A new respect for pudding

Pride comes before a fall. Proverbs 16:18

Okay, this is funny. So get ready to smile at me as I take you through this pudding journey.....

Ready?!

Tomorrow morning a couple girlfriends and their kids are supposed to come over to decorate some holiday shirts and make cow shirts for CFA Cow Appreciation Day. Me wanting to be a great hostess, and perhaps part of the pride I'm supposed to be breaking free of (thank you very much Beth Moore, it's not easy!) wanted to have a nice lunch and snack prepared. Add to that all the budget ideas we've been implementing in our home, I decided to make pudding and use these adorable little tupperware containers Nena gave for Mason's snacks. Why pay $3 for pudding cups when I can do it at home for $.49!

So Mason is assisting me pour pudding, and since he'd just gone to timeout for disobedience, he is behaving quite well. All the pudding is made and scooped up into the tiny little containers, with their tops on waiting to go to the fridge for tomorrow. Perfect huh?! (At this point, I am feeling quite accomplished for having made pudding with a 2 year old, hence the reason a camera was close by.)




In a moment of weakness, stupidity, sheer love for my little man, who knows, I decided to give him some pudding in one of the little cups. Before I could get a spoon, he is licking it out. Okay, no big deal, there's only a little bit what could happen!? I turn around to put the milk back in the fridge and I see some pudding ready to drip off of little man's container. Wanting to keep it clean, I go to wipe it off. His hand moves, mine moves and then next thing I know the container drops on the floor.OHHHHHH! Breathe, it's just pudding, it was an accident. Okay, get this cleaned up. I tell LMM to lick the pudding off his knee....Memo to me, this results in pudding on the clean shirt :( I get the shirt off of him and about to soak into some Nature Bright so I tell him to eat the pudding out of the leftover mixer bowl.......


I just about have the floor cleaned up when all of a sudden more little containers fall to the ground and splatter open all over the almost clean floor......somehow when Mason moved the mixer bowl it knocked over the little ones.......

All I can think at this point, is please Lord, let there be enough containers so each kid can still have one tomorrow! Sure enough, there are just enough.

Sometimes life just happens and you have to go with it, sometimes you make your own mess, sometimes you just have to enjoy the pudding and remember that we put a smile on God's face. He'll certainly use anything to teach us something..... Now if you'll excuse me, I have a kitchen floor to mop....

Dear Mason

Dear Mason,

I love you, but I'm not sure how I'm going to survive the toddler/preschool years. Somewhere along the way, I must have lost a battle with you somewhere. The last few days you've been testing the limits and pushing boundaries and it's driving me crazy.

It seems like we do really well for several months, you behave well, listen, obey, are sweet, and then all of a sudden you revolt on me. Today I put my foot down and it was seriously rough. The morning was fine, I suppose, only 2 time outs and 2 spankings. But man oh man, I don't know what happened to you after shower time.

For months you have been doing a great job cleaning up your bath toys and putting them back in your bucket, then this morning you refused. We battled and battled and I insisted you clean up, but you refused, so finally I told you if you didn't clean up I would throw them away. STILL you pushed me, so after refusing and a reasonable amount of time I went in and threw them in the trash can.

Ugh, do you know how much it hurt to do that! I know how much you love your bath train. You started crying and saying you'd clean up. I got soft and gave you a moment to try and redeem yourself. But still you wouldn't pick it out of the trash and put it in the bucket.

Oh, the tears and crying. For the record, I felt like crying right along with you. As you laid down, naked by the way because you were so angry I couldn't put your clothes on, on the floor of your room and I tried to get you to calm down, I want you to know I was praying for you. Praying I did the right thing, praying you'll learn the importance of obedience, praying God would grant you more grace. You're my first little love so please be patient with me. I know I've made mistakes and am still learning the parenting thing, so I know God will fill in blanks where I fail.

You're so strong, so stubborn at times, so wanting to do it your own way. All good things at times, but in my heart I know that I must train you to do those things in God's boundaries. God has something great for your life little man, I know that in the marrow of my bones. Something greater than I could ever dream for you. I don't know what it is, but I know I don't want to get in His way, I just want to do His will for you. I love you so much little man.

One of these days you'll get it. I know God will get us there, hopefully we'll both make it in one piece :)

Love,

Mama

Summer Fun

Whew! This week has flown by and we've been soooo busy. Not a bad busy, more like a "I want to do as much as I can and have as much fun as possible this summer" kind of fun.

