P.T. addition

I totally forgot to mention one BIG part of potty training Jax - and that was HUGE celebrations and rewards every time he went in the potty and he got to call whoever he wanted and tell them. It was usually one of the Papa's (Dan's dad or my dad). So randomly during the day - they would get calls with Jaxon saying with excitement that he went poop or pee on the potty! We also had some new Thomas train tracks for when he pooped on the potty because this was a very big deal for him - and when he would go pee on the potty we had little treats we would let him pick.

However you choose to reward your child during the process - I think it is a HUGE part of them being successful - and even though it gets really old after the 20th time being really excited and making a big deal out of it... I think it really helps. I still make sure to tell him how amazing he is for continuing to poop on the potty even though it was something scary for him but he overcame that fear :)

The potty train has chugged into the station

WARNING - this is a CRAZY long post. It also talks a lot about poop.

Here is the link to the video I reference later in the blog... you will want to check it out - so cute!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtq1XV6ZVOc

Jaxon was very scared to go poop on the potty so this is how we had him totally potty trained in 4 days and NO accidents during that time. He was totally pee potty trained in one, the other couple days were to get him ok with going poop on the potty. We started on September 13th and he hasn't had an accident since and is a peeing pooping pro! :)

Alright - so when Jaxon was about 2, I started thinking about potty training him, so I went online and read a TON of information about it, and what I discovered is that it is better to wait until your child is ready instead of forcing them to do it when you are ready. So I familiarized myself with the signs of readiness and watched and waited for him to be ready. Well a little bit before he was 3 I was seeing most of the signs and one day he came out of the bathroom without a diaper on and he said he had peed in his diaper and he needed to flush it down the toilet.

Luckily he didn't because that could have been a major plumbing expense, but that day I decided to just start potty training him. I wasn't really prepared but I didn't care, I thought - he is ready right now... let’s just do it. He went pee on the potty several times that day and I would give him treats every time he did it and he was so excited and proud of himself and was doing a great job! I had him sitting on the potty to go and one time he felt like he was going to poop too and he FREAKED out. Screaming, crying, trying to jump of the toilet so I just kept putting him back on and fighting with him trying to get him to stay there because I knew he had to go and after about an hour I had the thought that maybe I was freaking him out and making him MORE afraid of the potty so I stopped and when I tried to get him to go pee on the potty after that he wouldn't. So I went back online and read some more and decided he wasn't ready and to wait. Several articles and blogs suggested having your child just sit on the potty when they didn't have to go to get them comfortable with the feeling so it wasn't so scary. Every time I even tried Jaxon would have a HUGE fit and freak out and scream so I thought we would never be able to potty train him because I had ruined him for life making him sit on the potty that one time for so long when he was scared.

So I thought I would try again right after he turned 3... well we found out we were moving across the country right then and I figured I would rather not have to deal with a newly potty trained 3 year old for a 42 hour drive - so again... we waited. Then after we got settled in here we were going to do it, then my grandpa passed away and we needed to fly back to Utah for the funeral, so again - I pushed it back.

The night we got back from Utah (which was a Tuesday 9/11/12...that’s right - we flew into Washington D.C. on Sep. 11.... was I nervous? More on that later) - Jaxon was taking a bath and came running out naked and yelled - "mom, dad - I pooped in the potty"! Dan and I looked at each other and both just assumed he pooped in the tub probably - well sure enough when we got in there - he had pooped in the toilet! We both started cheering for him and praising him and telling him what a great job he did and how proud of him we were and we decided to potty train him on Thursday. Now I know that seems weird that we would wait a day, but I also learned online that if you want to have your child potty trained in one day you cannot have ANY distractions - that child needs 100% of your attention all day so we decided to wait until Thursday because Dan only has one class that day and it is in the evening so one of us could be watching Addy while the other totally focused on Jax.

He did GREAT! That morning he pooped on the potty and went pee all day long no problem - he would sometimes go a little in his underwear and then realize and stop and run to the bathroom - it was AWESOME, it wasn't hard at all - we would just make sure we set a 15 min timer and just have him try when it would go off. Every time he went he would get a treat and we let him drink a ton of juice all day long so he had to go a lot. That night we decided to just keep him in his underwear instead of doing a pull up or anything and just see how it went. We made sure to have him not drink anything an hour before we put him to bed and we obviously had him go potty right before we put him down and he woke up that next morning dry!!!

The next day everything was great! We had him pee right when he got up, we would remind him and see if he needed to go if we noticed he hadn't been in a while and he was perfect - no accidents, nothing. We did notice however, that he didn't poop at all that day, which for Jaxon is not normal. He normally goes at LEAST 2 times a day (this is due to the HUGE amount of fruit he takes in daily lol).

