The Saturday 7

1. June 1st marked 7 years since my first miscarriage. I honestly don't think about it often, but every year at the beginning of June, I remember. One of my best friends lost a baby around the same time, and I like to think they're BFFs in heaven. I have no idea if that's theologically feasible, but it's comforting nonetheless.

2. Lucy finished Kindergarten this week! It's amazing how much she has learned/changed in 9 months! At the beginning of the year, she was reading some CVC words and just figuring out long vowels. She was doing some basic addition and subtraction, and could count to 50. Now, she's full-on reading anything she can get her hands on. And her favorite subject is math! She has an incredible grasp on it. It comes very naturally to her, which boggles my mind. Haha. The other day she was telling Lena that there was a 6 pack of Milky Ways on the counter and maybe they could share. So I said, "How many would each of you get if you split them equally?" She immediately answered, "3." She didn't even have to think about it. And here's a little bragging: she got 100% on almost every single math test she brought home this year. At first, I thought the teacher must help them, or they get to correct their answers before being graded. But a couple weeks ago, for the first time, she got one wrong. That one question was the only one she got wrong for the whole year's worth of math tests (one a week)! She's come a long way socially, too. She has friends at school, participates in class, and enjoys interacting with her classmates. Of course, she still has a long way to go socially. On her last day, I went in an hour early to watch their little "graduation ceremony." Each kid was called up 3 times to get an award. Every single kid in her class went up each time, hugged the teacher each time, and smiled for a picture. Except Lucy. She refused to go up, hug, or smile. After 9 months with this teacher, she's still shy. Ridiculous. And, as I'm sure you've seen on facebook, she also changed a ton physically. They weighed/measured her at school on her first day and at the end of the school year. She grew 3.25 inches and gained 6 lbs!

I had her fill out this little questionnaire for her teacher and thought her answers were so cute:

3. So I spoke too soon about Levi sleeping through the night. He woke up to eat between 3 and 4 every night this week. He eats quickly and falls right back to sleep, so it's not a big deal. Hopefully he's just having a growth spurt or something, and will go back to sleeping all night soon! He did finally break 11 lbs this week (actually, if I did my math right, he's up to 11 lbs. 9 oz!) and I feel like he's really starting to fill out. He also found his hands this week and is always sucking on them.

4. I went to the dentist this week for a cleaning, and left with an appointment to get a cavity filled. Boo. I have one filling in my mouth that I have no memory of getting, so I was obviously pretty young. I've been drinking pop for 20 years and eating junk for 30 and have managed to go almost cavity-free until now. Such a failure. I had my suspicions since every time I eat sweets my tooth kills. I asked the hygienist to tell me what having a cavity fills entails since I don't remember. She gave me the rundown and then said, "You can always have the gas, too, if you're nervous about the needle." I responded with an emphatic, "Yes! Sign me up for that!" I really shouldn't be that scared of a needle in my gums after I just had a massive needle put in my back and then pushed a baby out of my body, but I'm a wimp. #givemethegas

5. And now for the potty training update. It is going abysmally. Lena is almost 3.5 and has every single "readiness" sign in the book, but is extremely strong willed. I've tried and failed to potty train her twice already, and am determined to make it work this time. Here is what we've tried: No pull-ups. Underwear cold-turkey. She puts them on in the morning and keeps them on until bedtime (with the exception of naptime). We've tried to stay home as much as possible so she has plenty of opportunities to wear undies. We've read a thousand potty books and watched every potty episode of her favorite shows (Daniel Tiger, Elmo, etc.). I bought her some good bribes and put them on the counter where she can see them.

She has a cute little Elmo potty-chair. She has watched Lucy and me use the bathroom every day of her life. She watched her little friend use the bathroom yesterday. I try to take her to the bathroom every 30 minutes. (Or at least I did at first.) We're going on day 6 of this and she has yet to pee in the potty chair. I wasn't kidding about her strong will. She cries every morning when I put her undies on, begs to wear a diaper all day long, even begs to go to bed so she can wear her diaper. After some initial coercion, she now sits on the potty chair begrudgingly, but refuses to try and go. I tell her, "Try to go potty," and she responds. "No. I just sit here while you sing a song, then I get up." I sing ABCs very slowly and try to distract her by messing up the song or asking her questions so that she ends up sitting there longer. But she holds her pee. The first few days, I don't think she knew when it was coming and was caught off guard every time she peed on the floor. In the past two days, though, she has started to hide to pee. She's very smart and never goes when she's in my sight. She waits until I'm busy making dinner or feeding Levi and then she runs to the corner and pees on the floor. I'm actually counting that as progress. She's recognizing the feeling when she needs to go, and can hold it long enough to wait until I'm busy/make it to her hiding place. I've tried blocking off her hiding places. She just finds new ones. It is exhausting and disgusting, and I'm getting real sick of doing laundry, but my floors are cleaner than ever, because she keeps giving me an excuse to mop them! We're going to keep at it. I already have another incentive in place for next week. We'll see if that helps. Wish me luck! (Here's the detailed recap if you're really that interested. I just wrote it for my records.)

6. Justin went on a fishing trip with his dad this weekend. They left early Friday morning and are coming home Sunday afternoon. Nice timing with the potty training, eh? I've been sending him texts like, "Cleaned pee of the floor 5 times today" and he's been sending me texts like, "Fished for a few hours this morning, played cards with my dad, went out for dinner, thinking about going for a run." Life isn't fair. And the children are conspiring against me. Last night, Lucy didn't fall asleep until midnight (!) so I was up with her until then. Levi woke up at 1:00 to eat. Lena randomly climbed into my bed at 2:00 am. Levi was fussing at 3:00. I got him back to sleep, but then he woke up at 5 to eat. And Lena was up for the day at 7:20. Thank goodness for my mom, who is playing games with the girls right now while Levi naps, so I can have a little break!

7. Our week in pictures: