginning to get nervous that I'd conditioned him to go when I put him on the potty, and not when he'd need to go. Eventually, after a couple weeks, he finally started telling us when he needed to go, usually coinciding with realizing he didn't want to do whatever it is we were doing (typically sitting down to eat a meal!). Now, though, he's gotten much better about stopping and going when he needs to, although he still needs help getting his pants and undies off.

We were a little tripped up with getting him to poop in the potty, as he'd frequently go at nighttime in his diaper (we still haven't started working on nighttime training yet) or in his underpants. When he started acknowledging that he'd had an accident, right after going #2 in his pants, we decided to start making it a bigger consequence, and pulled out a tip from my sisters in law. After yet another poop accident, I took him to the bathroom, and rinsed off his backside with cold water. Which he absolutely hated. I felt bad, but figured maybe it would teach him a lesson. Guess what? One time worked! Since that episode about a week and a half ago, we have not had a single accident!

Turns out, Joseph loves telling everyone that he gets a lollipop for going poop in the potty (his only really consistent reward that he gets now, since he caught on to peeing so quickly and was going through 4 or 5 lollipops a day in those first couple weeks!) and it seems that we're on a really good path. He's not consistent about staying dry at naptime, so that's our next step. But in our numerous car trips to St. Louis, the Lake and Clinton in the past few weeks, he's been amazing at waiting for potty breaks, usually every 2-3 hours, and not having accidents in the car.

I know we've lucked out with such an easy little boy, as many moms I'm friends with have a much more difficult time with their 2 and 3 year old boys. I'm also not ignorant that we might have regression issues when baby sister arrives in a few weeks, but I'm cautiously optimistic he'll roll with the experience well!

Father's Day Weekend

We spent Father's Day weekend at the Lake with my parents and Jen, since Mikael and Ashley were under doctor's orders not to leave St. Louis (baby Mason's due date was the following week). We had a great time relaxing, taking a boat rides and generally just hanging out.

We opted to check out Miner Mike's, an indoor amusement park that has been at the Lake for years. We've never stopped in, but after learning that most of the arcade game places on the Strip were closed, we figured we'd give it a shot.

Turns out, this place is amazing, especially for little kids! They have a small train roller coaster indoors, that just completes a quick lap, but goes at a fairly high speed. Papa took Joseph for the first trip, and Joseph's face immediately broke out into a huge smile - he loved it! He took a few more trips around the coaster with Daddy and Papa before we managed to convince him to head downstairs for more fun.

He loved all the arcade games, including this one which required pulling a pink dino water gun and shooting ducks into a hole. He had no interest in receiving help from anyone on this game!

Aunt Jen hopped on to the wave runner ride to help out, but he really thought he was driving for a bit.

Miner Mike's also had pint-sized bumper cars, which Daddy, Jen and Papa took him on. He has been big into crashing things lately, so this was right up his alley! While Joe helped him get out of the car at the end, Joseph ran over to a nearby car, asking to go again.

The next morning, Joe wanted to get some cross training in, and opted to pedal the Adventure Island kayak around the cove with Joseph as his first mate. But before heading out, we hung out on the dock so Joe could put the cover back on the power boat.

We spent a bit of time throwing toys for Molly, who loves to dive off the dock to retrieve them. Joseph and Molly could spend hours playing this game together!

Not wanting to be left out with the clean-up, Joseph found the dock brush and started "cleaning" every inch of the dock.

Such a big helper!

Molly was really upset that she wasn't invited to go on the kayak. As soon as Joe and Joseph pulled away, she dove in and started swimming after them. It took a bit of convincing to get her to swim back to the dock!

The boys spent about an hour exploring the coves and splashing water on each other. Joseph has really started enjoying boat rides, and is happy to talk about everything going on around the boat which has made things so fun this summer.

Heading home from dinner on our last night on the big boat. Joe opted to take a few self portraits of himself with Joseph... too bad they aren't cute! :)