That brings us to Saturday, now because I didn't want him to only be able to go on the potty with a seat... I was trying to avoid using one, but something I saw online said that some kids are scared because they feel like they are going to fall in.. or it doesn’t feel secure to them and that making them comfortable will help so I borrowed a seat from my friend Lydia and put his little stool under his feet so he would be really comfortable... he still didn't want to go so that night we decided that we would give him the option to go in a diaper if he wanted so that he wouldn't get constipated and be even more scared to go later because it hurt so bad - we seriously had one diaper left and I was not going to buy more so I wasn't really sure what I was going to do after he pooped in that one and I didn't know if letting him poop in the diaper was a horrible thing to do but I didn't want him getting sick or hurting because of this. ANYWAY - he said he wanted a diaper so we gave him one... he pooped in it and I asked him if he wanted to start wearing diapers again and he said no and that he wanted his underwear so we put that back on and Saturday night he was dry.

Sunday he did great - no pee accidents, but again, he didn't poop - he would just hold it. So after Dan and I talked we decided that we would offer him a diaper again and see what he did (planning on giving him a swim diaper if he said yes LOL). He didn't want to wear it, so we thought that was a good sign so I asked him where he was going to go poop if he didn't want to go in the toilet and if he didn't want to poop in a diaper and he said - "I can go in my underwear". I explained to him that we do not poop in our underwear but if he really wanted to he could so he could see what it felt like. I know this sounds totally weird and crazy but I just felt like he needed to experience "an accident" in his underwear to not want to do it again - and this way, I would know he was going to do it, and I could make sure he didn't get poop everywhere. SIDE NOTE - He would always tell us he needed to go poop - we would go to the potty, he would sit on it for a while and not go, hold it in, say never mind and jump off and go about playing until the urge came again and we would do the same thing so that is how I knew I would know when he was going to poop in his underwear. DONE WITH SIDE NOTE LOL. He told me, mom I have to poop and I said ok go in your underwear so he did. Now I realize this next part is going to make me and Dan sound like horrible parents but we did all of this very lovingly and it worked so I think it is what OUR son needed. After he pooped in his underwear... we made him walk around with it for awhile, he wanted a snack so I had him sit down (I put paper towels under him just in case) and he did not like the feeling of it - then when we said ok lets go take your underwear off and get you cleaned up, he HATED it, some poop got on his leg and he was so grossed out by that and then we had him help Dan wash his underwear out in the toilet. After that we never had a problem. By the way, I do not count that as an accident because we told him to do it haha.

So then the next time he needed to poop he told me, we ran to the potty and we sat there for a while and he didn't go - so instead of putting his underwear back on I just had him running around with nothing on and I actually think that helped because he didn't want to poop on the floor so he would run really fast to the bathroom when he felt like he was going to go - then he finally went on the potty and he didn't want to look at it, he was embarrassed and told me not to look at it or smell it and he was acting sad so I told him it was ok and we talked about why we poop and that after we eat food - out body uses what it needs and then gets rid of the rest. The poop is like garbage and the toilet is like the garbage can (this led to some SERIOUSLY funny conversations after he would eat). I also found a movie online that is so stinking cute/funny but Jaxon loved watching it - so he watched it over and over and over again. The next time he had to poop it was much easier. We sang the song while he was on the potty - and he just went. Then he wanted to look at it because he said he did a daddy poop, a mommy poop, a Jaxon poop, a baby Addison poop, and a Volcano poop so he wanted to see them. After that we have not had any problems with him being scared to go at all!

Oh and the seat thing... that has not been a problem either... I was worried that he wouldn't go poop without it... so if we were out somewhere, he wouldn't go - but that has not been the case, he is fine not using it and he doesn't use it at home anymore either - I think it was just a good tool at the beginning to get him used to sitting on the potty and feeling comfortable.

Someone asked me if I thought it was worth it changing diapers longer and waiting until he was ready. YES YES AND YES! I think I would have had a harder time cleaning up pee or poop accidents all the time...so for me it was TOTALLY worth it - and even though it may sound like it was a hassle to get him to go poop on the potty... it really wasn't that hard, just a few days of working with him and talking him through it but I would take that and do that over having poop accidents all the time so FOR ME AND DAN AND JAXON... this was perfect for us.

Joy's of apartment living

When we moved into our apartments - we were not really sure what we were getting because there were only 3 pictures online - 2 of the living area and 1 of a bedroom so we had no idea what the kitchen or bathrooms were going to look like. When we got here I am not going to lie, I wanted to cry. We pulled up to the leasing office to sign everything, both the kids had had it at that point so instead of taking them inside, Dan and I took turns going in to sign so we wouldn't have to get them out and then put them back into the car to go to the actual apartment. So we followed the lady behind her golf cart over to our apartment. The buildings have a door that you go into that then will get you to the apartments. So when it’s raining, it’s really nice that the stairwell and everything is inside. The downside is that it gets hot and muggy in there and looks super GHETTO! So first impression, I wanted to cry. We then get into our apartment and I was very pleasantly surprised. They had just painted, put in new carpet, and got new cabinets in the kitchen and some new appliances. It looked very clean and really big. We have been fine with it here. They have a cap on your how much your water and utilities can cost so knowing that we can blast the AC as much as we want and not worry about getting a huge bill has been really nice and the highest amount we would pay a month is less than we were paying in Texas so that is ONE thing that will be cheaper here.

