Bike Rider Extraordinaire

One of the great things about living in family housing here at Penn State is that we have a court yard where kids can play. We happen to have a little bicycle gang that rides around. Two days ago Sadie asked me to take off her training wheels. I wasn't really sure that she was ready, but she was insistent. So, I took them off. After only about 5 minutes, she was riding short distances on her own. After 10-15 minutes, she was riding all the way around the court yard. After about 30 minutes, she was even getting started by herself. She never ceases to amaze me! She tends to know when she is ready for something. She is usually right.

4

Sadie is four now! She is actually 4 years, 2 weeks, 1 day old! We were a little slacking on posting a blog. We weren't planning on having a party, but after Sadie invited her entire primary class to her party, we decided to throw her a small party with a few family friends. Sadie wanted a "World" cake, so I did my best. It wasn't the best cake that I had made, but it still tasted really yummy! Here is a close up!

All in all, Sadie had a lot of fun with people giving her some really thoughtful and homemade gifts. Her friend Grace, gave her a beaded necklace that she made. My friend, Mary, made her a knitted hair kerchief and a homemade wand. She also received a tiara (I think people are getting the message that she likes princesses) and a princess doll. We gave her a stuffed cat and the game Hullaballoo. She loves all the presents and she is still very excited that she is 4.

Potty Pooper

Yeah!!! Sadie is finally a potty pooper. Nope, not a "party-pooper" She is a potty-pooper. The Merino household is very happy. For those of you who don't know our long saga of pooping on the potty, it's probably better that I don't get into it. Let me just say that it has been a year and a half of struggle and frustration. Our cutie pie just refused to poop on the toilet. She was completely trained and would ask for a diaper when she needed to poop. So that was ok, but we were getting really tired of it. Sometimes we would try the "take-away-the-diaper" approach. She would hold it for 3-4 days and be in agony. So, how did we do it?

First, we have been counting down to Sadie's 4th birthday (it was on the 14th) We told her that she would have to start cleaning her diapers -- we have cloth diapers. She would insist that she wouldn't have to because she would go on the potty when she was 4. We definitely had our doubts, but we tried to remain positive. So, on her birthday she asked for a diaper. I reminded her of our deal. I told her that she still had a choice. I was willing to put a diaper on her, but she would have to clean it up. Her choice was to go on the potty or in a diaper, but she would have to clean the diaper. She really didn't want to do that. So she tried the potty. It didn't work. That night she pooped in her pull-up right before she fell asleep and I had to wake her up to change the diaper. Here we go again. Our hopes of peaceful conversion were dashed. I stuck to my guns though. I reminded her of her choice. She usually chose to hold it.

A couple of days went by and I realized that we needed some more powerful incentive. We went to Wal-mart and she got to choose a doll that she would get once she pooped on the potty 5 times. (We tried the incentive before but never actually bought the toy) She chose an Ariel doll. We bought it and we took it home. We also bought some Yo-gos for a treat after every time she went poop. (She has been asking for yo-gos ever since Jon and Lauren Funk introduced them to her last October).

Now we are at home she tried once but it didn't work. A little while later she really wanted to open the Ariel doll. I told her that she could hold the box while she pooped. She said ok and did it. I think actually having the doll and holding it made it possible for her to do this thing that was really hard for her. She was very proud of herself and told everyone in the courtyard that she pooped on the potty.

So to end the story, Sadie continued to poop on the potty and earned her doll. She has gained a new sense of confidence since this success. She used to always need me to be with her when she did anything potty related, but now she does everything herself. She acts like a big girl now in other situations too. She is proud of herself and she sees how proud we are of her. You know . . . I'm really happy that I don't have to clean up poop anymore, but I'm more happy about her success in working toward a goal. I see something new in her eyes and it really makes me happy.

I hope you enjoyed my play by play account of our bathroom adventures. If you would like to know more about all the things we tried, let me know. If not, I hope you were amused and maybe appalled. I never thought I could be so proud of someone pooping, but I have the proud parent syndrome really bad. We have awesome kids!

Loopty-Loop

While my brother, George, was visiting, he broke his arm. I had to take him to the emergency room. He wanted me to document the occasion . . . I finally got the movie done. Enjoy.

I love the Future

Yesterday, I walked with the kids to the library. On the way, Sadie asked why God made trees. I started off with the easy answer, "Because they are so beautiful" then I remembered . . . I have a degree in biology, I can give her a real answer. So we talked for a few minutes about all the things that trees do for our world. Then, because she was wearing a shirt that said "Hug a tree" she decided that she wanted to hug a tree (but it had to be big enough) I really wish that I had a camera with me, but alas. I'm quite proud of my little tree hugger. Who knows, maybe she will be a world famous (or perhaps infamous) environmentalist.

Five minutes after hugging the tree, she said to me, "Mommy, I love the future." There are so many times when she just pulls something out of nowhere. As I was trying to figure out where she got that statement, I realized that she meant nature. So we had a discussion about the difference between nature and future. The rest of the walk she would ask, "Mommy, why do you love the nature?" Or she would say, "I love the nature."

I really hope that she loves nature as much as I do. She certainly loves exploring and loves hikes. She even asked if we could go camping one more time.

Washington DC

One of the things that I really wanted to do with George, was to visit DC. Dad sent some money so we could take him and we had some fun. First of all, it was super hot, second, we didn't get to do about half the things that George wanted to do. Hence, the grumpy face. We did get to walk past the White House and the Washington Monument. We went to the Natural History Museum (lunch cost almost $50!) where Sadie got to hold a 150 million-year-old fossil of a Stegosaurus. It had just been cut out of sandstone so she was one of the first people to touch and hold it. I don't think she understood the significance of it, but she thought it was neat. We went to the National Archives where we saw the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. (the pictures weren't very good because flashes weren't allowed.) Then we tried to go to the Art Museum but it was closed so we walked to the Capital.

I don't recommend going when it is so hot, but we did have fun despite the heat stroke. j/k I put together a slide show because there were so many pictures. Let me know what you think of it.

Oh, Brother

For the past 10 days we have been thrown into the world of early teenage boyhood. My brother, George was visiting us here in Pennsylvania. After 10 days, we figured a few things out, but I think we have a long way to go. Here are a few of the mysteries:

1. How does he grow so much when all he eats is junk food? When he first arrived we asked him what he would like for dinners throughout the week. His reply, "Anything but Mexican." What did we have planned? Tacos, carnitas, refried beans, burritos. . . we eat a lot of Mexican food. We also learned that the anything but mexican also referred to anything healthy. He ate a lot of peanut butter/marshmallow or honey sandwiches. He was funny because he liked the carnitas, but he didn't like tacos, he liked waffles and french toast, he liked seafood (at a buffet) but he didn't like anything with sour cream, cream cheese, or cottage cheese. He liked lettuce with cheese on top (no dressing) He liked icecream (only vanilla). He liked candy. Can I emphasize the candy?

2. How can someone be bored but not want to do anything? Well, he did want to play video games.

3. How can he get so little sleep, yet have so much energy? Along the same lines, how can someone fall asleep with all the lights and the television on?

4. He was excited about breaking his arm!

5. Why does he have to go home?

We had a lot of fun with George. I moved out when he was 3 and so it has been awhile since I have spent a significant amount of time with him. I think he had the most fun when he was out with Steve. I also think he was expecting our lives to be a little more exciting than they were. My next few posts will talk more about what we did with him along with a few pictures.