Snow is fun!

Stian has decided snow and winter aren't so bad afterall. He's lucky he has the daddy he does. Kris loves winter and snow, and I, well, do not. So if anyone was going to instill in him an appreciation for the winter, it wasn't going to be me.

The two of them played outside in the snow for probably an hour and a half this morning (I was inside making yummy, healthy blueberry muffins). They played in the yard for awhile then also walked down to the river and spent some time throwing rocks in.

At dinner time I commented on how we were losing our snow. It's been fairly warm - low 30s - so we have lost some of the snow over the last few days. Stian got all upset. He didn't want the snow to go away! I assured him winter was far from over, and we will get plenty more snow.

Playing in the snow (outside this time!)

Stuffed Animals

One of Stian's favorite things remains his stuffed animals. He has tons of them, and he loves to play with them. They all have names and he talks to them, and they talk back. He sleeps with about 30 of them in his bed with him every night. This is what his bed looked like this morning, with the exception of Claire the cat, one of his favorites, who had to ride with him in the car on the way to school this morning. I have no idea how he sleeps with so many of them in there with him, but he insists that he needs them.



Here are a couple pictures of him playing with them.

Here he is having a party with a bunch of them:



And here he is being a cowboy riding his new horse stuffed animal, Tuggy:



He gets very attached to them and feels for them. When we were visiting my parents over the holidays he was playing with some stuffed animals that my parents have at their house. He saw an old teddy bear sitting up on the top bunk and wanted to play with it. But I knew the teddy bear was hard and not that squishy and nice like the others he was playing with (it used to sit in an antique high chair in the corner of the eating area in our kitchen in Rochester). So I told him we'd leave that one be and play with the others. He got all teary eyed and said "But Mommy, that one is so sad and lonely!" So of course I let him play with it! I didn't care, I just didn't think it'd be as nice as the others. But he liked playing with it and talking with it. Then the other night we were reading one of his books, it's about garbage trucks, and in one of the pictures of the trash to be thrown away he saw a teddy bear, and he got all upset and said "I don't want them to throw away a teddy bear!" I had to reassure him that it was probably just a mistake and that the teddy bear would be taken out of the trash. He does understand that they are just toys, but at the same time he can't help but attribute feelings and emotions to them.

Gymnastics

We've started Stian in toddler gymnastics classes. He's been a little slow to warm up to them. Mostly he'd rather just sit and watch the other kids. But if Kris is willing to go out there and do stuff with him he'll join in after a little while. Luckily Kris is a good sport and does it. He loves to jump and run and has really good balance, so we thought this might be something he'd enjoy. He did the best he has so far at class last night. He actually let his teacher spot him doing stuff, as opposed to insisting Kris do it. Here's a very short video. The videos get so big they are hard to upload, but this at least shows you something.

Coyote

Check out the coyote that was wandering around in the field across the street from our house this morning. Pretty, no?

Playing in the snow

Stian wanted to play in the snow this morning, but it was only 4 degrees, and he didn't particularly want to get all bundled up (and frankly, I didn't really either). So this was our solution.

Update on Potty Training

Just a little update, the potty training is going amazingly well. Much, much better than I expected. On Saturday, our first day, he had I think 5 accidents in the first two hours (apparently he has my bladder), but I don't think he had any more accidents that day. I believe he had one accident on Sunday, and he hasn't had any since. He's still in a diaper for naptime and overnight, I just don't think he's ready physiologically for that yet. I was chatting with his teacher about it and she said he might be ready to try naptime diaperfree, but she said most kids his age are still in diapers overnight. So we'll see. We might try naptime in a week or two, but he still needs his naps so badly I hate to mess with them (he isn't napping well at school because of one of his classmates who is noisy all through naptime, so if Stian gets the chance to sleep I want him to be able to do it). And he is using the potty plenty the rest of the day, so he's not holding it waiting for naptime or bedtime to roll around. He's even pooped in the potty two days in a row now! I know he was a little scared to do that, so I'm so happy he is doing it now too. I'm so proud of him. I guess he was really ready and just needed that little push.

