Soccer part 3

This soccer thing is getting to be a theme. Good thing I like it so much.

Andy is wearing his soccer socks, shin guards and cleats to school today. I am positive I did the same thing at his age (and older, likely). I think my mother even let me wear them to church. And by let, I'm sure I mean she couldn't pry them off my feet for any amount of candy and/or television in the world. Bjorn did have the foresight to take some classic pictures of Andy wearing his soccer gear on his feet...and nothing else. Prime picture for that high school yearbook seniors' picture or his rehearsal dinner slide show.

He's starting to get dressed a little by himself, which is an exciting thing as I know ultimately it will mean he is more self sufficient. In the meantime, it takes him at least twice as long to get dressed by himself with all the associated drama. I do find half the time his clothes are on backwards. I usually just shrug that off, although that's the time that I run into someone I might actually want to impress at the grocery store. The other day he insisted on wearing his underwear on backwards. It was obvious, what with the big "pocket" as we call it on his butt and all the extra fabric in the front, but it's not like he was ever going to unzip his pants, reach through the flap and pee that way.

Bjorn has been traveling a lot for work the last two weeks. I'm excited for him as in theory, all those presentations could turn into sales for him, you know, important opportunities for a sales guy. But we've missed him. Fortunately, both kids have been angels more or less. And by angels, I mean healthy for a week or so. Both seem to be coming down with colds again, and I'm trying t be all zen about it and not a big baby, I mean. They're colds, right? But it's hard to see them unhappy and, truthfully, mama needs her sleep. I know, how lame.

Boy pants

Now that Andy is mostly potty trained, I've been shopping for more boys underwear and it has seriously been a fascinating experience. What I've found is that underwear for boys only comes in packs of two or three where girl underwear seems to come in packs of five or more. Apparently boys need fewer pairs?

What's also weird is that you can't buy just white underwear. No, it all has to come with some branded thing on it. Now that he's a bigger kid, I can shop for him in the boys section at Target versus the toddler section. So instead of the toddler choices, like Diego or Thomas, it has more mature choices like Spiderman, Superman and SpongeBob Squarepants. Stranger still is that they sell little boy underpants in characters that are really not aimed at little kids. Like Ironman with Robert Downey Jr. is definitely a more adult movie (or at least elementary school) as is Speed Racer and Transformers, yet they market them in sizes for little kids who couldn't possibly see those movies. It just seems random to me.

What is also odd is that the boy underpants all come with the little flap in front. You know, because Andy is going to be unzipping his pants, reaching in, pulling his penis out through the little pocket and peeing rather than just pulling his pants and underpants down to get to business.

One step forward, five steps back

So the part about potty training success? Yeah, not so much. So Monday, Andy went to school in underwear (under his clothes, not just his underpants, thanks Jennifer). He came home in them, having been dry all day and getting lots of praise from his teachers. Tuesday, he again went in underpants and came home in a different outfit wearing a diaper. Then yesterday, he refused to wear his underwear, exclaiming, "Only girls wear underwear. I'm not a girl!" No, I can't explain it either. He steadfastly refused to use the toilet all day. Nice. Today he did let me put underwear on him so fingers crossed that it works out.

Meanwhile, the baby is sleeping somewhat predictably (knock wood), waking up once between midnight and 9 a.m. The late bedtime is not ideal and I'm working on it, but she has proven she can often go four or five, sometimes six, hours without waking. Andy, however, keeps getting up in the night.

I've been trying to move his bedtime earlier to avoid some of the customary meltdowns that come with him trying to drop his afternoon nap. Yesterday, he was somewhat ornery and I've taken a new stand that when he acts up by whining or crying, I'm going to send him to his room until he calms down. About six, he was giving me grief about dinner, shouting that, "It's NOT dinner time! NO! I don't WANT dinner." So I sent him to his room and laid him in bed. I came back a little while later and he was asleep. I kept thinking it was a catnap, but when I checked in on him about 7, he said he was tired and wanted to go to bed. He then slept like an angel. Until 3:30 a.m. I retucked him and went to bed. At 4:30, she woke up so I got up, fed her and put her back to bed. In the meantime, Andy woke up bright eyed, happy and hungry. Bjorn got up and gave him some dinner/breakfast and Andy refused to go back to bed. Bjorn kindly let me sleep until about 7 when we traded off again.

It's weird. The sleep thing with Andy as a baby was a pain, but we muddled through it and he eventually started being a good sleeper. When we had Meg, I figured we had him more or less solved so we could focus on her. It somehow didn't occur to me that we'd be up and down all night with him, too. I can only imagine folks with big families of five or more kids NEVER get any sleep.