Two-and-a-half means no tears!

 

At Leo’s last few doctor check-ups he’s been a terrible patient. He barely let the doctor look in his ears and mouth and when he got the stethoscope out, forget it. He cried and cried and of course, screamed when it came time for shots.

But this time, for his two-and-a-half year check-up, he was all smiles:

 

 

His doctor does all these cute things like, when he looked in his ear he said, “I found a pumpkin in there!” And when he was done looking in his eyes he let Leo “blow out” the light.

Leo didn’t even mind the stethoscope!

 

 

Here, the doctor is telling Leo that he must have drank some “tickle juice” this morning.

He didn’t even flinch when he got the flu shot!!

As far as his stats, he’s 27 pounds, 35.8 inches tall.

 

Here the doctor is telling Leo he has “stinky toes.”

 

 

 

 

 

And here are just a few other pictures of almost two-and-a-half year old Leo this past weekend.

 

Meeting new friend Jacob:  

 With mommy and daddy in our burnt orange:

 

Hogging the football from new friend Luke:

Pumpkin Recital

We went to the pumpkin recital last weekend. I mean the pumpkin patch. I just call it a recital because it has that same effect as recitals: are the kids really there to entertain and put on a show or are the parents just taking a bunch of pictures? At the pumpkin patch, are kids there to have fun and pick out a pumpkin or are parents just there to snap photos of kids seemingly having fun in the pumpkins?

Here are some pics of Leo and friends performing--I mean playing--in the pumpkins. (They really did have fun even with our lenses all around!)

 

 

Potty Party

When it comes to potty training, I’m intentionally not reading any books on the subject and not asking for advice from those who’ve gone before me. If I do, I’ll start comparing our potty training to everyone else’s. “But Jennifer Mableton’s kid potty trained in one day!” or “How could that stupid kid from the Y who doesn’t even know his own name potty train himself by age 2?” or “The book said he shouldn’t have any accidents after three days! Why is my kid still peeing on the floor?”

So you see, it could get ugly.

All I’ve done so far is have Leo sit on his little potty while he watches a TV show. I figure, if he drinks enough and then sits there long enough, he’ll have to go eventually. And then, once he does, he’ll get a sticker and see how awesome it is.

But somehow he could drink cups full of apple juice and still not go. Amazing.

So the other day, I had an idea: A potty party.

I totally made it up on the fly. I hung up this “Happy Birthday” banner since it looked festive and he can’t read. The yellow sign says “Leo! Go!” and brought bubbles into the bathroom:

 

 

 

When he got up from his nap I told him, “We’re going to have a potty party! You can invite three stuffed animals to come with you!” He chose chicken, bear and Bevo. Then he asked, “Will John be there?”

The basic idea of the potty party was that we would make the bathroom look and feel really exciting. He drank a juice box and then every 15 minutes we’d go in the bathroom, blow bubbles and then sit on the potty. He’d try to go and then we’d play until the timer went off again, telling us it was time to go back into the potty party. The party only lasted an hour but A LOT went on.

Here are the # of times we did the following:

 

Played Duck Duck Goose: three

Did a potty party conga line around the house: two (I made up this chant “pee-pee in the potty, poo-poo in the potty”)

Peed in the potty: two

Peed on the rug: one

Pooped on the stairs: one

Drank juice boxes: three

Received stickers: two

Earned lollipops: two

Ate snack: one

Read books: two

Ran through bubbles: four

Had stuffed animals use the potty: three

Cleaned up accidents: two

Changed big boy underwear: two

 

 

All in all, I’d say it was a successful (although weird) party. Leo was very excited to show Frank the potty party when he got home that night.

Perhaps MY methods will be featured in a book on the subject one day!

 

 

 

A Day at the Hair

 

Leo talks really well but he just can’t seem to get the hang of the letter F. So he pronounces everything that starts with an “F” with an “H.”

 

I’m having hun.

That was hunny.

I’m doing hine.

I can’t hind my train.

I hall down.

So when we told him we were going to the North Georgia State Fair with his buddies, John and Etienne, he asked all day, “When are we going to the hair?”

It was the first cool day of fall, (or “hall”) so we dug out our jackets, brought along our Granny Jo and headed to the hair.

We couldn’t believe our little not-even-two-and-a-half-year-olds were able to ride some of the rides on their own! We moms were nervous at first but they did so well (and screamed when we’d take them off) that we just kept putting them on more rides!

 

Some videos of the action at the hair: