And so it begins...

Nicholas has definitely entered toddlerhood. I have witnessed his first kicking and screaming tantrum. I did the awful thing of bringing him inside when he wanted to play outside some more. I had to bring him in because the other two needed to go potty (well, Ella really - Benjamin still doesn't care about having a wet butt or messy butt - actually, Ella doesn't want to go #2 on the potty either, but will go #1 - any suggestions on getting her to go #2 too?)

Anyway, I was a horrible mother and brought him inside. So he screamed for a while - he kicked his legs for a while. I picked him up and later, after he calmed down, I put him back down and he went over to the door and tried to open the door himself. I remember Ella doing this too. Very determined children. His favorite thing to do outside is to go up and down the stairs - of which, I need to help him with.

He is becoming more of a full-time walker. I will catch him out of the corner of my eye walking toward me or to something else. It still feels a bit strange to see him walking. He seems too small to do something like that. He still does crawling more, but he'll get to full-time walker status soon, I think. He'll be 13 months this week and this is about when Ella did more walking on her own too.

Benjamin, lately, has been wanting to wear his jammy shirts to pre-school. We have all these shirts for him to wear, but they are just not what he wants. Oh well. We let him have this one.

I saw Ella and Nicholas giving each other hugs and leaning their heads into each other. I've seen them do this a number of times and each time, I find it so adorable. Benjamin doesn't seem as lovey-dovey to Nicholas as Ella is. I suppose it is a boy/girl thing. We went to the UW campus the other day to see the cherry blossoms (very pretty) and I saw these 3 boys wrestling with each other - I can just see Benjamin and Nicholas doing the same soon - maybe Ella will join in too.

When we went to lunch the other day after church with Paul and Ally, Nicholas kept giving smiley faces to Andre (their almost 3 month old). It was rather cute.

Potty training

Oh, the joy that is potty training.

Ella is doing really well at home and at school. I am so proud of her. She still pees her diaper at night, but during the day, she seems to be getting the hang of it. Sohad, our daycare/preschool teacher, said that Ella is about 50% there. She surprised me last night when she said she had to go pee. She just went over to her potty, pulled own her pants and went pee. Before I knew it, she was asking me to put her pee into the toilet so we could flush it! Hooray for Ella!

Benjamin - well, he's taking a little longer. He seems to want to do a lot of things Ella does and will look to her to see what she is doing before doing something, but not when it comes to potty training. He will sit on the potty and he has gone a few times, but I don't think he quite understands the feeling yet when he needs to go - (though he does do the potty dance). I do wonder if it is because that Ella has older girls at the daycare to model her behavior on and Benjamin doesn't have an older boy.

We'll see. I know that boys take longer with this than girls do, but I do hope that Benjamin will start to do this more because of Ella and perhaps Nicholas will be trained earlier because of his older siblings.

I am just so anxious to be done with diapers!!!

Dentist

We took all 3 kids to the dentist the other day. This was Ben & Ella's 2nd time there and Nicholas's 1st time. Nicholas didn't like it at all - but I think it was more, he wanted to get around and play and didn't like being held down than anything the dentist was doing. He did enjoy getting a duck to chew on afterwards.

Ben & Ella did surprisingly well as they did a lot more this time than they did last time. They cleaned their teeth and flossed them too. We were told to start flossing the kids teeth - that should be fun - as their teeth are all scrunched in together. They both did well with letting us floss their teeth for them. Ella apparently thought it tickled.

Hopefully, they continue to do well. Both Ben & Ella also got to pick a brand new rubber duck to take home with them. This time, they were just plain old ducks (last time, they were a doggy duck and a kitty duck). I raelly wanted Ella to pick the bear duck. :-D

Nicholas - 1 year checkup

I feel bad - I need to write about my kids more.

Jon took Nicholas into the doctor's office this past Friday for his 1 year checkup. He's a bit of a small guy.

His weight is only 20 lbs 11 ounces. A coworker's 6 month old weighs more than he does. That brings him to the 35th percentile.

His height is 29 inches (30th percentile).

He is in the 94th percentile for his cute head though. 19 3/4 head cir.

They said they aren't worried - he's just taking longer to get to his growth spurts - though I still worry. I know not every child is the same, but I guess I expected him to be like his brother. He was always in the 80-90th percentiles.

Poor guy probably got my genes for height.

Next checkup is at 15 months. I hope to find another pediatrician because I have many gripes about our current place. There's a place nearby that was recommended to us from a coworker so I think we may go check that place out.