Family Update

Nils

Nils is making what we hope will be his final and successful attempt at quitting smoking. He has not had a cigarette since December 11th which makes it a full week where he has not smoked. I am VERY proud of him! He has acquired assistance from a program that makes scheduled calls to keep him motivated and discuss his progress. They also have a free lozenges program which he has been using. I especially think this part is helpful for those on the program who may be hesitant to pay for them. Even though smoking cost money, the lozenges cost more up front which a lot of people are not willing to pay. Anyhow, I think he is doing pretty good- not too irritable or anything. And its so much nicer to kiss someone who doesn't smell like an ashtray! Please be sure to give him your congrats on this difficult but very rewarding change in his life.

Nils has also applied for a supervisor position at our work. He looked quite sharp for his interview and we hope to hear back as to whom the company is considering filling the position by late January, early February. Cross your fingers that it will be Nils!

Shawna

I have more or less given up on Weight Watchers. After completely disregarding how many calories and fat were in everything I was eating, I gaining back about five pounds over my maximum limit while in the Maintenance program. I realized I was getting out of control and begun being more careful but not going to the extremes of recording every little B.L. T (bite, lick and taste). I have accepted my weight as it is and figured I love cooking and food too much to spend the rest of my life worrying about the numbers on a scale. I don't mean to say I plan to go crazy, I still am eating fairly healthy (minus the goodies of the holidays!) but I am not considering myself "on a diet". Since then I have loss about 2 lbs in the last two weeks. So things are looking better and the pants are back to fitting better again. Besides, they say "never trust a skinny cook!" LOL!

Shaylee

January 1st, 2009 marks day off of Project Potty Train! That's right, we are making a very serious effort to potty train Shaylee at the start of the new year. We have made one other attempt in the past but it was a complete flop, obviously she was not ready at such a young age, but now that she is two and a half, all signs are pointing to "GO!"

The other night, Shaylee and I went Project Potty Train shopping. She got to pick out her very own potty for the house (since the other one we bought stays at my grandmother's house since that's who watches her while we work). She choose a pink princess one that has a sensor at the bottom of the bowl so whenever she pees or poos in the potty, it plays a twinkling magical sound. She was so excited to try it out as soon as we got home that she actually made a tinkle in it! It wasn't much but enough to play the magical reward sound and she was so excited! Then yesterday morning she did it again! I really like that it plays the sound since this morning she wanted to sit on the potty a little longer while I was getting ready for work. I left the bathroom only for a few minutes to go grab something out of my closet when I heard the magical sound coming from the bathroom followed by a very loud, very excited Shaylee- "I peed! I peed Mommy!". Again, it wasn't much but she obviously is getting it!

Then last night she did her very first full potty pee-as in she actually used the potty instead of just tinkling in it. Hurray!!!!

Some of the other Project Potty Training supplies we got was a notebook that I have written the date at the top of each page starting January 1st. The idea is we are going to reward Shaylee a small colored star for each attempt (like those teachers use for charts or on school papers) she makes on the potty and a larger "special" sticker of her choice, such as those of cartoon characters she loves, when she actually pees or poos in the potty. Then we not only have a record of how many attempts and successes she has made, but Shaylee also has a really cute sticker book when its filled. The idea is to eventually have only the special character stickers which shows that all attempts made were successful. As I said, January 1st marks the big day of the serious training (as in no more diapers, scheduled trips to the potty, etc) but we are making little learning step along the way (sitting on the potty and knowing why we are there, learning how to wipe properly, etc).

Since Shaylee has enjoyed this semester of her Kindermusik class so much, Nils and I have agreed to enroll her in the next semester. The theme is "Fiddle Dee Dee" and has a lot of animal themed songs and storybooks. We made our first deposit and will get the new semester's material in time to wrap up and put under the tree.

Speaking of being under the tree... we also purchased some additional Kindermusik CDs for Shaylee for Christmas as well. We also got her a toddler portable DVD player that can withstand being dropped, thrown, and wet. We feel it will be a sanity saver for us when she is wanting to watch as specific DVD and we want to watch something less juvenile after a long day at work. Plus it will be great on long trips or to entertain her when we are waiting at doctors offices or something. We also got her some fun Play-Doh tools since she likes playing with it so much. It has things like cookie cutters, rolling pins, and other little gadgets I think she will have fun with. A lot of what is going into her stocking is Hello Kitty themed as I found a bunch of little goodies with Hello Kitty on them in the dollar section of Target. And there is talk that "Santa" is getting her the two moose stuffed animals from Build A Bear Workshop that come with a storybook. The male moose's antlers even light up (they have little Christmas lights on them).

