Pee pee in the potty!

To start, this is Brian. I write so infrequently that I have to mention it up front.
This is an exciting post, as the headline clearly gives away. But it almost didn't happen.
This morning I was running a bit behind when I got Ellie out of her crib. She was cranky and I hurried through changing her diaper and getting her dressed.
As I started getting dressed myself, she livened up and started jabbering to her reflection in the mirror. When I turned around, she was half bent over, grabbing her pants with a scrunched face, saying in the most pathetic voice you've ever heard "peee?"
This happens often. Already late, I tried something that often makes her change her mind.
"Do you have to go potty?" I asked.
This usually gets a prompt "no" and we move on. But she wasn't to be deterred today.
"Yessss!" she said, and ran into the bathroom.
I tried again.
Often, Ellie will sit on the baby potty fully clothed for a minute or so as a ploy to get to play with the toilet paper. Had that been her MO, she'd have gotten away with it this morning. Anything to keep her busy while I finished up and whisked her downstairs.
So, I sat her on the potty, diaper and pants both on. She immediately stood and started pulling at her pants.
I didn't have time for this.
"Fine," I said. "Make it quick."
I got her ready and sat her down. She immediately patted the real toiled and said "Daddy, sit."
"No, honey. Daddy has to get ready. Finish up," I said.
And then it happened. Ellie got this strange look on her face and said "All done!"
Expecting nothing more, I stood her up and, to my surprise, saw a potty full of pee.
I probably scared the hell out of her after that. I needed to make a big deal out of this so that she knew I was happy. I jumped up, sang, danced, made big smiley faces. I sold the damn thing.
At daycare, Ellie would get an M&M if she went potty. I had no M&Ms.
I grabbed Ellie and headed down the stairs. I saw animal crackers, grapes and all sorts of things she loves. But I'd give her those as regular snacks. I needed something special.
In the freezer, I saw a solid chocolate bunny left from Easter. I whacked it hard on the counter and pulled out an ear and handed it to Ellie.
That bunny is good for about a dozen trips to the potty. It's time to get some M&Ms.

Yard sale

We had a yard sale this morning. It was the first one I've ever organized, and now I understand why people always talk about how much work they are. We sold a few things by nearly as much stuff as we had out. But that's OK. I'm happy to have the rest of it out of the house and earmarked for Goodwill. Needed to clear some stuff out of here!
Ellie was a big fan of the yard sale because it meant eating breakfast and lunch outside while helping mom oversee the stuff. Dad was, of course, working on the bathroom... it finally has walls again!

To the bread store

Ellie and I hit a park and the nearby Great Harvest bread store on Friday afternoon, bringing home a loaf of asiago sourdough to go with our "noodles," as Ellie calls all pasta.

The walk to the store, about eight blocks, took a bit longer because Ellie insisted on pushing the stroller much of the way instead of riding.

But once we got there she found out I'd been telling the truth about how yummy of a sample of bread she would get! Cinnamon swirl!

22 months

Belatedly I'm feeling the need to note that Ellie turned 22 months a few days ago. Now when people ask me how old she is, I find myself saying "almost 2"... which is beyond crazy. She's growing so fast!
Some Ellie highlights at the moment include:

• Identifying things she sees around the house as "mommy's" or "daddy's." This includes chairs, plates, shoes, cups and much more. She scolded me the other day at breakfast for drinking out of a coffee mug that Brian usually uses.


• Starting to put phrases together, we think. Brian insists that this morning she strung together "Mommy, bus, go see daddy." She also asks for her shoes when she wants to go outside, asks for her milk, asks for cheese (her latest food love) and asks for pieces of ice. Yup, she's a bit of a weirdo sometimes.


• Swimming like a fish, still. The season started this past weekend at the pool/water park just down the block from our house. Ellie and I went this afternoon and the whole family was over there on Sunday. It's awesome to see how much more fun she can have this summer as opposed to a year ago this time when she wasn't even walking yet. Ellie is totally fearless in and around water. I mostly like that about her, but we've got to teach her to respect it to. She's constantly wanting to head into too-deep parts of the pool or she'll jump in the air and go under without thinking about what comes next. Swimming lessons will be in this girl's very near future!


