Bummer

Finally got a shot of Nate napping under his bed. He actually looks comfortable! Sleeping is still same ol, same ol...maybe every other day napping. He seems to swtich it up week to week.

After a no nap day today, I had no energy to go anywhere so in staying home I thought I might as well just try potty training. I'm trying to remember that he just turned two not too long ago, but honestly I'm a bit disappointed-after showing him the doll going potty (to which he cried once when watching) and after numerous underwear changes, Nate didn't take to the training at all. By this I mean he was actually scared of his potty-anytime he had an accident and I brought him to his potty, asked him if he needed to go, tried to sit him down on it...he went nuts. Poor guy. He kicked, cried, manuevered however he had to to get away from the toilet. I even tried the bigger toilet-with the same result. I think Nate could still be scared possibly of the noise going in the potty makes (thus crying when the doll went potty). So for now we're going to hold off-he got an A+ on having accidents and totally didn't enjoy being wet in his underwear, but until he feels comfortable sitting on a potty of some sort-then we're both wasting energy I'm afraid. No sense in training if he won't sit on the can! Coaxing Nate to do so may be tricky.

We took Nate to his first spring training baseball game last weekend-didn't care for it too much but enjoyed walking around and getting to have italian ice!

I'm not sure if we'll get around to dying Easter eggs this year-our weekends between now and then are pretty busy. This weekend we're celebrating the holiday with Josh's family and the following weekend we're hosting a lunch for my family. Trying to get some spring cleaning tucked in there along with appointments and other things going on isn't really going to allow for a lot of time. I tried taking Nate to meet the Easter bunny last week-not so interested! Nate was scared, even with me sitting with him. Guess it's just an age thing.

On that note, we hope all our friends and family have a wonderful Easter! Time for some shut eye.

Tough Week In Toddlerhood

My oh my- I thought as kids got older things should get easier, but I'm still learning as I go! Up until the last two days, Nate hadn't napped. What changed was (a) I put a dark,thick blanket over his window to block out a ton of light and (b) it wasn't until almost 2:30pm/3pm that he fell asleep. It didn't even matter that he had been up since 6am, which used to mean he would be ready for a nap between 12:30-1:30pm. I have a friend whose daughter doesn't take her nap until mid afternoon now (about six months older than Nate) so maybe it's just a matter of he can go longer in the mornings without sleep-eight hours! Or maybe I'm just lucky. Or maybe...who knows?! I consider myself lucky if he takes a nap period nowadays. I thought as long as Nate slept through the night I wouldn't care if he didn't nap but...after consecutive days of no naps, I think it's almost just as bad as if they don't sleep at night! He doesn't do so well yet at playing independantly so I literally count on his naps to get any kind of "me" time. Maybe if he was able to do something by himself for a period of time it wouldn't matter so much to me. I love Nate to death, but I don't even get the bathroom to myself if he's awake.

On top of long days, Josh just found out that he's going to Michigan next week-7 days long! Almost 6 nights with Nate and I alone. Josh's trips have usually been shorter than that, I think it's been a year at least since he's had one that long. I guess that's another reason that I'm going a little more frantic than usual about Nate napping :) I'm so happy we have plans next week with different friends and other activities to keep us occupied-I really hope it's a fast week!

One more thing: we just may be using our last box of diapers for Nathan :( We've decided after this box (and I wanted Josh to be home!) that we would start potty training. I'm just about fully prepared-I bought big boy underwear,pull-ups and a doll that BOTH pees and poops. Yes, I said that right-we're using a "model doll" that once we feed it, will pee AND poop. Should be interesting. I got this idea from a friend who thought the doll helped out quite a bit-her son was potty trained in three days! That includes the #2 in the potty. The plan is to let Nate run around in underwear at home,let him/show him to feed the doll,take the doll to the potty to see it actually go potty. Then we have a "potty party" to celebrate the doll's success-and the doll gets a reward (in our case, tiny Reeses :) ). Nate will wear pull-ups when we go out and for sleeping. I'm hoping though to spend the first day or two mostly at home to try and get him used to the underwear idea and get him to realize what it feels like to be wet so that he'll hopefully let me know when he needs to go. My only worry is that he might be too young yet to communicate his needs. I hear a lot about how "back in the day, kids were potty trained by 18 mos" but today it seems like we're lucky if kids are potty trained by age 3-and even then a lot of kids still wear pull-ups at night at least.