Another big change in Shaylee's life, and obviously going to be more difficult than potty training I am sure, if breaking her of her beloved "passies" as in pacifiers. For months my grandmother, my mother, my dad, Nils and I have been talking with her about how on Christmas Eve we are going to get all the "passies" together and 'put them in a special bag for Santa to give to all the little babies so he will leave big girl toys for Shaylee'. Shaylee has seemed very agreeable to this and if you ask her "What are we going to do with all your passies?" she will very proudly state that we are giving them "to Santa for all da babies". I think this is going to be much harder than she leads us to believe. Just because she is so agreeable now, doesn't mean she is going to be so agreeable when bedtime rolls around and she wants one. That's why we begun talking about it months ago, in the hopes that we would more or less brainwash her into believing this was going to be so easy. Just stick 'em in a bag by the plate of cookies and glass of milk and it's bye-bye pacifiers forever! Hmmm..... we shall see!

Shaylee has also spoiled my surprise gift to Nils this Christmas.This year I decided to get Nils a watch. Not too expensive, but a nice one. I took Shaylee with me and we were looking at watches and chatting back and forth as we always do when we are together. I was asking her what she wanted to get Daddy and she kept telling me "a bracelet" and I'd ask what kind and she would tell me "an Elmo bracelet". Well when it came to actually picking out the watch, I let Shaylee help me decide between about three different styles. I explained to her that instead of a bracelet we would get Daddy a watch from both of us. Well, I had thought that with the excitement of getting to pick out her very own potty that she would have forgotten all about the watch. No such luck. As soon as Nils came home from work last night, Shaylee, out of the blue, turned to him and said "Daddy, I got you a watch". Now had I not just told Nils about twenty minutes prior to that that I had just finished wrapping his presents before he came home, he might not have put two and two together. Nils smiled when Shaylee said this, I could tell he figured it out. I tried to change the subject, thinking maybe, just maybe he didn't hear or understand her, but she told him again. And again. So it was pretty obvious that A. he knew he was getting a watch, and B. that I am never going to tell Shaylee what we are getting other people for presents! Snitch! LOL! Its a good thing she is only two and so damn cute or I might have been more upset. I was bummed at first but Nils and I agreed this would be one Christmas we would laugh about in the future- as the year that Shaylee spoiled the Christmas surprise! LOL!

Everyday Shaylee amazes us more and more. She is SO talkative and comes up with the craziest things! I love how she puts her hand on her hip when she gets to be a big girl and talk on the phone. She acts so much older than she really is. I think its because she is so tall and talks so well for her age. A woman at the playground actually commented on her vocabulary. I told her I thought I was bias by thinking she was advanced and the woman said it wasn't that I was bias, she really does have a larger vocabulary than most two year olds. It feels good knowing she is so smart. Nils and I have agreed we would like to put her into a charter school when she gets older rather than just a regular public school only because private schools are so expensive.

Zoey, Cayman, and Sterling
Since there is usually not much to report other than Cayman's therapy dog work, I decided to group the three of them together. Anyhow, with the season our trees start dropping their leaves and such. Zoey, with her curly poodle hair, has brought many of these tree droppings (I am not sure what kind of tree it is to tell you what is actually falling off of them) inside which is ANNOYING as we have to sweep the house and pick them out of her coat several times a day. No exaggeration. I hate it!

Cayman starts his new training classed at the Dog Obedience Club of Lee County in January. Its way more advanced than the simple puppy training class he took at Petco. I am extremely looking forward to it, he is so smart he will catch on fast and who doesn't love an obedient dog?!

Sterling is her typical self- not seen much. She has caused a near heart attack or two. See, she likes blankets and rugs and likes to lay on them and knead with her front paws. She has taken up this habit under our Christmas tree on the tree skirt. Unfortunately she still has her claws and tend to get them snagged in the blankets and rugs and in this case, the tree skirt, she is kneading. She then panics and tries to pull free. In this situation, she starting bring the tree skirt with her, and I am sure you can see where this almost went considering that the tree skirt is wrapped around the base of the Christmas tree. I thought for sure it was going to fall and we would be cleaning up broken glass ornaments but luckily she freed herself before any harm was done. The animals are pretty good about staying away from the tree- basically because we chase them away before they get too close now.