It continues...

Let's see, I think we are on day 6 right now of potty training.

Rhoslyn is now pooping in the potty, which is awesome!  She hasn't pooped in her undies at all and I am crossing my fingers that she doesn't. 

I don't think we had any accidents yesterday, but she still takes forever to actually go and half the time starts her fake crying because I make her sit down and shut the bathroom door.  Maybe in a few days she won't fight me to go on the toilet?!  I only hope so...

Day 3 of potty training

We just finished our third day of potty training Rhoslyn.

We have stood our ground and she still has not worn a diaper since Thursday.  It's been a rocky start, but today she seems to be doing better with it all.  She pee'd twice on the potty today and even pooped for the first time on the big potty!  

We have had lots of accidents on the floor in her room.  Hoping tomorrow we will have less.  It seems to be her safe haven to do that even though we have a potty seat in her room in case she has to go.

She has also stayed dry every night so far!

I cannot wait until this is done.  I love her and I am proud of her, but this whole process has been quite a nightmare. =)

Tomorrow is the "BIG" day for Rhoslyn...

I have officially decided that tomorrow will be the "big day" for Rhoslyn.

I am putting all of the diapers away and telling her we don't have anymore.  She will be in undies 24/7.  I am not going to force her to sit on the potty, but instead let her decide when she wants to sit on it and try.  I will encourage her, but not "make" her.

Tonight I will be running to the store to get lots of fun stickers, more undies, a mattress cover, (maybe a couple of bottles of liquor for me), and extra bed mats.  Lets hope that she picks up on it within the next couple of days.  

WISH ME LUCK!

The Zoo!

We made our annual trip to the Milwaukee Zoo the other weekend and we also visited Lake Michigan.

We had the perfect weather for the day as well.  Rhoslyn was really into the different animals this year.  She enjoyed feeding the goats and the train ride.  Alex pretty much loved everything!  We let the kids pick out one thing out of the gift shop and they both picked out stuffed animals.  Alex picked out a bald eagle which he was totally glued to for at least 2-3 days after our zoo trip.  Rhoslyn picked out a cheetah which she claims is baby Jaguar (just like Go Diego Go).

After the zoo we decided to make a pit stop down by the lake before heading to Grandma and Grandpa's house.  We weren't really prepared for it, so the kids had pants and shoes on.  We just took their socks and shoes off and rolled up their pants.  Rhoslyn wasn't too sure what to think about the waves.  Alex loved it!  They both found some pretty big sticks to play with.  Alex kept trying to write in the sand and then a big wave would come by and wash it away.  He thought it was hilarious!  Rhoslyn was more about the sand (it's so soft) than anything.

We definitely need to go down to the lake more often.  Afterwards we headed over to Gma's and Gpa's house for dinner and a sleep over.  Overall it was a great weekend.  Oh, and Tucker spent his first overnight-er at a dog kennel.  We were told he was great and didn't make a peep.  He was SO excited to see us when we came to get him. 

Tucker

We have had this big baby for about 3 weeks now.  And... he really is a big baby.

He is doing really well with going potty outside only.  We had a small set back when we found out he had a bladder infection, but since he has been on antibiotics he has done awesome.  I don't think we have had an accident in the house in probably 4-5 days!  Now granted, we do take him out very often to avoid those accidents.

The kids absolutely love him!  They like running with him outside and throwing toys for him to fetch.  We were having a rough time with walking him, but he is also doing much better on that as well.  Still nips and wants to go back home when we start walking, but then he settles down and walks nicely next to us for the most part.

He definitely knows where home is and doesn't really like to leave the yard.  We even let him off of the leash or tie out and he stays in the yard.  He runs around like a maniac (awesome way to burn some energy)!

The other night we gave him a bath and an hour later we let him run around the yard without being tied up.  Of course he found a puddle behind the sandbox and proceeded to run through it a few times.  Thanks Tucker!

We are crate training him and he does really well sleeping in his kennel at night.  He is also going in there to nap during the day on his own.  He will also go in there when we say kennel.  Last night he was so tired.... we were going to go lay down for bed and take him out one more time like we usually do.  He was laying on the kitchen floor and Bill said, "Tucker Outside."  He got up and walked into his kennel and would not come out to go potty.  It was too funny!  He was ready for bed and wanted nothing to do with going outside.

He is doing so well and we love having him in our family.  At times he is a total pain in the butt, but we love him!

First day we had him.

Taken a couple of days ago.

I just got done having a hard conversation with Alex.

He was supposed to be sleeping.  Billy and I were watching TV and he came up stairs.  I asked him what was wrong, and he replied that he was scared.

So I had him come up and talk about it.  He was afraid that someone was going to come into our home and take his toys.  We had to assure him that everything would be alright.

I then asked him if there was anything else he was thinking about.  He then began to tell me that he was worried that he would be sleeping and the toaster would start on fire.  I told him that we would do everything we could to make sure that everyone got out of the house safely.  He was worried we wouldn't be able to see and get through the smoke.  So I explained that if there was a fire we needed to get down on the floor to crawl to the door.  He started crying and said, "What if we forget Rhoslyn?"  I started crying.  He was so worried about leaving Rhoslyn in the house if we had a fire.  I asked him why he thought of this and he said he saw a tree on fire in Amherst by Grandma's.  It's amazing what he automatically thinks about just seeing something like that.  He went on to explain to me about how this has been locked up in his brain.  That it's behind a closed door that is locked up.  It was all very detailed.  

Sometimes it's hard to explain to people all of Alex's little quirks with having an Autism Spectrum Disorder.  Not saying that this is exactly correlated with that, but he has very vivid thoughts and he worries a lot.  He gets anxiety and worries about things like this.  He even told me how it was in his heart.  I think he felt anxious and nervous.  Sometimes he is very restless at night because of thoughts like this.

Another thing that comes up is the aftermath after visiting with people all day or going to an event such as a wedding.  He will do fine for the most part when we are there, however when we get home or get in the car sometimes he will flail his body around and cry and scream because he doesn't know how to settle himself down and he is so overstimulated at that point.  After leaving Great Grandma's Memorial Day weekend he literally spent 45 minutes on the drive home doing this until he exhausted himself enough that he fell asleep.  

Well Billy went down with him to read him a story and hopefully that will help him have happy thoughts to fall asleep too.  I hope you all don't mind my blog about this.  Sometimes I just need to get it out there and write about it.

I think Alex is off in dreamland now :)  Hopefully good dreams and thoughts for the rest of the night.

Timber Rattlers Star Wars Night

Last night we went to a T-Rats game and it was Star Wars night.  How awesome is that?!  Alex had a million questions as to what was going to happen and what it was all about.  Of course we had no answers for him.

I bought these tickets as part of Billy's Fathers Day gift and I picked some awesome seats!  We had front row seats and had a perfect view of the game.  We actually find Rattler games more fun then Brewer games. It's cheaper, you get better seats, they have more fan interaction, and there is less people.

Before the game started a guy out in the field gave Rhoslyn and Alex each a baseball.  They thought that was the coolest thing.  Of course they were selling $5 light sabers so they each got one of those.  During the game we caught a foam hockey puck and I caught a Frisbee.  We had so much fun!  

Pretty sure this will be an annual thing for the Anderson Clan.