Feels like the vacation time is flying by which makes me sad because I know work time will be coming up around the corner :(

But until then, I'm going to use this quiet moment while little man sleeps (yes, he's wore out today) to savor some of the fun things we've been doing

• Lots of coloring and craft time, both alone and together with one another. MJD is now even going to his desk alone and playing all by himself.
  
• Speech lessons twice a week to cram in some more practice and therapy before he turns 3 and we lose services.
  
• Tuesday play dates at the mall
  
• Birthday parties
• Free movies at the mall on Wednesdays
• Shopping trips for groceries and fun crafty things
• Lots of pictures
• Play dates at the gymnastics studio
• Bible study at church, which is super awesome because I don't usually get to participate in these, and I'm LOVING it!
• A little extra t.v. time in the morning while I try to sneak in some more sleep
• Swimming, lots and lots of swimming
• Lunch dates with friends
• Sewing with some girls in the evening
• Blogging about crafts and Mason
  

Oh, summer break is wonderful! If only it wasn't so hot outside, but I'll take what I get, just grateful for it all. So off to rest while the little man sleeps. There is so much I should do, but I think I'll let my head hit the pillow for a bit, this morning wore me out too :)

One great daddy

We had a lot of fun getting ready for Father's Day, especially the cake part! I truly have a wonderful man to raise my little boy.

Vacation

So much fun! So much to write about.... So, to keep it short, just some highlights in pictures!

The little man's suitcase.... adorable, but not as easy to travel with as one would think.

Beautiful weather and scenery, so relaxing.

Potty Trained little 2 year old!

Lots and lots of walking the white dogs with Nena.

The creepy "man" that was dubbed the "pee pee man" and convinced Mason to pee on the potty.

Wonderfully delicious plantains that my mommy cooked for me everyday :)

Swimming in the big pool like a big boy!

Playing with cousin..... a.k.a. "my friend"

The awesome blue choo-choo that Mason loved in the mall.

Eating yummy watermelon when we went to the market for fruits and veggies.

Lots of play time with Nena.

Mason not wanting to leave the marina and the boats. Gotta love a 2 year old's will.


Our little family :)

5 Years

While we were on vacation, Tim and I celebrated 5 years of marriage :)

It's been a wonderful 5 years. We've been through finishing college, first jobs, moving, buying and making our first home, the addition of a pet to our family, traveling to different countries and cities, going through a pregnancy and the birth of our lovely little boy. Through the years we've been through some wonderfully joyful situations as well as some terribly sorrowful times. But in the good times and bad, I'm so glad I've got such a wonderful man to walk through it with me.

Pee, Poop and all things BIG BOY

Well folks, we have officially begun the potty training process. I know for some this post won't interest you, but as a first time mom this endeavor has been one I've looked forward to (no more diapers) and dreaded at the same time.

While we've tried feeble attempts before, this time we stuck with it.... so here's our low down on how things went down.

Day 1: GRRRRR. This kid is going to be in diapers until college. He screams everytime we try to put him on the potty. He hates it, I hate it, this isn't going to work!

Day 2: Okay, I've got to try to give this another go. Thank goodness I have a patient husband. Still a lot of screaming and fighting. I hope this gets better.

Day 3: Today we wake up to a little man screaming in our room that he has to go pee! Quickly rush to the potty and success!!!!! No more fighting, no more crying, success on the potty and treats abound. The "high-fives" and "fist-pumps" were in abundance. 5 successful trips to the potty and 2 accidents.

Day 4: Okay today we had no pee accidents, but there is a situation with the pooping :( So much easier with diapers, but this too will get better.

Day 5: No accidents all day! Well he pooped in his swimmy diaper, but we had pretty much bet that was going to happen. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

(I'll update this post as things progress. This potty business must be mastered before travelling again.)

UPDATE: So it's been a week plus a day since we've started full throttle. Pooping has been an issue, mostly due to the fact that when we've gone outside for trips we've still used Pull Ups just as a precaution, so he's used those times to do his business. Today has been a fully sucessful potty day with both pee and poop in the potty and no accidents of any kind. Since there have been a couple of successful poop trips on the potty he's not so scared of the process, which is a very good thing. On top of all of that, we've had completely dry nights and naps every day since beginning. Little man is also prompting when he has to go potty almost all of the time.

I thought it would be much cheaper potty training, but alas, there were a few things I needed to order and purchase for the new world of independent bowel movements, such as a travel potty for the car, a folding potty seat , reuseable cloth training pants for night time so we don't waste Pull Ups. And since today has been a perfect day, Mason was treated with a special surprise ordered for him from Nana for his success.