Here's to a nice weekend and a smooth next week!

Who Needs a Bed?

During the day at least, Nate doesn't! My little boy just gets funnier and funnier sometimes. This relates to the topic of him getting out of his bed, which he still does-during naptime mostly (thankfully not too many issues at nighttime any longer!) The afternoon works like this : we read books for a half hr, then I tell Nate it's time to "lay down, chill, relax for a while", anything but mention the word NAP. Too smart-knows what that means. He still prefers having a drink a bed before he falls asleep-so I give him that, cover him up, put a blanket by the door on the floor,leave the room and lock the door from the outside. Nate inhales the drink like he's been crawling through the Sahara desert, rushes out of bed to see if he can get out. 9x out of 10 he always does this. Then he whines/cries/screams for up to a few minutes. He also moves the blanket or even puts it away himself. Then he usually plays for 10-25 minutes: looks at books, puzzles, some toys in a bucket, or even entertains himself by kicking the door. If he's tired enough to nap, he'll usually just fall asleep on the floor by the door (exhibit A above). One day I caught him actually UNDERNEATH his bed! He'll sleep for about two hours this way. At night he actually falls asleep in his bed now...no more picking him up from the floor and praying he doesn't get startled enough to stay awake!

But like I said...IF he's tired enough to take a nap. Darn toddler stage-growing out of naptime. On a daily basis I try to come up with whatever "magical solution" will get him to take a nap-mommy desperation has set in for sure! Between just trying to tire him out and pushing his nap further into the afternoon, I've been fairly successful. We've also moved his bedtime to 8pm, a half hr later. Trying to tweak different things to see if anything makes a difference. Nate has been hitting his mouth/sticking fingers way back in there, so it's also possible his 2nd molars could be working their way in. Sleep problems are just a continuous issue for the Kucenski clan!

On a happier note, Nate has really gotten into the act of mimicking. What you say, actions, and now on his Baby Einstein DVD's (his favorite videos!) he's starting to sign objects like they do on TV. He knows his animals and the noises they make...it's just amazing how much they pick up! He's understanding more commands and questions. I think it's really been awesome to see how they grow.

We're entering our "spring time" season-finally! Between Febish-Aprilish is my favorite time of year in AZ-when the high's are in the 70's! Not too cold but not too hot. We're cramming as much outside time into each day as we can! The 90+ weather days aren't too far away...it's only days like those that I wish we had a swimming pool! I'm already trying to think of what kinds of inside activities I can get us involved in to stay busy and cool during the summer.

Since naptimes are unpredictable I think I'm going to go finish an article and maybe pop in some of a movie. Hope everyone is having a great week!

Officially Two...and Terrible?

Nate just had his two year visit with the pediatrician-he's 28 pounds and 35 inches long. Thankfully, no shots today! Now he doesn't need to go back for another year. The doctor said he's growing and acting normal for his age, including the "eating a ton one minute" and "just wanting a cereal bar" the next. And of course the "terrible tantrums". He's made sure that I'm aware that he isn't happy about situations for sure :)

And now I'm bummed to go back to past posts where I boasted about Nate not climbing out of his bed. *sigh* Not the case now, sadly. The last week, during both his naptime and bedtime, he has climbed out of bed and opened his door. Oh he's very amused and excited with his new discovery. At first we tried just putting him back in his bed over and over, but that got to be too much of a game for him-he'd laugh as we would chase him back in his room. Rather than playing that game for hours to see who would win, we decided we needed to do something more aggressive. I had hoped the "passive" way was going to work but decided a harsher way would teach him to stay in his room and bed faster. We began to lock him in there. He always intially cries/screams for at least a few minutes but does eventually fall asleep. If he's extremely tired he won't try to get out of bed, but otherwise always does and ends up falling asleep on the floor by the door. At night, once he's asleep, we put him back in his bed. If he does actually take his nap, I let him be-too scared to take the risk of waking him up and having that be the end of the nap! I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this phase doesn't last much longer. We did try to move the bar higher but he was able to get over it. At this point we would rather not put the crib side back up-I'd be too afraid he's try and climb over it and injure himself.

I guess there's always some adjustments we're making! Always learning and adapting. He continues to be more verbal every week-always new words and actions. We're having great weather right now so Nate has gotten the chance to enjoy his birthday gifts-especially the tricycle! Gosh I can't even imagine life without it, he loves riding it all around.