So we haven't really had any problems until this week. The AC isn't working and hasn't been for a couple of days, our car got towed today, and the water was off for a couple of hours without any notice today as well.

They don't know when the AC will be working and luckily it has cooled down a little but we are on the top floor and since heat rises... it gets really hot still. The good thing is, it cools down at night so we just open the windows and it isn't too bad.

When we moved here they gave us a temporary parking pass that expired on September 14th - so before then I called and asked what we needed to get to be able to park in the parking lot. I was asked if our car was registered here in Alexandria - I said no - so I was told that I needed to go down to City Hall and get a decal to put on our windshield that would allow us to park without getting ticketed or towed. So I did that - I went to city hall, paid the $33 bucks for the decal and a bunch of money for property tax on our car and was given the little sticker that would let us park without getting ticketed or towed and stuck it on our windshield. While driving in the apartment parking lot I looked at the other cars and saw the same sticker so I was reassured we had what we needed. Apparently not! Friday's Dan doesn't have class so we spend then mornings as a family, so when we went down around 1:00pm to drive Dan to his Georgetown softball team practice and get the stroller out of the car so the kids and I could go on our daily walk/play time with the Straits... we didn't see our car in the parking lot. We both started to panic thinking it was stolen. Our downstairs neighbor came out on her balcony and said - you drive the silver car right? Yes! It was towed last night. We didn't know which apartment you lived in... we were trying to find you to tell you, but it was towed. So Dan went and got it all taken care of and we found out that we had to get that decal so we could get another sticker to allow us to park in the apartment parking lot! No one said anything about that and since the stickers look almost exactly the same - same color, size, shape, everything, we had no idea! Needless to say - we were not happy that we had to pay the fee to the towing company to get our car back! AHHHHH!

Then just a few short hours later - I went to go do the dishes and the water wouldn't turn on. I called and was informed that it had to be shut off because of a problem one of the units in the building was having and it would be off for about 4 hours. AHHHHH! I needed to do dishes and start dinner at that point so I was very very frustrated.

So right now I am really missing my little house in Lubbock. I guess the plus side is that luckily we don't have to pay to get the AC fixed, or the water turned back on. I just haven't lived in an apartment for so long I am readjusting to it.

Aside from all that - it really has been a good place to live. We have a Mormon family in the complex that me and the kids hang out with almost daily - there is a pool and playground right next to our building - there is a BEAUTIFUL walking trail down the street that we walk to. It looks like you are up in the mountains but obviously you aren't. They have free car washes they do monthly, a free shuttle that takes people to metro stations, we are down the street from a huge mall, and it takes us 2 mins to get to the freeway and about 12 mins once on the freeway to get to Georgetown's Law school (which is within walking distance from the Nations capitol) so it's pretty cool. We decided to live outside DC to save money on rent - and we found one of the cheapest apartments available so we knew we were not going to be in anything special. Luckily Virginia is beautiful and makes up for my apartment not being the best haha!

 

So Behind

I hate getting behind. It is so overwhelming to catch up but it is very important to me that I do so I'm making a list of things I want to write about and I will slowly but surely get all caught up!

Our time in Utah - Whitney's wedding & Lagoon
Our move - Driving from Utah to Virginia
First weeks in Virginia - tourist stops - entire family sick
Grandpa passed away - back to Utah we go - lots of family time
Potty training Jaxon
Addy crawling, eating, getting too big too fast

I have been awful about taking pictures which I am regretting now and I'm sure will regret more in the future so once again, I am going to try and be better about taking pictures.

Utah

We love being in Utah - the only problem is we miss Dan A LOT! It has been just over a week and I have no idea how I am going to last 11 more days! And poor Jax asks all the time where daddy is and he says he wants to go home. This coming from my son is a SHOCKER! Jaxon is a social butterfly and wants to be out doing things and be with other people all the time and he NEVER wants to go home - so every time he asks to go home it breaks my heart. First because we can't - and second because next time we go home it is to throw all our belongings in a truck and drive away forever. I have been trying to explain to him that we will have a new home, but I don't think he fully understands. Being around family though has been WONDERFUL! I love and miss both mine and Dan's family A LOT so it has been great to get to be around them. I have also loved that my kids get to play with their aunts and uncles and grandparents!

