You are, my biggest fan!

For nearly the first two years of Teagan's life he preferred Zac about a million times more than me. I always loved seeing how much love Teag and Zac had together. It makes me happy to have such a happy family, but I was a little jealous that he didn't show much interest in me. C'mon I spend the majority of my time and effort making his life comfortable and happy.

Well maybe his age brought wisdom, but he is my little buddy now. We have so much fun together and I love that he comes up to just give me hugs and kisses and always tells me "mommy tease!!!....come pway!!!" I love spending time with him and going on our little adventures around San Diego.

I love that he imitates me.... As a wise woman named mom once told me and my sisters growing up that "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery." She is still right. :)

He put on my tennis shoes to go out and exercise. Yeah! Hopefully I'm teaching him how important it is to be active. :) PS aren't my new shoes awesome!

I'm teaching him concentration.

I'm teaching him about hygiene and good looks, not that he needs any help with the looks. :)

I'm teaching him to make the cutest frown ever so I can't stand getting mad at him when he makes this face.

hehe, I love this boy WAY too much! Especially since he accomplished a full blown poop on the potty last night!!! (insert happy dance from me and Zac here!) He is such a good boy and he's so forgiving, thank goodness this little treasure was sent to us.

Help Please!

Teagan is doing pretty dang good, but today has been really hard. Since this morning I've known that he needs to go #2. He'll strip off his underwear and run to the potty and when he gets close to the bathroom he starts crying "no, no" and run back to get his undies on. He has told me 40-50 times that he needs to go today with about 35 of those times resulting in nothing. It is driving me nuts!

I try to be patient. I just run him into the bathroom when he tells me it's time. I try to get him on the potty before he has a chance to think about it, but he will only sit there for about 1 second before he tells me he's all done.

I feel bad for him, he's got this worried expression on cause he's holding back and I'm sure it doesn't feel pleasant.

We've tried lots of things. I even made him a magic wand to hold while he goes so it's "not scary and doesn't hurt." I've even thought about letting him get started in the underwear and letting him finish via potty, but he rips off his underwear first so that won't work. Suggestions are welcome, please. Is this going to just go away, should I just stick to it and keep on with the patience? I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE! :)

Potty Fun

These details are unnecessary for the general public, but I want to make record of it so I can be reminded with my next child!

So anyone who has a facebook already has heard, but we are officially potty training Teagan. I wasn't planning on it, it just sort of happened. We have a little potty that he's been getting used to, but he'd never actually gone on there. I was really hoping for this summer when he's 2.5 and I'm out of school, but now is good too. Friday morning I went to change his diaper before his nap and it was pretty dry and I asked him if he wanted to go potty. He enthusiastically replied "YES!!!!!!!!"

A little dribble came out, he got lots and lots of praise. We called daddy and grandma, then he wanted to go again. He peed A LOT the next time so we headed off to Wal-mart to buy underwear. His diaper stayed dry the whole time. Throughout the day I just took him potty every 20 or 30 minutes and he was LOVING it, he was getting treats doing stickers and it was fun. We got those foam stickers at walmart for him, every time he goes he gets to do stickers and tape them up on the wall, fun for him AND it serves as a reminder without me nagging him all day.

Things got rough Saturday, he didn't want to sit on it anymore, I felt like I had to bribe him and almost force him to go and let me tell you POWER STRUGGLES ARE NOT the way!!!

I took the advice of a friend and downloaded a "potty train in 3 days" e-book. It was and is SO helpful. Instead of taking him every 30 minutes I just tell him "Let mommy know when it's time to go pee or poo, OK!" about 100 times a day. I also ask him "is your underwear dry?" a ton and if he replies yes then I cheer and praise him for being such a big boy.

The first few times after I stopped forcing him onto the potty he had accidents, but I always stay within a few feet of him so as soon as I saw it happening I'd say "hurry, hurry, you need to go pee on the potty!" in an excited, happy voice. It only took 3 accidents for it to click. He is in charge of knowing and recognizing when it's time to go, at least he thinks so. He hasn't had an accident since. He even made it through the night in underwear, I woke up during the night twice when I heard him moving around in bed and took him to the potty, he peed and even clapped for himself with his eyes closed, it was SO cute!

This is one of his signals that it's time to go, the worried expression and grabbing of the privates. Today he has been telling us "pee pee" or "poo poo" when it's time. Hopefully we can eventually work our way into him going by himself, but for now I'm just glad diapers are OVER!

Since he was doing well we decided to experiment with taking him in public by going to church today. He did great. We have a "potty bag" that I brought with stickers and candy and his little potty seat and he went a couple times. I don't really want to take the potty chair everywhere, but he'd fall right into the huge toilet and it's scary, how do other people deal with that issue with little ones?

One problem we have is that he only wants to wear the buzz lightyear underwear and we only have 2 of those so I imagine I'll be doing a lot of wash! Pinching that tiny hiney is pretty irresistible too!

With the e-book I downloaded you get 3 downloads for the price of one, if anyone is interested in having it let me know, they expire Tuesday and I'd hate for them to go to waste!

Oh Teagan.

Teagan has one heck of a personality. He can be so silly, so sweet, so stubborn...keeps me on my toes. Anywho, here are some fun pictures that show a little more about what he is all about.

Me and Zac are in the market for new running shoes and while we were at Big 5 Teagan got VERY attached to the baseball equipment. It was so cute. he was a little scary with that bat though.
Lately he loves to play doctor with Zac. He gets Zac's stethescope and wants to have Zac listen to his heart...

and lungs. He'll sit very still and be very quiet for Zac, so I do know that it is possible for him to relax!

I recently found a rice bag that my little sister Rachel gave me. Teagan immediately wanted it saying "baby, baby." For some reason he thinks it's a baby and he treats it like one. He packs it around and if he leaves it somewhere he gets really worried and starts calling for his baby and looking for it.

Here he is tucking it into bed for a nap (sorry it's so fuzzy).

Kiss goodnight.

He is also rather attached to Zac's Enlish --> Portuguese dictionary. He has been "reading" it all day. He especially loves "studying" in his mini desk. (Isn't it adorable??? A lady I tutor for gave it to him).

:)

Teagan is a fun little boy to be around!

No thanks on the temper tantrums!

Today was interesting. All morning me and Teagan hung out around the house. He was so patient while I exercised and just played with his trucks. He helped me clean both bathrooms and was ecstatic to be able to help with laundry detergent. He was sweet and we had fun.

Then I got out some grapes for us to share. He stuck one in his mouth, somehow bit out most of the inside and spit out the peel and handed it to me "yuck, mom?" This means, mom I think this is gross so I want you to eat it for me. I reply, " no thanks, you need to eat the whole grape before you get another."

Maybe he was out of patience or something because he pitched the biggest fit I've ever witnessed from him. from about 12:00pm to 12:30pm he sat/layed on the couch screaming because he didn't want to eat his unfinished grape. It sat in a bowl next to him and he howled "no mommy, no! Yuck mommy, please, grandma!" and other things the whole time (maybe he thought one of his grandmas would rescue him???).

I had moved on to other things and was trying to not give him attention for his bad behavior. I'd occasionally go ask him if he was going to eat the grape so he could have his PB&J, he just continued his howling so I would walk away. Of course the sobbing was taking it's toll on me and I wanted to give in bad! 30 minutes is a long time to listen to your baby cry and scream over a silly little grape that isn't really that big of a deal, but of course it was the principle of the matter. I told him to do something so I had to follow through.

After 30 minutes I called Zac for some advice and help because I was starting to loose my cool. Zac talked to Teagan, told him the same thing that I did and that he needed to be obedient. Teagan stuck out his lip and frowned, but then picked up the half-eaten grape and ate it, finally.

Man, I am so grateful that I'm not in this alone. I can't imagine what it's like to take care of a toddler on your own, or any kid for that matter. I'm so grateful that Zac supports me and is my partner in trying to raise a well-behaved, happy child. It's so hard and I have no idea what I'm doing!

In conclusion, I do not like tantrums and I have a great husband.

The End.