My Vacation

Beware: if talk of a kid’s bathroom habits is not your thing, you may not want to read this!

As you probably know, I basically share a full time position with another Mommy-vet.  We recently decided it would be a good idea to give each other a vacation, so I worked 6 straight working days (spread over a weekend) while she took off, then vice versa.  It was wonderful! 

I had grand plans to send my boys to their sitter once or twice so that I could work hard on catching up around the house and then play with them and potty train Josiah the rest of the time.  I never send them away when I’m available, so I never have completely free time to accomplish things.  This was going to be big for me.  Also, since my week is broken up with work, I hadn’t had the chance to seriously potty train, so I felt like this was do or die, though not to that extreme :)  Well, it didn’t exactly turn out as planned.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the boys got really sick and I was a bit under the weather myself.  Oh well. 

The first two days seemed like it would all be spent just surviving.  There was no progress made on projects, no potty training being done, and no one was having fun, but then things turned around and I really got some things organized, played with the boys, and began to see some real success with Josiah’s potty training.  The weather even cooperated to allow for some great times outdoors, and though we coughed our way through it, we managed to really enjoy ourselves.

So, will I claim that Josiah is potty trained?  Um, no.  He is pretty much pee pee trained (still working on aim) and has poo poo’ed a coupled times on the potty, but he doesn’t tell us he needs to poo and it freaks him out when we grab him up and rush him to the potty when we see “the face”.  So, we are working on that.  It doesn’t help that his normal GI problems and diarrhea from antibiotics have messed things up.  He’ll get it.  The extra good news is that he is mostly staying dry for naps and night sleep!  I’m so proud!

Josiah’s big motivator has been CANDY!  And lots of it.  We have been using Nerds, licorice bites, and gummy Life Savers (which he refers to as “holes”).  He’s so darn cute when he enthusiastically says (while swinging his arm in a full circle and dramatically nodding his head 3 times), “I want lots of holes, lots of licorice, lots of nerds!” every time he potties.  I think his teeth are going to rot out before I can wean him off of the rewards. 

We also had the opportunity to carve out some time for a little fun away from home.  Josiah got to have a playdate with an older friend named Bryce that used to go to his sitter’s house.  He idolizes Bryce and has been looking forward to this for a long time.  We got rained out from the park and ended up at the mall’s indoor playground.  Josiah also scored a Frosty from Wendy’s (which he so graciously fed part of to me) and a pizza dinner.  We had a fun Mommy/son time.  A few days later we went to the Sante Fe Zoo.  It is not exactly a grand zoo, but it was a fun family time close to home and a perfect get-out-of-the-sick-house activity for us.

My little man won’t pose for the camera :(

This little guy has no qualms about posing, though!

This bird came running up when we walked on the boardwalk and started pecking at the rope fence.  Josiah thought it was cool!

Checking out the “barking deer” with Daddy.  Having recently been to the huntin’ camp with Jacob and seeing big deer, Josiah really loved them.

Next up, the Jacksonville Zoo!

So, while it wasn’t quite as productive as I had hoped, my vacation was great.  I love my little boys and I’m glad I could be there for them when they were sick and enjoy them when they were feeling better.  I need another one.