Graphic discussion to follow... not for the faint of heart

... or those who do not want to read 400 words on poop. That's right, lately it feels like I've been up to my elbows in poop and I can't stay quiet about it any longer!

Where to begin... It's really hard to explain how much this bodily function has taken over. First, Annie has been potty training, and has been doing a pretty good job at it. With one small exception, she refuses to go #2 on the potty. Refuses. Sometimes she will go days without going #2 at all, just to avoid the potty confrontation. Why won't she go #2 on the potty, no idea. If I knew that, my life and Karen's life would be soo much easier. No amount of bribes, coercion, or threats work. She just refuses.

Usually what happens is Annie will wear underwear, except at night or naptime. At naptime she will wear a pull-up. She goes to the potty before naptime, puts on her pull-up, lays down, promptly poops, then gets cleaned up and takes her nap. We've been trying to play some chicken with her, and have tried leaving her in her underwear. Well that just means that she's going to poop in her underwear. And she does. And it's super gross to clean up. Usually it involves said underwear being cut off and thrown away. Which brings me to my next pooping problem, Nicholas.

This kid has got one heck of a digestive tract. I can't believe the amount of onesies we've burned through because of some huge blowout. Again, I'm talking some major amounts of #2. We've cut so many onesies off from him I should have bought stock in Carter's because we've been keeping the lights on at that place. Not only has he gone through a large quantity, but he's gone through a ton of Annie's old ones! There is even a special collection of plastic bags in their room for these occasions...

Again, I'm only privy to this mainly on the weekends... I can't begin to imagine what this is like for Karen on a daily basis... But I do know one thing, if I was Karen I might think about investing in a hazmat suit.

Snow telling when it's going to stop

We have been getting tons of snow this winter! So far we've reached the amount of snow that we usually get all winter, and there's more on the way this week. Luckily, being from upstate NY, I come from some hardy stock. A little snow doesn't bother me. But when you have kids that are trapped inside your perspective sure changes! And living in the city, we have to adjust certain things. Instead of going outside in the backyard and building a snowman, we built one on our deck!

Last weekend we wanted to take the kids sledding. So first thing Saturday morning I headed out with Annie to buy some sleds, what I thought would be a very simple errand. After visiting 5 stores, turns out it was not such a simple errand. Apparently you have to buy your sled in November, and all of the stores only get like 10 in stock and then never sell them again... Ridiculous.

Uncle Mike to the rescue! We call Karen's uncle in Marblehead, and success! Well, he doesn't have any sleds, but knows people with sleds. So we headed up to Marblehead and went sledding. Annie loved it, sort of. At first she was just crying the whole time. Crying getting out of the car. Crying getting on the sled. Crying being pulled up the hill. Then we went downhill and she had a blast! There were lots of other kids around sledding and it was a lot of fun. Next year I will definitely be on top of things and make sure I buy a sled earlier rather than later!

Nichol had a great time watching from the sidelines! Since it was pretty cold there was some concern that it might be too cold for him on the way down...

So this is Christmas - 2010

We spent Christmas in GP and were fortunate enough to spend a week there. Everyone had a great time- and the kids got to decorate two Christmas trees! We had put up our Christmas tree right after Thanksgiving, and Annie had a lot of fun decorating the tree. Then when we arrived at the Drummys, we had another tree waiting to be trimmed! Again, Annie had a blast listening to Christmas music and decorating the tree. Christmas at the Drummys has some traditions. Christmas Eve is fondue with Bearnaise sauce... Awesome. It's not cheese fondue but hot oil that you cook beef in. So good... you also have a baked potato and Bearnaise sauce... Fantastic. During dinner we watch an action movie, usually one of the Die Hard movies fits the bill. Also fun. Helps to get the adrenaline going to rip open presents the next morning!

Christmas day was so much fun. Annie was very excited and had been looking forward to it for some time! Even Nichol got in on the action and had tons of fun unwrapping presents and taking things from Annie... All in all it was a great week, and it was nice to have extra hands around to help with the kids!

"Table for 1, by the window please"

So far in 2011 we've made some pretty big changes, for us at least. We ushered in one of the most boring New Year's by spending our New Year's Eve at Ikea buying Annie a table & chairs, and new big girl bed. Then proceeded to spend our evening putting them together. Woo-ho! Crazy, I know!

The upside is that Annie sure does love her new stuff. We figured since Nichol has been a lot better about sleeping through the night, the time might finally be upon us that we can have the kids share a room. But before we can do that, we have to get Annie out of her crib. This is something that we have been hesitant to do since about the time she was born... I just felt the minute that she wasn't contained in her crib, she would be all over and never get any sleep. So we decided to just bite the bullet and make the change on a Friday night, so we had all weekend to deal with the aftermath and both of us would be home to focus on this effort. And I'm proud to report, it wasn't that bad.

We thought the biggest issue was going to be her getting out of her bed and playing in her room when she was supposed to be sleeping. This turned out to be less of an issue at night. Maybe because it was so dark that playing in the dark didn't hold much appeal, or maybe the stern talking to before bed actually worked. Either way, the toughest transition ended up being that she missed her crib and was trying to climb back into it to sleep. Aww... But the first night was the toughest, and even that was pretty easy. Naptime you have to give her a warning and check in on her pretty frequently, but even that hasn't been half as bad as we thought.

We've been wanting to get Annie a table and chairs for a while, so we figured we should just buy that too. She loves sitting at her table during meals, although most of the sitting is in short bursts. Her new eating regime consists of sitting to take a bite, then running around while she's chewing her food. Or if you have left the room, then she will be right behind you wondering where you are or what you are doing. Annie always likes to know where everyone is and what everyone is doing.