"I'm A Bird!" "I'm A Bird!" .... Our Lil Parrot

Well it has begun. Jay has started repeating EVERYTHING. It doesnt matter what it is, or if you think he's listening or not. Oh trust me, he's listening! Even when you definitely think hes not, or if hes in another room, or on the other couch ... oh trust me, he's listening!

"Ali, stop it!" ... "Stop it, momma! Stop it!"

"Brandon, dinners ready" ... "Dinner ready! Dinner ready daddy!"

"Say "no no daddy" .. "No No Daddy! No No!"

"I'm gonna go feed the fish" ... "Feed fish? Feed fish!"

"Dang it!" ... "Dag it!"

"Crap!" ... "Cap!"

It seriously *amazes* me how much his vocabulary has e*x*p*l*o*d*e*d* ... even in just the last 6 or 9 months. He went from only saying a handful of words to not being able to get him to be quiet, especially if hes excited about something - which is almost anything and everything while we're in the car - and even holding a somewhat conversation while on the phone.

I can't wait to see what the next 6 to 9 months bring us ... everyday is a new adventure!

Routines

Jayden LOVES his routines. Don't get me wrong, I think routines are very important. But Jayden has taken them to a whole new level! Example:

At night, we get him in his night time diaper and PJs. Then we brush his teeth and head upstairs to bed. We then kneel down next to his bed and say a prayer. Every now and then he'll just jump on his bed and I'll say "no prayer tonight?" and he'll say "ut-uh", but the second I start to put his blankets over him, he scoots his little ta-hooney off his bed and kneels down next to me. So we fold our hands, and mine have to be the exact same way every time. If I try to change it, he fixes my hands for me, lol. During prayer we have a list of people we pray for every night - Mama, Papa, Nana, , Grandpa, Uncle Josh, all the aunts and uncles, Tami, Hannah, Sarah, just to name a few - and if I forget to mention someone, oh heaven forbid, Jay will let me know! Sometimes he even has me pray for someone twice if he thinks I haven't prayed for them yet. After we have finished prayer its time to crawl into bed. I have to put his blankets on him. I have to give him his sippy cup. I have to give him kisses. And then he gives me kisses in return, first a kiss on the lips, then on the cheek, and if I've kissed his forehead, he HAS to kiss mine as well. I have to turn off the bedroom light. I have to turn on "moon" ... the night light. If Brandon tries to do any of these, then he says "ut-uh! Mommy do it! Mommy do it!" And trust me, mommy has to do it again, or he wont go to sleep without throwing a fit, lol.

Gotta love getting kids into routines, right? ;) :)

Monkey See, Monkey Do

So last weekend, we had a couple friends over and Brandon was telling one of them that we've been having problems potty training the dog. Seriously, Jay is picking up potty training a WHOLE lot better then the dog is! Anyways, the friend, who works with dogs, told Brandon that if he peed in the corner of the patio that the dog wouldnt pee in the house or all over the patio, he would pee where Brandon peed, trying to re-mark his property - something to do with being the Alpha male :-/

So, not to be outdone and out-Alpha-maled, what does Brandon do? Yup, you guessed it. So Jay and the dog are watching Brandon mark his territory, being the Alpha male and all, with this look on their faces like "what ARE you doing!?" Brandon quickly finishes up before anyone can see him and walks back into the house. I look out the back door, not 3 minutes later, and see a little pair of butt cheeks. Jay is standing right where Brandon was standing with this underwear down around his ankles and is peeing in the same spot. Brandon and I just stare, mouths open, and watch Jay. When he was done, he pulled his undies back up as far as he could, which was just above his knees, and came bounding into the house with a great big smile on his face! He was so dang proud of himself! lol. I had to explain to Jay that that was a ONE TIME THING and that he is never to do it again - but let me tell you, trying to tell him that without a smile on my face is a pretty hard thing to do!

***Sorry if this embarrassed you Brandon, but it was just TOO funny not to share!! ;) :)

My Little Fish!

Jay and I used to go swimming at least twice a week with our friends Sarah and Hannah when we lived in Washington. Jay got to the point where he LOVED being in the water and would seriously JUMP off the side into the water and into my arms.

Since we've moved to Germany, its been a whole 'nother story. We havent been to a pool since we got here - until last Sunday. Our friend Traci took us to a pool that is only about 20 minutes away from our house and after he got reaquanted with the pool and the water, Jay LOVED it. At first he was a little nervous to jump off the side. And the first few times forgot to hold his breath, so when he came back up he looked really surprised! But after a while he was starting to get the hang of it and was really enjoying himself. He was even helping me count to 3 when he was jumping off the sides. :) The pool also has some big and major slides. He was a little uncertain of them at first, but by the end of the slide on the first run, he was running to where they keep the inter-tubes and wanted to go back up again. Such the little dare devil I have, lol.

By the end of the 3 hours that we were there, Jay was having so much fun, i had to seriously DRAG him out the pool with the promises that we would come back. Jay asked me all day yesterday if we could go swimming, So that's what we're doing today! :) I must say, we're BOTH really excited to go!

If It's Not One Mess ... It's Another!