"TH"

Stian learned how to make the "th" sound while we were up north for the holidays. He's quite proud of himself, he kept getting frustrated before because he couldn't say "three" correctly. I gather it's fairly unusual for a kid this young to be able to do the "th" sound. I tried to look up when kids usually learn it, but couldn't find that info, but I did find that it's one of the last sounds they learn, and ought to have learned it by age 6.

Let the potty training begin!

Wish us luck. I think we're going to need it. The potty training begins in earnest tomorrow. I'm a little scared. I think Stian is going to be resistant. He hates change. And he's not particularly interested in being a "big kid." But we've been mentally preparing him for it for awhile. And I think if we waited around for him to declare he was ready, he'd be 16.

I don't know if you ever noticed, but Stian is a big kid. He doesn't fit into the trainers I can buy at the store. So I had to make him a bunch of pairs. I'm rather proud of them as sewing machines and I do not get along. It took a lot of time and patience. I'm lucky I didn't end up institutionalized in some way - either in prison from going on a murderous rampage or a mental ward from losing my mind. But aren't they cute? The fabric store had a very small and sad selection of knit fabrics, but fortunately my mom still had some cute prints left over from when she tried her hand at making Stian diapers.

A Wisconsin Christmas Part 3

That night Santa came! And he brought the boys snakes! Stian loves his little wooden snake. He's named her Shell, or Kjell, I'm not sure which.



It's hard to empty your stocking when you can't put down your snake.





Finger puppets!





Introducing the snakes to each other.





That's my boy!







Kris and Stian practice for joining Cirque du Soleil.

A Wisconsin Christmas Part 2

Finally Wayne and Nate got there! We opened family Christmas presents that afternoon to spread things out a little bit.

Here Nate is looking through a book my brother bought him. Apparently it's about a little boy who dies when he is eaten by a lion. My brother has strange taste in books. Although Nate seemed to like it just fine, I did not read it to my very soft-hearted Stian - he would have been traumatized!





Stian gets a matching game!







Stian and Nate got matching fire rescue trucks, boats and helicopters.





While very cool, and the boys liked them a lot, they were a pain in the butt to assemble. Here Wayne demonstrates how we were both feeling while trying to get all of those tiny pieces together. Crazy German toy designers.





Although they look sympathetic, I'm pretty sure my parents were laughing heartily on the inside.





Wayne got Stian a much more tame book about a monster who is a lousy monster, but turns out to be a good friend. Much more Stian's speed.



And here Wayne, Mom and I are pretending to be in a heated arguement over Christmas dinner, while Dad, Stian and Nate look on like we're nuts.

A Wisconsin Christmas Part 1

After 5 days in the Cities with Kris's family, we headed further north to spend 5 days with my family in Wisconsin. We had a few days before Wayne and Nate got there. We did stuff, but apparently not much of it was picture worthy. Unfortunately the weather was not overly cooperative, so we didn't get to play outside. But we did play lots inside.

Legos.



Playing with Lambchop, one of Grandma's stuffed animals that Stian loves.



Mmmm - birthday cake for Kris's birthday.



Lincoln Logs.

A Minnesota Christmas Part 3

The next day we went up to the school where Brad works to try to get some pictures of the boys together. We've gotten some cute pictures of them on the last couple of cruises in front of a white screen. Since we're not going on a cruise this year, we decided to try to get some in front of the big white screen at Brad's school. He has some spotlights and such as well that we could use. The pictures did not turn out at all though, unfortunately. We just could not get the lighting right. Ah well, we tried.









Had I known I was going to be in a picture I might have done something with my hair after my nap...



The day after that we celebrated Kris's birthday. Kris actually celebrated his birthday at my parents' house, later in the week, so we celebrated with Kris's family a little early. We went out to dinner, and then back to Karin and Brad's.





Karin did a craft project with Stian. His hand prints were the antlers of a reindeer. He thought it was pretty neat.







I didn't get a picture of the final product, but you can get an idea of where she was going here: