So day 4 and 5 of birthday week were pretty similar. I went to work during the day and Aleece worked at night, not much time to celebrate with gifts. But Aleece did manage to squeeze in time to get me 2 more presents. Have I mentioned that I like this stretched celebration thing?
Anyway, how about a update on the kids?
Leif is taking to potty training pretty well. Most days he can go a long time and stay dry, but recently he has learned a few tricks. He will go in his diaper THEN go into the bathroom and stand in front of the toilet. After a long time of nothing he gets dressed and comes down to get his treat. He went through all of the motions so he deserves a treat right? Oh, wait, there is a specific order? Leif is still getting the hang of that. The good thing is he is starting to recognize that feeling and sometimes he makes it to the bathroom in time.
Kalven is just a little firecracker. If that kid slows down or stops moving you know he is ready for a nap. He just will not stop moving. He always has to be on the go. If you pick him up he squirms to be let down. He will crawl across the floor to get to a toy and then play for 5 min and then go back to where he was before and play with something else for 5 min. The nice thing about him being so mobile is that he can move to the toy he wants. The bad thing, he can silently move so he is right under your feet, be careful and don’t step on him.
So today is the first day back to normal life after the holiday week. That means today I get to go to work and Aleece runs errands and has to work tonight. But does that stop the birthday week? No! It just means that today I get the unwrapped present, we did not have a gift bag big enough. I got to stand in the bedroom and hold out my hands with my eyes closed. Then a gift was placed in front of my hands and I got to “un-wrap” it by opening up my eyes. Leif laughed at me.
At the beginning of this week Aleece asked me if I wanted the “good” gifts first or last. Not that any gifts are bad but fun stuff like a camping cook stove rates higher than cloths. Of course I opted to go for the set up where each day brings the better more fun gifts. What better way is there to extend out the excitement of a birthday, huh?
So today is the second day of the birthday week. This morning we came up for breakfast and Aleece went upstairs with Leif. About 1 min later Aleece was calling for me to come up. I scooped Kalven up and we went upstairs. Leif was all excited and hopping around in front of our closet, I could not see Aleece but I think she was in the closet. After hearing a few whispers from the closet I concluded that Aleece was in there and a moment later Leif came out with a gift bag. Once again I got to hold the present as Leif pulled out the stuffing and through the gifts on my lap.
I am really liking this whole idea of a week of presents. The kids have SO much fun and I love watching them!
Before I knew Aleece any holiday or birthday was just a 1 day event, much like just about every other person. Even growing up Aleece experienced that. But when Aleece was out on her own she turned holidays and birthdays into multiple day events. At first I saw this as a way to milk more presents out of the situation. But over the years I have seen that is is a really fun way for everyone to celebrate. So now Aleece has a birthday month (I usually start kicking in a week prior) Christmas, Easter, Valentines Day are all multi day events with presents given out for the duration, and we are planning a birthday month for our kids, kind of the month in-between their birthdays. This is one reason we wanted both kids birthdays in the summer, we can spend more time celebrating and having fun as a family.
Well today started off the birthday week for me. This morning Aleece asked me if I wanted to start opening my presents today. Now I don’t have much feelings either way, I can wait. But the look on the face of Aleece, Leif and little Kalven told me I just had to participate in a birthday week. So I opened up present #1, or more accuratly Leif gave me a present and opened it for me. We all had fun.
We have know for a while now that Leif is fearless. We are just finding out that Kalven is just as fearless. Kalven will climb up the stairs and if the kitty runs by him he will turn and try to go after the cat. The thing is, Kalven will be half way up the stairs and he turns and will try to walk down the stairs. Kalven has just mastered crawling, and even though he thinks he should be able to walk he just does not quite have it yet, and walking down stairs, no way. Kalven does that a lot, he thinks he can do something so it must be true. Take a look at what he does on the changing table.
Now what you can not tell from this picture is Kalven does not have a diaper on. We can hardly contain him when he is getting changed on the table, Kalven just wants to get up a go. He thinks he can just stand up and walk off. We keep telling him that he at least needs a diaper until he is potty trained!
Leif loves school.
He knows it’s a school day when Aleece packs his Diego backpack in the morning. Then just after lunch he gets to go out side and wait for the bus. Leif is on constant lookout and as soon as he sees the bus he starts pointing and yelling. His teachers say Leif is doing well, he is talking and communicating more with then and loves all the activities they do.
The thing about school is that it is right smack in the middle of Leif’s normal nap time, so on school days Leif does not get a nap. He gets home at 3:00pm and if he falls asleep right then he can easily be asleep all night long, usually to awake at about 3:00am the following morning. We try to keep him awake for a while and make sure he gets a snack or dinner before he crashes. Usually this results in Leif getting over-stimulated and not being able to settle down. The one thing that works is a video. We can get him to stop moving and watch a video, but on school days Leif usually does not last 30 min. and crashes on the couch.
Kalven in not immune to this crashing out either. We try to keep Kalven awake a little longer after lunch so that he can sleep while Leif is gone, makes life a little easier and then Mommy can get some stuff done or get some personal time. One of the ways we can keep Kalven awake is to put him in his jumper. Kalven loves to jump in that thing and Leif helps by using it as a swing. But sometimes sleep gets the better of Kalven.
Kalven will crash out wherever he is. Just like Leif, Kalven can sleep anywhere in any position.
Leif is growing up, as all kids do, and as such he is growing right out of his toddler bed. He still fits, but it will not be long before he is all cramped up in it. So, we thought we would get him a regular bed, and as long as we are doing that we might as well get a bunk bed because Kalven will soon be in the same situation. Aleece found a deal on one recently so we bought it. First we had to paint the boys room more boyish colors. We choose yellow and blue with a border running through the center, the border has plains trains and automobiles. After the painting was finished we called the store and they delivered and set up the bed. Here is Leif trying it out for the first time.
That first day we had Leif climb up to the top to see what it was like. He was so excited that he tried to jump up and down, he only got to the up part. Leif did not realize that the ceiling was as close as it was and bonked his head. He had a confused look on his face as he turned his head upwards to look at what hit him. Leif then proceeded to pick the popcorning off the ceiling. We have since taken the ladder down until he learns that the ceiling is not something to pick at.
Leif is starting to want to do things on his own, like make a PBJ sandwich
But sometimes he can’t wait for the sandwich to be finished. Good thing he has his own jar of peanut butter.
I did manage to get him back on track and finish the sandwich. He likes to spread the peanut butter, but the jelly kind of freaks him out.
So, Leif has really seemed to take to this potty training thing. I guess since this time it was his idea he is all into it. Yesterday he went potty in the toilet 6 times, not bad for his second day. Today he started out the morning with a potty in the toilet. He does not like to wear regular diapers much, he likes the pull-up kind, probably because they look more like real underwear. I am hoping this becomes a trend and not a fad.
Kalven is really growing up too. Ever since he realized that by crawling he can move to where HE wants to go, he just does not want to stop going. That kid likes to move. He has not even let stairs stop him. Kalven likes to be where the action is and if the action goes up the stairs, well he is going to learn how to crawl the stairs. And that’s just what he did. Kalven is fast becoming a master of stairs. He can crawl up them now and he hardly ever slips back down. We still hover over him to make sure he does not get hurt, but we are catching him less often these days.
