Potty Training and general update

Norah is in the thick of potty training. We have been attempting it for awhile but not intensely by any means. The week after Christmas she went and stayed with my parents for a week and spent alot of time with her cousins Cora and Ellie. After she came home all she wanted to do is strip naked and sit on the potty.

My sister-in-law said that every time Ellie went to the potty Norah would sit on the floor next to her to keep her company. Ellie is about 6 months older, so her and Norah are close buddies and everything Ellie does is cool!

We have not had alot of accidents though, which is good. Norah can't just sit on the potty though, she finds things to do and she likes to straighten up the bathroom while she is in there.

Once she stood up to organize something, stepped back to sit down, but kicked the potty with her heal, the lid flapped down, she sat down on the lid and began to pee!! I have now removed the lid.

Here are some images to help bring this all to perspective.

Here is "the potty"!!! The top removes and can be put on the actual toilet and the bottom white part flips to become a stool to get on the toilet, but for now she does better with it on the floor. You can also see how very small our bathroom is. This is probably the one thing I would like to change, but we adjust and it is fine. Lots of singing takes place here!

This is "Norah's Potty Progress" chart that daddy made! The columns read from top to bottom: Practice, Passed Water, Dropped a Deuce and Double Duty! Very creative!

And this is the "Box" that mommy and daddy are to sit on across from Norah, but out in the hallway to keep Norah company! I think this may have been established because Norah kept Ellie company. Norah is actually on the potty right now as I type, but neither myself or Josh is on the box so I think we are making progress to get her to go to the bathroom by herself. Oh and she is singing Twinkle, twinkle little star as we speak!

This is Norah with her cousins in Beaver Falls.
From left to right: Andie (not technically a cousin, but she is!), Cora, Norah, Ellie.

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Norah is also becoming bilingual and we are so glad! Her daycare provider is bilingual and teaches the kids Spanish during the day. We have noticed that Norah is saying more and more Spanish words at home. It's really cute!

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We got to spend a week in Beaver Falls for Thanksgiving and a week in Cleveland for Christmas. It was great to be able to get away for both holidays, but I am not sure that will be realistic in the future with the job that I have.

I have never had a job that I really had to worry about coverage when I took off and definitely never worked with a population that has as many needs that need to be addressed immediately, and understandably, so it makes taking time off very different. Doable but alot of preparation.

Our time in Beaver Falls was fun because all of my siblings were home with our kids! Norah definitely became more interactive than she already was before the visit. She loved spending time with all of her cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Norah got some clothes, toys and best of all a play vacuum cleaner that sings cleaning songs!!!

Cleveland also brought more fun time with aunts, uncles and grandparents! Norah also has a new first cousin Truman who she got to share the lime light with! They did a great job together, mostly because Truman is 3 months old and very agreeable! I look forward to more interactive time between them. Norah also received more clothes and toys in Cleveland and got her first bike! Its a radio flyer with training wheels!

Here are some pictures that i swiped off of FB from Christmas:

Here is Norah opening presents, sometimes she would rip a small piece of paper and then yell, "Oh my gosh!!"

Here is Norah's new bike helmet and knee pads.

Here is Norah taking a spin around the kitchen! Later Josh took blue painters tape and made a track around the island in the kitchen, it was really cute!

Here's Truman in is Uncle Josh hat that we got for him! So cute!!!

Josh had his brother Jeremy for the gift exchange and bought him the video game Call of Duty. Jeremy is pretty good at guessing what he gets so Josh made an AK47 out of cardboard and the video game was the magazine. This is the gun in process...

Here is Jeremy after opening the gun. Josh had spray painted the gun and the game was wrapped. The whole gun was wrapped and you could tell it was the shape of a gun. It was really funny!

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After arriving back to Chicago for a week without Norah I felt overwhelmed with the amount of kid stuff we had. I pretty much said to Josh we need to go through these toys and donate or put away or we will end up on one of those tv shows where they will bring people in to confront us, our bedroom will have laundry everywhere and kid toys and then they will start finding dead cats under our belongings!! I tend to over exaggerate, but it gets the job done!

Now I recognize that I would never end up on one of those shows, but I was definitely feeling the emotions of how people end up on those shows. As a parent you look at your childs toys and think about the way your newborn cuddled with a certain stuffed animal, or how your sister gave your child a thoughtful gift and you think "how can I get rid of this?" and then the next thing you know your keep pile is huge and your donate pile is nothing. I actually went through most of Norah's stuff first and then asked Josh to go through everything that I decided to keep to see what he thought and he got rid of more because there were definitely things I thought he would want to keep and he really did not care.

Josh also made me put a box together of things for "the next baby." I said people would buy more toys for a new baby especially whens it comes so much further after the first! So needless to say we put a box together and labeled "baby #2".

(DISCLAIMER: This is definitely not any kind of hint or indication as to plans or even talk of baby #2, I would just like to honestly be able to discuss the things that happen in my life without people assuming that we are making an announcement.) I know people love how straight forward I can be and expect nothing less! ;)

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Josh has completed his PhD applications! Yeah!!! It was stressful for him so I am glad it is over. Now the waiting game begins. We will know nothing until March, and we do not even know when in March we will know anything.

He applied to Johns Hopkins in Baltimore, MD and Brandeis University in Waltham, MA.

So it looks like we will definitely be moving this summer. I am actually looking forward to packing and trying to decided when it would be appropriate to start!

I know I have written about this before...I think I have, but anyways, I have always liked to pack. It used to hurt my college roommates feelings when I would start packing for a break or the end of the year way in advance because they felt like I was glad to be away from them. Not the case at all. I like to pack and be as efficient as possible.

So, tonight we are ordering Indian food to celebrate that the applications are done! Then we are having friends over to play Settlers of Catan!

Have a great weekend!