My baby. Is. THREE.

Jonah at 3

Dear Jonah,

Happy birthday! Today you are three. How did this happen? I can’t say your *entire* life has flown by, but this past year sure has. I think part of me expected you to stay two forever. But that’s not the way it works!

You had a BIG year. You saw the ocean for the first time.

Yay ocean! #latergram #obx #killdevilhills #ilovehim

 

You started speech therapy and you figured out how to play/work/learn all at the same time. I’m so proud of all the progress you’ve made!

jonah puzzles

You figured out a lot of big kid things this year like using utensils, drinking from an open cup, and even – astonishingly – using the potty! Your mama is, quite frankly, impressed!

Jonah potty book

You developed a love of taking selfies. A chip off the ol’ block!

jonah selfie

And you totally rocked your first “big kid” trick-or-treat!

jonah trick or treat

Your big love for your big brother has deepened, so sweetly.

joshua jonah

And you even throw Sophie a bone once in a while:

Jonah sophie

I am a little nervous about you starting school in a couple weeks,  but with the way you’ve been conquering challenges left and right, I am hopeful that you will LOVE it and really blossom, my sweet boy!

SONY DSC

I love you, Jonah-jo! I am so proud of you, and so glad that God chose me to be your mommy.

jonah painting

Happy Birthday baby!

I think this is going to be your best year yet!

Love,

Mommy

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Classin’ up the joint on Thanksgiving

its not a party
This picture came from Pinterest, but alas, did not link back to a website. So I don’t know who to give credit to. No one sue me. You can’t get blood from a stone.

Wednesday night we went to my Grandma’s (sadly, not the Grandma I share with Emily because she would’ve loved this) for a pre-Thanksgiving dinner with my brothers and their families, my cousin Amy and her family, my Grandma and two aunts. (Kudos to my Aunt Z, by the way, for going out of her way and making some delicious gluten-free food for us!)

Since Jonah-Jo is still doing great on the potty but prefers to flush the big potty rather than sit on it and do his business, and since I had no desire to have him pee all over Grandma’s couch, I brought his little potty with us to Grandma’s and set it down in the living room when we arrived. Then i got all the kids coats off and started to get them settled…and was alterted by loud laughter/horrified cries that Jonah was beginning to de-pants in the living room.

Since he still feels the need to take his pants and underwear alllllll the way off when using the john, he was kinda mad that his shoes were still on. So I hurriedly helped him get them off and his pants all the way down, while my husband’s cousin, who’s only been in the family a few years and has had a limited opportunity to glimpse my STELLAR parenting, said, “You’re just gonna let him whip that thing out right here?”

“I sure am!” I replied as I plopped Jonah’s naked rear onto the potty. He then did his business and stood up and did a naked victory dance to the applause and embarrassed laughter of my extended family while I attempted to get his Spider-Man undies and pants back on him. We then took a victory lap to the bathroom to flush and I left the little potty there so he’d have to actually go into the bathroom to use it and confine his nakedness to an audience of one next time. (Which he did quite nicely before we left.)

The next day he gave a repeat performance at my parents’ Thanksgiving celebration, though I had put the potty in a more discreet place. He countered my discretion by taking his pants and undies off on the complete opposite side of the room and blazing a naked trail as he headed for his little potty. (The little bathroom on my parents’ first floor is too small to hold even the little potty.)

So bas-ic-al-ly, Jonah brought the favors to our Thanksgiving party! What a guy!

I promise I’ll have him over that habit my next year.

How was your Thanksgiving? Anyone nude up at your Grandma’s house? No? Just mine?

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Pantsless Peril

Not to toot my own horn or anything, but it *appears* that I have successfully potty trained a child BEFORE the age of three. And it’s even my OWN kid! Wee-hooo! Jonah has done great learning to use the potty and I am so PROUD of him!  He just has two hurdles to get over before he goes to preschool January 6.

1) He doesn’t want to use a “big” potty/potty away from home

2) He needs to take his pants and underwear a-l-l the way o-f-f before he will sit on the potty.

Ergh…since there’s no tiny froggy potty at school AND going n-a-k-e-d from the waist down at school is generally frowned upon, we still have some work to do in the next 6-7 weeks. But he hasn’t had an accident and has stayed dry in all the public places we’ve been to, because he can hold it a really long time. Still, I need him to decide he will use the potty outside of our home!

The other *issue* I’m having is, well…he likes to de-pants himself a lot. Even when he doesn’t have to go to the potty. At some point in the late afternoon or early evening I generally get worn down from re-pantsing him and just let him go commando.

He then performs his favorite superhero routine by pretending to be Super Grover over and over and over and jumping off the edge of our couch with his junk flapping in the breeze. It’s pretty cute. Except for that most superheroes wear clothes…because if they didn’t that would be pretty creepy and illegal.

“Help me! Help me Super Grover!”

“Up, Up & Away! Da-da-da-da-da-DA!”

Jonah collage edit

I’m not sure how he’s saving lives by flying through the air half-naked and then landing in a pile of giggles on the couch, but hey, PRETEND PLAY FTW!

Of course he also likes to nude it up all over the rest of the house. Reading books, eating snack, playing cars = all way more fun when ya ain’t got pants on.

There are just a *couple* things that worry me about this.

A) Will he be able to have children one day? I don’t know, I mean, he’s never appeared to have injured himself up to this point. He’s also very careful to remove ALL materials from the couch before he starts his jumping-off routine. Still, accidents happen!

B) This one has already happened actually. You see, Jonah has an older sister who just had a birthday. That means there is an abnormally high concentration of glitter in our home at the moment. You know how glitter is, it just multiples for about 6 months after application and by the time it dies out, it’s time for another craft or birthday party. So there’s a lot of glitter lurking in my living room at the moment. Which means: Jonah’s junk is kinda sparkly.

It’s a vicious cycle: bathe him, clothe him, he nudes up when you’re not looking, and 3 minutes later: glittery junk.

I’m thinking we better get a handle on this at least before he’s in a junior-high locker room situation.

Or MAYBE I should just be more vigilant about keeping PANTS on my kid…but he’s a sneaky fellow, and not above pretending to have to go to the potty to have a nudepertunity!

But hey, let’s get back to the part where I potty trained a kid BEFORE HE WAS THREE! It only took me three weeks, too…you can order the engraving on my Mom of the Year plaque…NOW.

Do you have any kids in your house who prefer to live life un-clothed?

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