Starting School

I haven't kept this blog up the way I planned because I was waiting to learn how to get pictures onto the blog, but I'm just not getting around to it and Matthew would show me if I remembered to ask him. He says it's simple, so hopefully soon... Anyway, I decided that I need to update even though we don't have pictures yet, or else nobody would remember to check the blog anymore.

The kids have all started school now. Nathan started high school on the 19th of August, and the girls all started on the 25th. Leah is in the 7th grade, Eve in the 5th, and Malinda is in the 3rd. We were sorry to see them go, but we know that they will have a reasonably good time at school. At least they'll be busy... Joshua has really missed his brother and sisters since they've been gone. He is so eager to play with them when they get home. His favorite thing is to wrestle with Nathan.

Matthew has been out of town for nearly 2 weeks for work, so he's missed this so far.

During the day Joshua and I have kept ourselves busy playing firefighter, of course. He has discovered that he likes television and that there is a show called Fireman Sam, so he is inspired to create new story lines for his dramatic play. We pretend there are people to be rescued and fires to put out everywhere. However, Joshua has been branching out a little bit by playing Bob the Builder, Wonder Pets, Go Diego, Go!, and Super Why! He assigns characters to everyone and calls us by that name all day long.

Joshua is potty trained. (Hooray!) We had the most amazing experience with that. I told him in June that when he turns 3 we'd use up the last of the diapers and when they ran out then I wouldn't buy anymore. So around the middle of July I told him that we only had about 2 weeks worth of diapers left, and then every other day or so I tell him how many days were left. After a week of that he started asking me how many were left and then when we got down to 4 diapers we did a count down. We went to the store and bought some little cars and put them in a "treasure box" and told him that whenever he used the toilet he could get a treasure. So, the diapers ran out the beginning of August. He went to the toilet and did his business and got his prize and he was set. About a week later we had a set back with #2 that lasted for 3 days. I couldn't find the right motivation for him, but it turned out that I just had to tell him that he could have an ice cream cone everytime he went #2 and that was it (and a little bit of nature taking its course). So, the first time he overcame his set back was at 9:15 PM, and I didn't have ice cream in the house, so we all got into the car and drove through the McDonalds to get a cone. The fact that we did something out of the ordinary impressed upon him the greatness of what he had accomplished, he felt really proud. We had to get ice cream everyday for a week, but it worked.

There's so much I could write about, but I will just stop here and keep this blog better updated from now on. Hope you are well.
Kathryn