• Wanting to sit on the potty... all the time... even if her pants and diaper are still on. She's picked up the "interest" for potty training in her new classroom, but so far has never produced anything when sitting on the potty at home. (I'm assuming it's the same at school.) Unlike at school, however, she doesn't get an M&M reward just for giving it the old college-try. So she'll sit there forever, ask for more toilet paper and usually I have to drag her out of the bathroom after a certain point. I don't think she'll be mastering this trick soon.

There's tons more that she's up to and into these days, but I can't collect it all into anything coherent right now. Chasing after this increasingly active, demanding and energetic toddler tends to wear me out... and the 100 degree heat today didn't help. But tomorrow's a new day and a new adventure :)

Sunburst, emphasis on the "sun"

To cap off our week of vacation, Brian decided to run a half marathon. Haha, but I'm serious. He's trained hard all spring for the Sunburst race that finishes on the Notre Dame football field up in South Bend. Only it turns out all of the warnings about the heat curses surrounding this race are true. It was way too hot and humid on race morning to set a PR, but Brian still ran his race. Ellie and I chased him around the course (running close to 5 miles ourselves) and were so proud of him!
The night before the race we carbo-loaded at an Irish place, since those are much more common in South Bend than Italian eateries.

And during the race Ellie worked to stay hydrated...

And to stay cool...

And finally she slept.

That last one about sums up how Brian felt at the end of the race, so I didn't torture him with a camera in the face. But my hat is off to my awesome husband who ran 2 half marathons in a 3 week span!

Grandma's fight

The return trip from Nebraska was important though a bit less upbeat. We stayed a couple days in St. Louis to visit with and cook some meals for Great-Grandma Eleanor who had to have surgery following a recent breast cancer diagnosis. Showing what an amazing woman she is, great-grandma was moving around in no time after the procedure and seemed almost back to her old self by the next day when she got sent home from the hospital. She's still got some tough times ahead, but we know she'll beat this. We love you!

Nebraska!

More than a week ago now... a minivan full of Wallheimers arrived in Lincoln to visit my brother Jim's family. We had such a great time out there! Ellie had a blast playing with her cousins, 7-year-old Alora and 5-year-old Jay. They were really patient with her, most of the time, even when she stole their toys or threw a random fit. The three of them wore each other out every day, which meant Brian and I got some true-vacation sleeping in mornings. What a treat. There was lots of time in the kiddie pool at their house, and we even took a trip over to the Y one rainy morning so the kids could play in the indoor pool over there. Here Jay is giving Ellie one of the small water balloons he and Alora had filled. It was a win-win because the older kids didn't want it and since it was small, Ellie had hard time popping it :)

We walked down to the park near their house and mom and Ellie both got pretty dizzy on this merry-go-round.

Alora collected some "rare" leaves and showed them off to her dad.

Ellie got a LOT of swinging time in during the trip because Jim and Sandy have a swingset in their backyard. This one is at the park, but the one at their house has the big-kid swings low enough to the ground that Ellie got very good at swinging on them. Now I fear she'll never go back to the safer baby swings!

Here all the kids are reading together one morning. But Alora is a reading machine and had many story times with Ellie.

The highlight of the trip for Ellie was the two cats, Lucy and Casey, at Jim's house. She can't say cat yet, but instead tells us what a cat says whenever she sees a picture. In this case she would literally run after the cats yelling "meow" (which came out sounding like M-naa) and pointing whenever she saw one. It was pretty funny. Luckily the cats were tolerant of Ellie's advances. Guess they got some practice when Jay and Alora were younger. Alora was the official "Ellie assistant" on this visit. She wanted to help pick out her outfit and get her dressed every time. And once she discovered that she could pick Ellie up, she kept offering her rides everywhere.

If only cousin Mason where there, the picture would be truly complete -- but these cousins sure know how to have fun together!

And Ellie was a champ during the 9 hour drive each way between St. Louis (where we visited Brian's family on the way to and from) and Lincoln. She slept a bit of the time, but even when awake she did a decent job entertaining herself with songs and other random thoughts. Having our new/used minivan helped a ton, too, since Brian or I could simply walk to the back without having to get off the road to hang out with her for a bit. Other highlights of our visit included a visit to the state capital and Jim's nearby office, since he works as deputy directing of Nebraska's Dept. of Natural Resources. We also hit the Lincoln Zoo, and somehow I forgot my camera that day... but we saw some great stuff. What a fantastic trip!