and the oscar goes to....

drawing!

I am so proud of my sons artwork I just have to blog about it! He loves to color and draw and this just impressed me to bits!! I mean the last picture he drew was a circle with stick legs, so this is like a work of art to me!

This morning at 0530 he got up and exclaimed "mommy I want to draw YOU something". I was like, ummm...ok...sure.....so I got some paper and a pencil..and away he went!!

The roof on the house has tile and just above the roof to the left I thought was a car, but was corrected because "it's a truck mommy". oh duh. Above the roof to the right I thought was a tree...WRONG...it's a CARROT (silly me) and below the carrot is a TREE. Below that tree is an umbrella! To the left of the house below the TRUCK is a KID. And at the bottom is a fence. Oh and the squiggly line at the top of the page is water...so we've all drowned basically. LOL.  Just kidding. Isn't this fantastic?

this one below is another one, but it has BIRDS and the SUN and a TREE and a CAT.

It's beautfiul!!!



i heart faces - beautiful eyes

when I saw the theme for this photo challenge, this photo immediately came to my mind. It was one of the first pictures we saw of our son, before we adopted him in Ethiopia. His eyes just captivated me and they speak to me in so many ways, of such hope and such longing...determined yet vulnerable...these are the eyes of my son. Yohannes.

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boys!

Wow I have not blogged in a while, seems like Facebook is getting most of my attention these days with the updates. Ok so blogger doesn't feel left out, thought I'd do a quick (did I say quick?) update on the happenings in our life...

JoJo is fully potty trained! woo hoo!! Pee and Poop! It took a while, and a lot of tears and mostly aggravation (for us) but everything that you read, is right. They WILL do it, but in their own time, and not yours. It's a very VERY frustrating process, and all I can say for anyone going through it right now, is HANG IN THERE....it doesn't matter that your child is 3 or 4 or whatever age and he's not potty trained...they will be soon enough and when they are ready. Oh and there is no magic switch, no magic toy, no magic stickers, no magic song that's gonna work for YOUR child, you just have to wait until they are ready.

Next, body parts. Ah yes. (grrrrr). Ok not so much grrrrr but I wish he wouldn't whip out his penis every 5 minutes to check it out! that's all. I mean really.  I know I know, he's exploring his body, yada yada, but honestly, he plays with it more than his toys lately. He asked what his "eggs" were called the other day, so I told him the real name for them and he asked if there were baby dinosaurs in them. Uh, that would be a big fat NO. I probably told him waaay too much information on what they were for....which reminds me....I need to get a book on body parts as he is at that age where he wants to know EVERYthing...I mean, everything.  What's this called, what's that for, how you spell this, who's that, why why why why why why.....arrghhhhhhh!! He never stops talking....AND he never stops moving!!  But, I like it that way :-)

He is about 38lbs (quarterback material I say) and almost 42" in height.  His shoe size is 11 almost 12, he will be in youth sizes soon! He wears a size 4 pants and size 5 Tops.  He is into Super Hero Squad, copies all the movements on the TV when they do the intro, dances and sings to ANYTHING and is quite a little performer!

We are teaching him patience and likewise he is teaching us patience.  Whenever we get a box from the Post office, he thinks its a TOY for him. Well, when it's NOT for him, he cries, he bawls, he has a little hissy fit and does a WWF on the floor. We are trying to teach him that not everything that comes in the mail is for him and next time if a box comes and its not for him, I told him I want him to say "OK Mommy"...and not cry, otherwise, when a toy does come, he won't get it.  We will see how that goes!

Lately he is into asking about family. About my Dad, my Mom, Clive's parents, his brothers, my sister, he wants to see photos of me as a "squishy baby" *ok so I was little squishy when I was a baby. He wants to see Clive when he was a baby, we have a video of him eating mac n cheese when he was about 18mths old and he LOVES watching that. He sees photos of Clive and I when we first met or after we got married and he says "I was not born yet".  He is just very very inquisitive.  He mentions the fact that "Grandma died" but still not sure if he understands what death is.

So, there's my update! As soon as my husband downloads the video we took of him dancing to Dancing Queen, by ABBA, will most like post that on......yup....Facebook!

Thanks for stopping by!

potty peeves

Just a quick update on the potty training situation.

JoJo will still not do his BM in the toilet, will not sit on the potty, will not sit on the toilet, flat out REFUSES. And trust me when I say this, I have tried everything. He just won't do it. 

So, we are at our wits end.  We have told him, NO MORE (new) TOYS until he goes poop on the toilet. He knows and he understands this perfectly well.  We used to buy him a new toy almost every weekend.