Mess Number One:

This morning I was woken up by the sounds of of little "clanks" and the sound of various things being tossed around. "What in the world is that?" I thought to myself. Just as I was coming out of my bedroom Jay comes running out of the front room - with bright pink hands and saying "Mess, mommy! Mess!" and pointing into the front room. Sure enough, there WAS a mess ... of all my cake decorating supplies that WERE in my "Cake Caboodle" but were now all over the front room. And to top it all off ... Jay had gotten the bright pink and bright green food coloring out, and dropped dropletts of them onto the only rug we have in the entire house. Forget the tile we have the first floor! Thats too easy to clean up! Our nice rug, along with Jays hands, the bottom of one foot, the front of his pajamas and one cheek bone, were now smeared with either pink, green or the mixture of the two all over the place! :-| 

Mess Number Two:

Shortly after the first mess was finally cleaned up, I was in the kitchen cleaning up the breakfast mess when Jay walked into the kitchen asking me to read him a book. I looked down at him and he is pant-less - again. (I swear, this boy would be naked all day long if I let him! He LOVES to be in nothing but his underwear!) So I'm looking at my little boy, who honestly just looks so sweet, smiling up at me waiting for me to answer him, when I realize he has this ... sheen on his legs and kind of in his hair. "Thhaaaats not right" I think to myself. I leaned down and took a little sniff, and what did he smell like? Oh yes, baby oil! Awesome right? "Jaaaay, what have you been up to?" I asked him. "Nothing mommy" is his reply. "Jayden Lawrence, what have you been doing? Have you been good or naughty?" He looks up to me with those big beautiful brown eyes and says "Naughty mommy, naughty". I grab his hand and he leads me up the stairs to his room where there is a BIG puddle of baby oil almost in the center of the room ... with little foot prints that lead to his bed ... and baby oil all over his sheets. Yeah, that mess took quite a few paper towels to clean up!

Mess Number Three:

I had seriously just come down the stairs from cleaning up mess number two and was walking from the bathroom to the front room when I hear the sound of lightly running water coming from upstairs. The only thing ... I KNEW the bathroom door upstairs was locked. Taking the stairs by two I run up to stairs and turn the corner to find Jay standing, with his undies around his feet, peeing into the tiny, table size grill that is sitting on the floor in the hallway. I yelled "Jayden" and he looks at me, realizing he is caught in the act and runs off into his room! Yet another mess to clean up!

Mess Number Four & Five:

I ask Jay probably 50 times a day if he needs to go potty. Usually the answer is yes, but occasionally the answer is no. And when its no, its followed by 2 more questions of "are you sure?". This series of questions happened again today ... and you would think I would've learned my lesson by now to follow my gut instincts and just taken him to the bathroom, but no, I didn't. :-\ So what happens? Yup, he peed in his undies onto the floor, too preoccupied playing with his toys to remember to go potty in the toilet. So I go and get a few paper towels and the 409 out of the kitchen to clean up the potty mess he just made ... when i hear in the kitchen "squirt squirt" noises. I peek around the corner and find my oh-so-helpful 2 year old boy squirting Windex on the floor. I ask him "Jayden! What do you think you're doing!?" and his reply? "clean mess, mommy" as he continues to clean the floor (which really wasn't messy to begin with) with a paper towel and Windex and a cute little smile on his face. 

If its not one mess, its another!! Needless to say, maybe we should buy stock in paper towels! They come in handy for ALL kinds of messes!

Shake That Thing!!

As you probably already know, Jay LOVES to dance. Get any song on the tv/radio/iPod that has a good beat to it and you will find Jay dancing :) We were watching "Country Strong" and Gwenyth Paltrow performs a song called "Shake That Thing" in the movie and Jay LOVED it. He even asked me a couple time to play it over and over, lol. This is one of the times he danced to it. Every time I watch this it makes me giggle :D

Pretty dang cute right? lol.

On a side note: Jays potty training is going EXCELLENT! I'm SO stoked about it! He is going pee in the "big boy potty" every time he needs to go pee now. He's even started telling me when he needs to go! The only exception is pooping in the potty - we're still working on that. But from what I've heard thats pretty typical so I try to keep my frustration of cleaning poopy underwear to a minimum hehe :) We no longer have a baby boy - we have a BIG BOY!! :D

Potty Training and Race Cars

Potty Training

Today is potty training day! Jay is equipped with his "big boy undies" - Thomas the Train, Super Heros and Spiderman undies - and he is so happy with those. He got to pick them out himself at the BX

He is DEFINITELY ready to be potty trained. He is ALWAYS taking off his diaper, especially if its poopy. Just the other day I found him at the top of the stairs with no diaper on and his diaper sitting next to him ... and poop smeared on the floor from where he was sitting in several different places :-/ This little boy definitely does NOT like to have a poopy diaper!

Today we have so far gone through 2 pairs of underwear and hes only been out of diapers for 3 hours. Hopefully this potty training thing will go better by the end of the day we'll be at least mostly potty trained!

Race Cars

Jay is in LOVE with Lightening McQueen and the movie "Cars". He is constantly playing with his cars and pointing at the exhaust on them and saying "vroom vroom!" and crashing his cars together.

The other day he was trying to tell Brandon "race car!" while looking directly at him. Brandon looked at me and said "What is he saying!?" I couldnt help but bust out laughing - because his "race car!" sounded like "retard!" and he was saying it over and over again at Brandon.