Fear of Backfire

I am a little late posting this. I also realized after sending the letter to Moe I forgot to explain the title. That is what I get for writing it at 11 at night while I am falling asleep. (ps 11 is not what it used to be, with kids who wake up for the day around 5:30-6.) Potty training a boy has been an interesting experience. He has done fabulous. The fear comes in when I stand him on the stool in front of the toilet and try to get him to not only aim into the toilet, but not to 'backfire' on his mother during the process...

Sunday 4/5: We had friends over for dinner. The Putnams. We adore them and their baby boy. On average we are 2-6 years younger than our friends with one more kid than they do. It makes for interesting dynamics. I am supposed to be the baby expert of the group and with my vast knowledge of two years of mothering...experience is the best teacher though right... We had a great day though. I even got to go to RS since fast sunday the Primary presidency takes care of the kiddos. PIC- Jules has begun playing cars! It is so cute. She sits or lays and runs the car back and forth over and over again! #maybeiwonthavetobuydollsafterall

Saturday 4/4: We went to the market. (The guy I buy bananas from hates how indecisive I am about choosing. After about 30sec of me inspecting them he picked up about the size I usually get, weighed them and handed them to me. Love it.) Mitch said hello to his fav. turtles. We dropped off our groceries and headed out to Ya Show, our movie shop. We stopped at the mall so that I could feed Jules and Mitch saw the golden arches and needed fries. So since we needed him to go potty anyway we took him to the bathroom there with fries as the incentive. He refused. (Even though they totally have a legit tiny toilet in there.) Well when we told him he could pee in the drain, he was more than happy to do so! I love potty training in China. PIC-Jules ready for our adventure. Mitch in front of the beautiful flowers outside our apt. building.

Friday 4/3: PIC- Mitch wearing his new H&M outfit, with his many newly acquired cars in his backpack, riding his trike. We are trying to teach him how to push both pedals... not just one. We didn't spend a lot of time outside this week, trying to keep the underwear dry. Distractions are like kryptonite for this kid.

Thursday 4/2: We had friends over for baby group! It was very fun. We also started potty training again. For real this time. I even bought 20 new hot wheels cars for each time he did something in the potty... or the shower. ( He loves peeing into the drain in the shower. And he loves that it is private. He goes in and shuts the door, does his business, comes out happy as can be about his new independence! Getting him to use the "tiny toilet " another matter entirely. Although not too bad. He is going to be pretty awesome at the squatter bathrooms here. Several times he has just squatted happily in the shower to do his number 2 business... if you know what i mean.

Wednesday 4/1: Dallin was home sick. He had eaten mystery meat again. Bad choice. So he worked from home. We had a lovely day and a nice walk in the park.

Tuesday 3/30: We took to our friends to eat at our fav. hot pot right by our house! They are known for there overwhelming attentiveness and generousity.PIC- Mitch received a car, and Jules a pony and girl. We watched a guy dance/stretch noodles for another table. Jules dumped water all over my lap. (She had such quick little hands!) Then we came home and made cheesecake brownies... :) Love my rice cooker!

Monday 3/29: PIC-We went to Behai park. It was beautiful and very Chinese. We rode a large chinese boat across the lake. saw the Behai towerish altar. It has 455 ceramic tile buddhas on it! Afterward we stopped by a book store and H&M to get Mitch some shorts for summer!

And an addition from Dal this week:

This is actually Dallin. I had to take a minute to send out a description of the scene that I just was witness to. Abby was trying to read the scriptures to Mitch and he was not paying attention. So she started having Mitch act out the story with his cars. Abby was using McQueen to play Lehi and another car to play Laman, and Mitch had a car to play Nephi's role. Mitch was really getting into it, and I was about to compliment Abby on what a great idea it was and how much it was sinking in when Lehi asked Nephi if he would go get the plates for him.

To our astonishment Nephi (played by Mitch) replied to his father/mother "No, no, no, I don't want. I just want to take a nap."

Children are so gratifying to work with every day.

(Nephi was eventually convinced that going to get the plates was a good idea.)

And the we love China pic... something random and fun