Sean and Aleece

Leif loves being helpful. He will help me put the dishes away from a clean dishwasher, he likes to help Aleece do laundry, he will help sweep or vacuum the floor, or take out the trash. He likes to help. He will even help out with his brother, I have posted before how Leif likes to help feed Kalven. He also likes to play with Kalven.

holding…palying…tickling…zurberting…

He is such a fun kid to have.

So, last weekend Aleece and I were going to start potty training Leif. We had arranged it so Kalven would be at the grandparents house all weekend and we could just be alone with Leif. It was going to be an intensive potty training weekend.

That was the plan any way.

Here is what really happened…

I worked from home Friday to help out a bit. Aleece started off with trying to get Leif to sit on the toilet and to wear “big boy” underpants. Leif liked wearing the underpants, at least for a little while. He almost sat on the toilet long enough to think about maybe being close to going to the bathroom, but he didn’t. As parents Aleece and I have learned to pick our battles, you know like letting him play with his food a little as long as he is eating, letting him chew on the end of a washable marker, Leif picked this as his battle. He was not going to start potty training.

No way.

No how.

Not now.

So we have put off the training for a little while and will revisit it again later. Hopefully we will not have a little boy that picks that time as the battle he will not loose.

Last night Kalven got his first haircut. Yep, at 6 months of age that kid had hair that was too long. Our personal Hair Consultant (Kalven’s Aunt Lana) stopped by the house for the trim. You can check out the whole album here. Here are a few of the highlights…

First cut. Time to get those bangs to an acceptable length!

Kalven is trying to follow along.

Bangs are cut, but look at those sides!

Yea, lets take care of the sides too.

All done and looking good!

Aleece got a chance to try and capture that crabby looking face that Kalven does, you know, the one that Aleece and I laugh over. These are not quite it, but they are pretty close.

Leif likes to be helpful. He has been helping to sooth Kalven when he is crabby, Leif likes to help pick up around the house (as long as we make it a game!), and he even likes to help clean up Kalven.

This was from a night that I was feeding Kalven and had to get up to tend to Leif and my dinner. I turned around and Leif took over where I was. Actually, that was before these shots, when I turned around Leif had taken Kalven’s spoon and was trying to feed him. I sat back down and Leif was on my lap. We fed Kalven together, Leif loved it. I could not get pictures of that because Aleece was working and I had Leif on my lap, but Leif still wanted to help out when it was clean up time so I at least got those shots.

We are going to be daring this weekend and try an intensive start to potty training with Leif. It should be fun, basically it entails a lot of drinking and a lot of time sitting and waiting on the toilet. I sure hope Leif is ready and willing to start, either way it should be an eventful weekend.

I will start.

Aleece and I were woken up early, 3:30am CST, by a coughing little baby. Kalven then went on to take for the next half hour. I went to work and it was a pretty normal day. I was a bit tired because I went to the Linking Park concert the night before, but I knew that would happen. Aleece did not get to have any rest time as Kalven would nap and Leif wanted to play, then Leif napped and Kalven wanted to play. Oh, and the kids still have their cods, runny noses and general ickyness. I got home from work and was trying to get dinner ready when I hear Aleece cal to me from downstairs. Kalven had just thrown up on her. Aleece mostly cleaned up and I helped a little. Then we fed Kalven and it was out turn to eat. I was getting Leif in his chair when Leif starting having a coughing fit, you know the real gut wrenching ones. Well Leif managed to throw up on me. Now both kids are not nauseous, they just cough a bit and sometimes cough a lot so they don’t throw up much but it’s enough to make for a bit of clean up. Well since I had to change and Aleece took care of Kalven I took Leif upstairs and gave him a bath before dinner. So our night to have a dinner all together ended up with everyone changing cloths at least once and all of us eating separately. I still would not trade it for anything. It was a night to remember.

So what is your fun Valentines story? Go ahead and share your night by posting it in the comments. Don’t worry if it does not show up right away, I have to approve comments from first time posters to make sure this stays a family fun blog. hehe. I can’t wait to hear what you all did.

Kalven has officially found his feet.  He will be laying on the floor, in his crib, or on the changing table and just suddenly grab for his feet.  Then he just rolls around giggling, sometimes he chews on a foot, but always giggling.  It is really cute, except when we are trying to change him, then it’s just kind of cute because we have some dirty business to take care of.  After the dirty business is done it is back to really cute.

On another note everyone in our house has a cold.  Aleece, Leif, Kalven, and I all have colds.  Loads of fun happening this week I tell ya.  It’s actually not too bad, just tiredness and runny noses with some coughing.  No fevers, no throwing up, no liquid poops (knock on wood).  We are bringing the kids to the Dr today just to see if anything can be done for them.

Well here it is, pictures of Kalven’s first tooth. You might want to click the pictures toopen them up, the tooth is still small and hard to see in these thumbnails.

I am really glad for digital cameras though, it took 22 trial pictures just to get these 4 good ones. You can’t really make it out but right next to that first tooth is his second tooth, that one is comming in fast!