Potty Time

So we have been toying with the whole potty training deal, encouraging, but not pushing or forcing the potty issue as to not scar Matthew for life and turn him into a deranged serial killer. These How to raise your child type books are pretty harsh. I mean it. If your child turns out crazy, they make no bones about it totally being because you did not give him that damn balloon or take him to Arby's once.

Anyway, he has sporadically gone on the potty, will sit for long amounts of time, then get up and pee or poop in his diaper. Quite frustrating.

So out new daycare tells us that they have a fool proof potty training method, they have adopted this method after consulting with a child psychologist and once the child shows the "right" amount of interest in the potty, he will be placed on "potty patrol" and will be trained within 10 easy days.

This sounds GREAT!!!

So, I get a letter home in Matthew's packet informing me that Matthew has shown interest in the potty and is now ready. (The interest by the way was harassing his friend Dylan while Dylan was pottying and trying to pull Dylan off of the potty to keep playing). Again, I digress.

So in this letter, it tells me specifically what I will need to bring to school for this program. The items needed are as follows:
3 shirts
3 pairs of pants
5 pairs of socks
10 pairs of underwear, and
1 extra pair of shoes.

It became very evident that the child psychologist formulated potty patrol plan is to let the child pee and poop all over the place until he decides to use the potty.

I asked the teacher if that was about right and she shrugged and said "well, I guess that's one way to put it". At least it's there and not here.

Tonight before bedtime I found myself sitting on the edge of the bathtub singing songs about "poop goes in the potty" and "like to poop poop poop ... in the potty".

I need wine.

William's birthday

So 10-23 was Liam's first birthday. We were in New Orleans the week before and decided to have a small birthday party for him. This rapidly turned into a large baby blow out complete with Space Walk (which incidentally Northerners call a Moon Bounce and look at you funny when you say space walk), small blow up ball pit, Saint's game on the big screen TV and all the BBQ you can eat.

We had lots of fun. Liam did not want to stick his fingers in his piece of cake and rejected it when we offered him some. This is in direct contrast to Matthew who immediately began jumping up and down chanting "Cake, cake, cake" when the cake was brought out, proudly wore his safari party hat, sang "Happy Birthday" but replaced William's name with his own, assisted with blowing out the candles, and ate so much cake throughout the day he honestly pooped blue the next day (from the icing).

I will post pictures when I'm not feeling quite so lazy. William is currently sick so today has been somewhat stressful.

The zoo revisited.

Thongs and things

So many fun and unusual happenings continue to plague my family but there is so little time to write about them. I can't pass this one up. Today, I took the boys shopping. We went to The Container Store (which is like candy land to a pack rat like myself) and then to Target. By the time we got to Target, the kids, who were uncommonly good in The Container Store, had had enough. I take that back. William was still being good, Matthew was having meltdown after meltdown.

The first meltdown occurred when we passed a large tractor outside of Target and I would not stop to let him climb on it (please reference the previous Touch a Truck blog post). The second meltdown occurred when I would not let him "have it" to absolutely everything he was able to physically reach by stretching and contorting himself out of the shopping cart, especially a light up hula hoop which resulted in an actual tug of war in the freaking Target. Really try to imagine this ... Matthew standing in the back of the cart with one leg over the side (straddling the cart) with both of us holding on to either side of the stupid blue light up hula hoop with Matthew screaming "HAVE IT" and every time I pried his hand off the hoop, the other hand shot up to hold on to it over and over again.
This went on for entirely too long. I eventually won, which resulted in the biggest public meltdown we have had yet.

As I am rolling the cart toward the front to pay for all the items that are constantly being tossed out of the back of the cart like a Mardi Gras float by the screaming child, other customers kept looking at us and after they passed, I could hear some giggle and some would just laugh as they passed and everyone was staring at us.