After a long day I'm off to catch some TV now that Nate is sleeping. Aaah, peace! The simple things today make us happy!

Happy Birthday!

Today is Nate's second birthday! I'm so happy we got it off to a good start (more on that in another post next week!) Nate slept reasonably well, I made him one of his favorite breakfasts-french toast-then we went off to another park to celebrate his special day with our friends. We had a blast! The weather was a little chilly but beautiful and we were so happy to see and play with so many friends. This time mommy made him vanilla/sprinkle confetti cupcakes.





Afterwards we came home and I made him some macaroni and cheese-another favorite. Then the little man proceeded to take a nap without making a peep! Pooped out from the morning fun. Once he woke up, we took a walk to feed ducks (one of his favorite animals) and we went and played at our neighborhood park. We got home and he spent a long time in the backyard riding around on his tricycle. Soon we will be leaving to take him out to NYPD-a good pizza joint for dinner (a favorite food since he was a year old!) He has a few more goodies and cards to open there yet. Then it's back home to spend some quality time with his daddy before he hits the sheets for the evening. It has been his kind of day for sure!

More next week after he visits his pediatrician for his two year visit. Happy Valentines Day!

Nathan's Disney Birthday Party!

We had such a great time at Tumbleweed Park with our families yesterday celebrating punkin's 2nd birthday! It had been calling for rain so I was hoping it wouldn't rain on our parade...and luckily it didn't and the weather was superb! It was such a nice sunny and breezy morning for playtime and celebration. I got to the park early with my parents to set up, we had pizza and salad for lunch (Nate's favorite), had a awesome chocolate chip cookie from a local cakery, opened gifts and of course spent a ton of time playing on the playground. Nate was so happy to have his family around (especially when everyone serended him with Happy Birthday-he was in awe!) and blew out his candles on his own! He happily played with his new toys as he received them, especially his new tricycle that mommy and daddy got him. It was a good thing we decided to build it ahead of time to let him use it at the park-he was cruising! I would say the only negative about the party was how fast it went-and it felt like Josh and I didn't get to socialize with anyone, not longer than a few seconds anyway. Guess that's how those kinds of things go though.



We got home and I tried putting Nate down for his nap, which he didn't take. I almost didn't think he would with all the excitement. However, since about December now there's one weekend day where he doesn't nap for whatever reason and during the week there's also 1-2 days at least where he doesn't take his nap either. I'm curious to know why since we don't really stray from our "sleepy time" routine. Maybe he is just slowly moving towards not napping, not needing all the sleep. He goes to bed around 7:30-8pm, depending on his nap (or if he doesn't take one at all it's usually 7pm). He acts like he still needs it though so I don't know! One of those things that makes you go hmmm.

Nate's actual birthday is this coming Thursday. We're looking forward to a little party with our friends at a different park that morning-again hoping it doesn't rain!-and plan to take him out for some good pizza that night. Otherwise I'm sure we'll just spend more time outside,hopefully, since that's his favorite place to be.

I think I'm going to start potty training sooner than I thought-he mimics me going potty now, and by surprise he actually went pee in his! It scared the daylights out of him though, now when I've tried to get him back on it he shakes his head. Hmmmm.

Time to get in a run while the weather is good out. I'm doing good on my resolution to work out 4-5 days a week, and just this past week I've started to use My Fitness Pal (a great online tool!) to keep check on my calorie intake. It's been a little bit of a wake up call to see the calories in different foods! I'm not so much restricting the kinds of foods I eat-like carbs or sweets-but at least trying to make sure I don't go over a certain calorie amount. I hope I continue to find motivation to keep it up!

Have a great week!

Almost Two

Wow, mid-January is already here. In less than a month my little boy is going to be two years old! **cringing...** Well, I'm happy and excited for him but boy has time really flown by. It seemed like just yesterday I was coming home from the hospital, feeding him baby food, weaning him off of bottles...and now we've already started putting Nate on the potty. As soon as I wrote my last post, Nate decided he was interested in starting to take his clothes off himself (sometimes) and figured out how to sit on his potty. (And don't worry mom, after witnessing many bathroom visits, I know how to wipe too!) I'm starting for now to put him on the potty when I go. Most of the time he just sits there, checking things out...and unrolling all his toilet paper! Oh my.

