Parker and baby food...

Parker has been hitting lots of big mile stones lately. We gave him baby food for the first time in April. Rice cereal and him don't get along very well, so we took a week off, and then tried oatmeal. This was much better for him. Now every few days he trying a new vegi. So far, I haven't found a baby food he doesn't like! Let's hope he stays this way. It would be nice to not have another picky eater like Cohen. :)

Josh took a couple of really cute videos of the event that won't upload to blogger, of course. So, instead, you get to see ALL of the pictures of the event. If you look at them quickly, maybe it will be like a movie! :)

and he rolled!

So, I seem to be behind in posting again. That happens so fast!

It seems like Parker first rolled over a long time ago, but I'm getting around to posting it now. He first did it shortly after turning 4 months old. Now, he doesn't ever get much tummy time because he always rolls over! I think he's not far away from rolling from his back to his tummy.

Cohen loves to swim!

We went swimming twice in a two week period... and Cohen loved it! By the way, so did Josh! There are some really great indoor swimming pools in Portland (there has to be because of all the stinkin' rain!) with big slides and kiddie pools and everything.

The second time we went Parker and I got in too. Parker's first swimming experience was pretty much emotionless for him. He was like a vegetable the whole time. I think this was the case because there was so much to take in, he just didn't know what to do. I could barely even grab his attention.

Yes, Cohen loved this slide. He went down with Josh SEVERAL times, even though he was shivering and freezing the whole time.

I loved that there were areas he could stand in.

This is at the top of the slide. Yay!

p.s. You might notice that my boys are white, very white. Well, welcome to Portland! Let's just say I REALLY enjoy the sunny days when they come.

My boys love each other

Cohen and Parker love each other so much! They are so cute when they interact with each other which is happening more and more often. Parker just laughs and giggles and stares at Cohen. Cohen loves to help take care of, sing to, and play with Parker. It's cute when they both get the giggles with each other and can't stop for awhile. I wish I could get all those cute moments on video.

Here's what I ended up with one day after trying to capture the cuteness. Watch out at the end, Parker almost dies, but luckily Cohen missed. Phew.

Potty Training Success!

A couple of months before Parker was born we tried to potty train Cohen. I think he could have done it then, he pretty much did, but I couldn't deal with the scrubbing floors aspect while on bed rest. So... we tried again a few weeks ago. This time it worked! I don't know if he was just more ready, or if I was more practiced and patient, or if he remembered what to do from before, but all in all we are happy about it!


So here are some of the things I did. Again... I don't know how much success was due to method or due to timing or prayers!

First, we talked about no more diapers and going to the bathroom on the toilet and how exciting it was for a couple of weeks before the big day.
We made ourselves run out of diapers and pointed out to Cohen that there weren't any left and that he'd have to go on the toilet now.
We did buy pull-ups. I didn't do this last time we tried this, but I think it helped. We talked about them with Cohen before we started and let him see the pictures and how they disappear and everything.
I set up his reward system.

Visible mini marshmallows for going potty on the toilet. He got 1 for going "wee wee" and 2 for going "poo poo." I think it really helped to have them right there in the bathroom in a clear container.




I also made a chart for him. I figured that if all I did was reward him for going on the toilet, he would never be all the way dry. His tendency is to only go a tiny bit in his underwear... realize it, then go to the bathroom. So, every time he went to the bathroom with a dry pull-up or underwear he got a sticker on his sticker chart. He loves Disney movies, and I got these stickers for free, so we had Snow White "watch" him on Monday to see how many stickers he could get, and Duchess watch on Tuesday, etc. If he wasn't dry, we told him it was sad for the characters to be wet and get new underwear, but we tried not to be too upset about it. That's one of the hard parts for me. I tend to expect a lot from the little guy.

So he was in pull-ups for 2 days as he kind of got the hang of it, then I put the underwear on him. The pull-up fading designs don't fade so much if you only go a tiny bit, and it was kind of hard to tell if he was all the way dry. For further persuasion, I bought him a football piggy bank (anything football he loves!) and told him he could have it on the first day he was dry all day long. What a surprise... he was dry the first day I offered this.... Wednesday!

Here is Cohen loving our towel rack, which he gets to use so frequently. There is no smile on his face here, but he was really cute with this idea of his. These are his pretend glasses!

So, now it's May, and we started this in March. He occasionally has an accident, but for the most part he's trained! I can not even tell you how nice it is to only have one baby bum to change now instead of two. I'm so proud of Cohen for picking up on potty training in just a couple of days. I sure love Cohen.