The Saturday 7

We had a rough parenting week.

1. Potty training is still a big fat fail. We've been doing it for 12 days and Lena still won't use the potty chair. She actually got off the potty chair to pee on the floor twice this week. I am at my wit's end and don't even know what to do with her.

2. And then there's the issue of Lucy being sneaky/dishonest. I've been convicted lately about how much YouTube she watches. And it's largely unsupervised. Of course, I have the safety filters turned on, but that doesn't protect against everything. I check the history to make sure she's not watching anything inappropriate, but by the time I see it, she's already seen it, so it's a little late. She's not watching anything bad, but she loves watching vlogs by tweens that are just a little too mature for her. Anyway, I finally decided that we're going to have a "No YouTube" summer. She took the news much better than I expected, and I immediately deleted the app off of all our devices. I never even thought twice about it after that. She uses her tablet a lot to listen to audio books, so I didn't have a problem with her having it in bed at night. Until last night when Justin went upstairs to check on her and found her watching YouTube videos. She finally admitted that she's been doing it all week! My 6 year old had me totally fooled. (She found the app store, typed in "you tube" and downloaded it again on her own. Darn education, teaching her how to read and write.) It's just so defeating that she's so deliberately dishonest/disobedient. :-(

3. The good news is that our new chore system is going well. It's only been a week. I'm sure it'll get old soon, but for now the girls are doing it happily.

They also each get one "money maker" chore a day. They don't have to do it, but if they do, they earn 25 cents. Lucy made $1.25 this week. Lena made 25 cents. Haha.

4. Levi discovered his feet this week. He's constantly grabbing them.

I feel like he's starting to pork out a little:

Don't mind his face. I just wanted to get a pic of his chubby belly and thighs. And yes, I'm holding his legs still so I can get the picture. Haha.

I'm wondering if his weight gain is affecting his reflux, though. He's been kind of cranky/acting like he's in pain again lately. I should probably call the doctor and see if we need to up his dosage again. I also think he has a cold. Last night, we spent over an hour trying to get him to sleep while he screamed his guts out. He's so stuffed up that he can't suck on his Binky and breathe at the same time. But he won't sleep without the Binky. I tried using the nasal aspirator, but it didn't really help. I finally ran to the dollar store 15 minutes before it closed and bought some saline to squirt in his nose. He didn't appreciate it, but I do think it helped.

5. My brother and sister-in-law are home from Florida for a week! We've been counting down the days in anticipation:

My girls adore them, and they'd never met Levi, so that was exciting. Esther came over one morning this week and we chatted for two hours. It's just really nice to have them around again. I'm always trying to talk them into moving back home.

6. My nephew's graduation open house is tomorrow. I went over yesterday to help brown 50 lbs of ground beef. Holy cow, my hand, wrist, and forearm are so sore!! And I didn't even stay to finish it all, because Levi randomly decided he wasn't going to take a bottle for Justin! He's taken a bottle no problem every time we've tried until yesterday. Not good. Lena never took a bottle, so I was thrilled with the freedom I expected to have with Levi! Hopefully he was just having a bad day.

7. Our week in pictures:

Morning TV time

Lena-monkey at the library

Nail salon on the deck

Levi adores being outside.

Snuggling with Aunt Libby