This year we're having his birthday party at a park-not only is it great weather wise, it's Nate's favorite place and mommy doesn't need to worry about getting the house ready in mint condition :) Our theme this year is Disney-re capping our fun trip last year which hopefully we'll get a chance to repeat sometime later this year. Very excited to throw him a fun party.

Well..Nate discovered getting out of his bed too. He tried getting out but I think did a flip-which he didn't care too much for when he was restless during a nap. He hasn't tried since! For now I don't think he'll try and get out. But once he gets tall enough to reach his legs over...we may have a problem! He speaks more words now:cracker, bye bye (and waves sometimes!), clock,shirt...probably more that I can't remember. He's becoming more and more of a talker-feeling like he has to point and name everything he sees!

Looks like my time is up for now. More after his party!

The Beginning

Happy New Year! We have new hopes, dreams and goals this year. This will be a big year for Nate with new transitions. We've started one already-getting him used to a toddler bed sort of feeling. He's still in his crib, but we've taken one side off and replaced it with a bar (so he can climb over and out if he wanted to--I can't believe he hasn't tried yet-thankfully!)

So I have high hopes that the toddler bed transition will go well-we aren't planning to get him an actual bigger bed until he seems to start growing too big for his crib one. Then...it isn't even two months before Nate will be two years old! I can't believe how time has flown. Along with that age brings...potty training. It seems I should wait until I see "signs" that he's ready, but I have friends who have 3 year olds who aren't potty trained yet. Guess I'll have to gently ease him into that one. I figure I'll try and start fairly soon after his birthday-it'll give me time right now to talk to more friends and do some research to get a "game plan"! Once potty training is a full success, then it'll be time for pacifier weaning. Between that and potty training I don't know which will be most difficult, I think they both will! The pacifier is Nate's definite comfort item-he doesn't have a favorite stuffed animal, blankie, etc. A big year of changes are in store for him.

We're hopeful for another year of good health and good memories. Staying busy as usual!

Cheers to a great 2010!

Christmas Time

We had such a wonderful Christmas-time spent with families,eating tons of goodies (I lost count on Christmas Day-did I eat 10 cookies or more?!)Nate always enjoys getting to play with his cousin Autumn.

We spent Christmas Eve with Josh's family that night and my family on Christmas morning. Nate enjoyed receiving new toys to play with! (mommy and daddy are happy about the new entertainment as well). He got his own "cell phone" (so hopefully mommy will no longer accidently call people), a stack of new books, two toy airplanes, his own tool belt with tools, a golfing set and a kitchen/BBQ set! He's been starting to play with them all some but has been interested in the new tools and electronics that mommy and daddy have gotten too. Lily benefited as well-Santa made sure to bring bones to chew and treats.












Our house is a disaster but we're just hanging out,playing. We're so glad daddy will have the next week off with us yet to play and go out. We hope everyone had a great Christmas and will have a happy, healthy and great New Year!

Lots of love,

The Polar Express!

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Merry Christmas!

Baby It's Cold Outside...

Which leads us to one our most favorite seasonal sicknesses: the cold. Or really at the moment, congested noses. It dipped into horrid weather for us Arizonans of high's in the 50's this last week along with rain. My poor baby: even just maybe a few minutes outside led to a runny nose, which led into sleepless nights and even napless days. I hope this doesn't mean we're in for a very long winter! But it is suppose to get warmer and I've been limiting his outside time-much to Nate's disappointment. If only it didn't take hours at night to get him to fall back asleep after such nose issues...I'm thankful for our fireplace keeping us warm and it's one of the newest things to calm Nate down when he's upset.

The little man continues to amaze me and make me laugh. For starters, the other day I got into workout clothes and he ran to our DVD collection and pulled out my Jillian Michaels work out video (which he enjoys watching me do). The other day I vaccumed and he opened a closet door and was trying to get the mop out. Apparently vaccuming wasn't going to be good enough,mommy. And now he has a new obsession:every once and a while during the day,multiple times, he must take off his socks so he can pick the fuzzies in between his toes. He literally pulls his foot to his nose and looks in between each and every toe. His vocab is consistantly growing-now we've added socks, shoes, cat, horse and yesterday he said thank you! I was caught off guard, had to make him repeat it a couple times. How nice.