Also - we found where we are going to live when we move! We found some apartments in Alexandria, VA (only 10 miles away from Georgetown University's Law School in D.C.) and we just signed a 10 month lease. We are going to be there for a total of about 17 months but we only signed a 10 month lease just in case we hate it LOL. It is always scary doing things online but we were able to talk to a member of the church who lives there and she says they are fine so we are going for it. We know they aren't going to be anything special because they are much cheaper than most everything else we can find - but they are big - our 3 bed 2 bath is 1350sq ft so we are excited about that. We will be paying TRIPLE in rent what our mortgage is in Lubbock... just to give you an idea of how freaking expensive it is over there and this is the cheapest thing we could find that wasn't a total HOLE haha! I feel ill every time I think about how much money it is. And they don't have washer/dryer hookups or anything so we will have to use the laundry facilities in the basement.... I feel like we are going backwards haha and I am REALLY not looking forward to paying to do laundry but oh well....it is all ok, we are very excited for the experience we are going to have living there and for Dan to go to Georgetown so it will all be worth it ;)

Oh - also, I mapped from Utah to our apartments in VA and it is a 32 hour drive - but because we have to go to Texas first and THEN to VA - it is going to be a 42 hour drive! AHHHHHH! Luckily we will be breaking that up into 4 or 5 days but I probably won't EVER want to get in a car again after that - neither will the kids. Good thing they have the metro to get us places!

Well that’s all for now - just wanted to update "my records" of what is going on in our lives right now.

I can do it... I can do it... I can do it

Well it has been VERY busy around here. Right now I am packing to go to Utah (I leave on Saturday), packing up our entire house to move to DC right when we get back from Utah. Trying to finish things with my "propery management" job, working for my dad, oh and being a mom.

On top of that - the other day I was in such a hurry to leave that I pushed the garage door opener and then just started backing out instead of waiting for the garage to open. I usually don't do really stupid stuff like this but it just shows how truly scatter brained I am right now. My brain is going in so many different directions...it is hard to just stop and focus on one thing which I think is really hurting me right now. ANYWAY - so on top of moving expenses... we also have to get a new garage. We could have just repaired it... but the model that we have is no longer being made so it is really expensive to get parts so it was only $50 more to get an entire new garage... obviously that is the better choice since we would have probably had to spend more than $50 getting paint to either repaint the entire thing or spending time trying to find an exact match of paint.

Then a day after the garage fiasco...Dan went to take a shower and the water didn't turn on.... what the? So I called Lubbock Power and Light to find out that our bill hadn't been paid and they shut the water off! What the crap!!! I had us set up on an automatic bill pay but about a month ago our credit card number was stolen so we had to shut that card down... well I thought I had switched everything over - but aparently LP&L fell through the cracks. ARE YOU SERIOUS? I was able to convince them not to charge us the $55 fee to turn it back on - but we were without water for the majority of the day. SERIOUSLY?!?! Just another thing to show that I have not been myself and cannot handle this much going on!

The garage and water were just two things that I really did not need to happen. It's hard enough leaving our first home that I love and the people here that I LOVE in such a short time...but then having things like this happen when we are getting ready to go just seem to make it that much worse.

Anyway - things are looking better now - we had a garage sale which was a huge success. We got the house ready for posting and so we are living in a normal living environment again. Now I just have to pack up the rest of the house before Saturday... no big deal right?
I just have to keep reminding myself that it is all going to be worth it and I can do it, I can do it, I can do it.

Heading East

So if you haven't already heard.... we are moving to Washington D.C.!!!

Back in Feb or March of this year, Dan applied to the joint JD/LLM program at Georgetown University and just found out that HE GOT IN!

This means he will attend Georgetown for his third year of Law school and also be able to take classes to get his LLM which is a Masters of Law in Taxation.

We waited and waited and waited and never heard anything. As the Spring semester was ending... Dan called and they told him they wanted to wait for his grades to come back from that semester before they reviewed his application. At this point we were both thinking it was a VERY slim chance he would get it... not because he didn't do well this last semester... because he did - but because it had been such a long time since he applied and we just figured they wouldn't wait that long to tell us.

Anyway - July 3rd we were hanging out as a fam at home and Dan grabbed his ipad to pull up a game for Jax - he decided to check his e-mail. I was at a different part of the house with Addy and I heard Dan say, "oh my gosh" so I looked over and he looked up and said, "guess who just go into Georgetown!" I will forever remember the look on his face!

We were both obviously VERY excited but we wanted to make sure it was what our family should be doing so we decided to take a day and think about it. The 4th we decided to try and not think/worry about it and just have fun as a family like we had planned. Today - July 5th we had a family fast and had both our families fast with us to make sure this was something we should be doing. We got our answer and are going! As scary and stressful as it is to move across the country in about a month - we are very excited for this new chapter of our lives!

WAY TO GO DAN - WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU!