Another Break Ending Too Soon!

My Christmas break was far too short. I resume classes tomorrow, with an with a gauntlet of tests ahead of me. I have a big quiz in my clinical correlates class over an entire board review book that we were supposed to read over the break (yeah, right), then a Micro test on Monday, our clinical correlates midterm that Friday, followed by a Path test 3 days later! But, that's my life in med school! Thankfully I only have a little ways to go before my clinicals are through!

This break has been very good for our family. Christmas was so much fun! Braylei was so excited and had so much fun! She wanted to stop and and play with each present and thus she was opening presents forever! Tayscen was just chillin out being the happy little kid he always is. He got a cool little musical book that he likes to play with and has been good for tummy time with him. Braylei has been having a hard time deciding what she wants to play with and runs around from one thing to the next, whether it be playing with her Cinderella doll, pushing her shopping cart or vacuum, playing with her kitchen, coloring or riding her bike. She has had an awesome time.

We also used this break to do our planning for our "side yard." Since we live in an urban housing development, we don't have a back yard and our front yard is maintained for us, so we have a little 10 x 40 side yard which is in between our house and our neighbor, with our neighbor's house acting as the far fence, while their yard is on the opposite side, and so forth. Plus, with all the houses being two story, it doesn't get much sunlight, which adds to the difficulty in planning out our space. We want a fun area where the kids can play, but since our yard gets about an hour of sunlight a day (high noon), grass won't be able to grow. And even if it did, it wouldn't be worth it to install a sprinkler system or get a lawnmower for such a small area. So, we are going to use synthetic grass. At first, I thought this would be like astroturf, but most of the good stuff looks really good and is real soft and durable. There's no watering and no maintenance either! Some of the lower end stuff, though, did look like a flattened Christmas tree! We also are going to have a small area where we will put in mulch and a bench. And we just had some concrete put in for a barbeque area and a little pad by the gate. I'll be very excited to use it!

On the 29th, we took the kids to Railroad Park in Scottsdale! It was a really neat place! Braylei rode the carousel 3 times! I had Tayscen in the Baby Bjorn the whole time and he was as happy as could be! He was just kickin his legs and waving his arms! Of course, there were two train rides that we went on and a huge park! Braylei had a lot of fun going down all the different slides! It was a lot of fun for the kids!

Yesterday was another big day, as Braylei made the leap to "big girl panties!" We had been warming her up to the idea of using the potty to go to the bathroom for awhile now and she had picked out little mermaid, Elmo, and Dora underwear. She loved the potty videos we got from the library (they are weird, let me tell you, but she was mesmerized by them)! But yesterday, she told Meghan that she wanted to wear her mermaid panties and so we went for it. We spent most of the day in the bathroom, but it really paid off! She only had two big accidents, and they were the first two. It didn't take her long to realize the feeling and be able to tell us when she had to go. The following times she just wet her underwear a little bit before pinching it off and holding it. Then she went really well before her nap and stayed dry in her pullups through her whole nap, and went again after she woke up! It's really neat to see how quickly kids catch on and how they can regulate their systems and gain control. She had another good day today and has continued to improve, so we had a potty party at Chuck E Cheese, which was where she wanted to go. The key was to get her excited about it and have her take ownership in it. It started with her picking out her "big girl panties" and have her want to wear them over diapers. Then the potty videos helped a bit warm her up to the idea. Then each time she went on the potty, she would get a little treat that she got to pick out that was special and only used for that purpose. She also got to put a sticker on her potty chart, and when that fills up, she will get a toy (she wants a baby doll). Then we told her that if she went on the potty all day and would tell us when she had to go, she would get a potty party where she wanted to go. It's been a lot of fun!

Tomorrow, Tayscen is getting his 6 month pictures taken! His hair has gotten pretty long already, so today, we trimmed his little hair for the first time. It is way hard cutting a baby's hair! They don't exactly sit straight, you know! But we got it trimmed so we can spike his hair for his pics. He looks so much older, too!

The hard thing about going back to school is with the kids, I love spending time with them and this break especially, I felt like I really bonded with Taysce. I was barely around for his birth, as that was right in the middle of basic training over the summer. Then I missed that whole 1st month of his life. When I got back, we moved into our new house and had to get situated there and everything, and then I started school again. He goes to bed around the time I get home from school and so I really only get to spend time with him on Sundays. But with him older now and interacting more, it was really fun to spend so much time with him. He's still a mama's boy by far, but I feel like he really knows me now. Hopefully I won't ever lose hold of that!

I also posted some more YouTube clips that you can access via the VideoBar to the right or by visiting my YouTube channel http://www.youtube.com/thejschro

From our family to yours, we hope you all had a Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a very Happy New Year! We always love to hear from you by leaving comments, too!