Well I got my task of shopping and baking done last week-now on to wrapping and getting ready for our upcoming busy week full of holiday parties and leaving out of town on Sunday-we're heading up north so Nate can ride the Polar Express train! It takes us to the Grand Canyon (on the way up we listen to the story, eat cookies and have milk) then once there Santa boards to greet the kids and give them a gift. The train then takes us back, altogether a two hour ride. Prior to we'll be spending time in Sedona-visiting with my family who are also coming for the train ride-and going out to lunch to celebrate my birthday. Since it will be late after the train, we're staying overnight at a nearby hotel and then spending my birthday morning in Sedona. I'm super excited to do something fun with my family, maybe see some snow and spend some of my birthday in my most favorite AZ city (as I've mentioned numerous times in other posts!) It should be a great time-as long as colds don't get us down ;)

Time to get my little guy ready for hopefully what will be a peaceful night.

Tis the Season-Part 2

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Tis the Season-Part 1

...of fun craziness! Thanksgiving zoomed by and now we're just about halfway through December-Christmas is officially 19 days away! I hope everyone is sitting down with their big cups of joe or hot tea because it's been a while since I last wrote!

Starting with the week before Thanksgiving-I accomplished my goal of running a whole 5k
(3 miles) which I did in 35 minutes! Hooray! Josh ran two miles with Nate in his stroller-which is really good for him and that was all I was ever able to do if I had to run with Nate too so he was successful as well. This is all incredible considering the fact that all three of us caught a bad stomach bug which left us sick as dogs for a few days and pretty fatigued right up to the race. I'm sad to say Nate vomited for his first time :( It was heartwrenching to watch because he was frightened on what was going on. But we're all better and trying our hardest to avoid flus and colds as the holidays approach!

We had a great but busy Thanksgiving. We hosted my family here, cleaned up and jumped over to Josh's family for dessert. Then I continued to stay awake until 10am Friday morning to Black Friday shop with some of my relatives :) Two cups of Starbucks made that happen. I was pretty successful for the most part. Then, by Friday afternoon, I was off to Vegas for the weekend!

I stayed at New York, New York which was fine-well our first room had neighbors that were ready to party so we switched but the rooms were nice and everything ran smoothly there. I pretty much hit the sheets as soon as we got there Friday night, but awoke Satruday morning happy to shop at some outlets for the next six hours! Also very successful-would have to say my favorite store of that trip was the Disney outlet store. Much like a Disney store at the mall would be but half price or lower?! Had a ball there for Nate. Afterwards we bolted back to the hotel to get ready for dinner at Tao-the restaurant was busy but the atmosphere was zen like, it was actually refreshing. My sister and I shared sea bass (mmmmmm) and sliced filet mignon which almost melted in my mouth-so good! Then we hit Serendipity 3-just like the one in NY-and I got their famous frozen hot chocolate. It tasted like melted chocolate ice cream, but with a slush texture to it. SO good! I was completely full but thought I'd regret it if I didn't devour every drop so I did. Happily. All the yummy food made us tired so we went to bed-didn't gamble til the next morning before we left. I got lucky-I put money into a 5 cent machine and wound up on a turn with $52! Cashed and walked out at that point. It was a fast but fun trip, exactly what I was looking for in a getaway from home.

Josh had a good time with Nate that weekend-kept busy with our families and walks. I came in and asked how things went-his reply : "I'm tired". Oh good :) It's nice to have people walk in your shoes so they better understand why you want to sit with a book at the end of the day!

Now we're in full holiday mode. Our decorations inside and outside are up, Christmas cards done and sent, Christmas tree up and decorated. We took Nate out to our favorite brunchery this past weekend to have tea with Santa-I was nervous he was going to scream bloody murder but he didn't (once he sat on Santa). He started to whine a little bit after a second but not a full out, terrified scream. Whew. So we won't have great pictures with Santa but they won't be looks of horror either :) Mrs Claus also visited us, along with three elves. We each got a frosted sugar cookie and some apple cider. Nate enjoyed watching the carolers that were there too. It was cute and fun, something we might be interested in making a tradition.

This week we're planning to build a gingerbread house, finish Christmas shopping and start all the holiday baking. At least weather wise it's a good time for all of that-we're in the high 50's/low 60's and it's calling for rain most of the week. This is personally my favorite month of the year but it's pretty crazy with everything needing to get done! All in good fun though.

Stay tuned for Part 2-pictures of the start of the season! Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. Toodles for now!