Finally taking my eyes from Matthew, I looked down at William who was sitting in the front of the basket and had been quiet for too long only to see that he had a hold of the 5 for 15 dollars batch of thong underwear that I was purchasing and had one pair hanging out of his mouth, another pair in his hand above his head waving them around like a prize and 3 pair were scattered on the floor like a path through the woods.
(Yes, I buy my underwear at Target. I am poor). I wanted to die, but it was so funny I could not help myself from laughing.

I'm sure this is just the beginning of humiliating experiences at the hands of my boys. (I am out numbered).

Daddy dressed William

This is what happens when I forget to lay out William's clothes for Chris. This is a stained Philly's baseball onsie and red and white striped Valentine's Day pants. The picture just does not do it justice.
I am now going to go torture Chris by making him watch 27 Dresses :)

Touch A Truck

A few weeks ago, we went to Haddonfield, NJ to a fun day called Touch A Truck where kids can (you guessed it)... touch a truck. It was so much fun. They had all kinds of trucks from garbage trucks and 18 wheelers to police cars and SWAT team vehicles. You could climb up on them and sit behind the wheel and honk the horns. It was great except for one thing. Matthew is totally obsessed with tractors. Initially, this was why we brought him there, so he could see a tractor up close. Well he saw the tractor. We could not leave the tractor. We tried to see other things and he just screamed bloody murder and ran back to the tractor. All day, nothing but tractor.
Here are some pictures of the tractor. We all took turns on the tractor.


There was a small tractor with Homer Depot on it for the little kids. Here's Will. He did not like it too much.
There was even a band who played songs such as "Don't pick your nose" and "Don't hit your friends". I swear it. Who could make this stuff up? Apparently this was a cover band who normally plays adult cover songs and they were contracted to play this gig and their child friendly repertoire is low.
Fun Fun Day, Matthew still talks about the twatooor (tractor).

The Howell exhibit

On Mother's day we went to the Philadelphia Zoo, which incidentally is America's first zoo. Chris, his mom, Matthew, William, and myself all loaded into the car for a day of fun filled excitement at the zoo. We were supposed to get there for 9:30 AM. We left our house at 10:45AM only to find once we were in downtown Philadelphia that each and every one of Philadelphia's 6 million residents and their mothers were running the "Race for the Cure". Nobel cause, I support it wholeheartedly, but it took us 2 1/2 hours to get to the zoo. I know you expect me to say that Matthew and William were hysterical, but no, they were good. Chris on the other hand had a little cabin fever temper tantrum after hour 2, but calmed when we promised him ice cream.

By the time we parked 1/2 a mile away and walk to the zoo entrance, we see the line to get in wrapped around the block. The only way to bypass this line is to become a zoo member, so Jackie graciously joined us up for zoo for 2 years and in we went.

First order of business: diaper changes. Have you ever been to the restroom at the zoo? I do not recommend it.
Second order of business: "OF Fies", this translates to French Fries in Matthew-ese. After standing in line for 25 minutes and spending 35 dollars on a hot dog, a hamburger, and 3 orders of OF-Fies, and a soft pretzel, we realized we had no where to sit and eat.
... I present to you "The Howell Exhibit".
There we all were, squatting down, shoveling food quickly into our mouths, me holding William's bottle with one hand and eating with the other, Matthew threw his soft pretzel into a tree, Chris retrieved it, blew on it and gave it back to him. At one point, I picked tree pollen and debris off William's head, still eating with the other hand and realized I looked like a mommy orangutan preening her young.
Finally, we walked around and enjoyed the zoo. It was really fun. Matthew and I rode a horse. The whole time he was screaming "No Thank You" at the top of his lungs and as usual, I was cracking up laughing.
Matthew and Chris fed a goat and a sheep, we watched a Cheetah pee, we roared at lions, made elephant noises along with arm motions as if they were trunks. William slept mostly, but did see a peacock and the giraffes (my personal favorite).
We left exhausted but had loads of mother's day fun.