Well, we are saving ALOT of money right now so what does that tell you.

A box came in the mail yesterday, and he knows those AMAZON boxes usually have toys in them, well he wanted to open it. We told him no. He had a meltdown. The box is hidden and unopened. And it will stay that way. We are not budging. He knows where he's supposed to do his poop, and he's not getting a darn thing until he does.

It's on.

Bring it.

independence

you see this?

it's called "attitude"

and it can start as young as 4 years old, if not earlier.

I have no clue how this happened.

I mean, I certainly don't pull my shirt up like that and make a face like "you wanna piece o' me?"

but it happened nonetheless.

my little gettingbiggerbytheday man just wants to do E-V-E-R-Y thing by himself. Which is great, awesome.
....and time CONSUMING!! lol

so in the morning, he goes into his room, shuts the door (you know...for privacy)....and goes into his closet.
He picks out his underwear, his shirt, his pants and his socks.

He will parade around naked for a while, then proceed to dress himself. He can even put his own socks on now, which was a bit of a challenge at first. He can put his jacket on and now do up the zipper.

He goes into the fridge, gets his own juice, or chocolate milk....goes to the "snack:" cupboard to get a snack (he has to ask first though).

We just leave a little (ok double) the time that it would normally take...and we're good to go.

He recently started asking for "money".

That's my boy. He's awesome.
I thank God everyday for him.

i heart faces - innocent wonder

this weeks theme is innocent wonder which is open to interpretation! arrghhh!! SO I went through all the photos and this one jumped out at me....he is sooooo entranced at something! His eyes just melt my heart and the blurry background just makes you gaze at him even more and just "wonder" what he is thinking. Very innocent.

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i heart faces - best face photo 2010

I cannot even compete with all the great wonderful faces already submitted, they are awesome. But, why not at least TRY as it's my new resolution for 2011, just try, you never know. So here goes. He is my hero and the best face I am lucky enough to look at each morning and night.

christmas program

JoJo had his christmas program at school last Friday, I was unable to attend due to WORK, however, Daddy represented....*go daddy...go daddy* lol. these are recordings from the iphone soooo...WYSIWYG lol

JoJo did an AWEsome job with his letter 'I" for "Ice skaters whirling on ice in the snow" man we practiced that for weeks! ok days. lol. seemed like weeks.  He couldn't wait to get up there to say his lines! waytogo JOJO!!!!

legs

We took JoJo to the Childrens Medical Center in Naha for his annual check up for his legs.

the x-ray technicians could not believe how long his legs were for his age, they were amazed.
JoJo did wonderfully, didn't cry, stood still, he was AMAzing!  I think it REALLY helped that I showed him the photos from last year and told him what was going to happen, that they were going to take "photos" of his legs and it wouldn't hurt and we were practicing the names of the doctors.

Anyway, to cut a long story short, here's the photo.

The one on the left is the very FIRST time he had an xray.
The one on the right is NOW.

the doctor said there is no need to bring him back for any more check up, his legs are STRAIGHT and will stay STRAIGHT.

there is an issue of him having flat feet which may cause problems later on, and he said if he starts complaining of pain alot, to bring him back in and they could give him arch supports.

Great news!!!!

drama king, dogs and one more thing

So you can see from the below video how good he is at acting, very dramatic ending I must say.
He makes a great tiger don't you think!







and then there's dogs.

we don't go outside because of dogs. we don't go to the park because of dogs. JoJo is EXTREMELY scared of dogs. He was semi-afraid of them before, but after ONE particular incident, he will SCREAM everytime he hears the doorbell......

One of our neighbors has a dog called Daisy. She is maybe a year-ish old. Very active, very feisty dog. The breed is some sort of collie I think, probably a cross breed. Anyway. The doorbell rang and I opened the door, JoJo was standing behind me. DAISY just appeared, acting all crazy and peed on the mat outside the door, and was rolling around and just so hyper is scared the crap out of him. He started crying and I had to tell the girl, who owned the dog, to PLEASE keep this dog on a leash! This dog is constantly running the neighborhood, loose, terrorizing some kids, including mine. JoJo won't even sit in the back garden anymore because they let this dog run all over the place, and Daisy came into the back yard once and scared JoJo.

Now we are having to deal with this. Slowly we open windows and doors, for a short time. We point out dogs in the street, we make doggy noises and we show him doggy pictures and we talk about dogs. I am sure it will be a long time before he is comfortable around dogs. Especially crazy ones.

I told JoJo to just call the doggy Crazy Daisy. Yup that's her new name. He thought that was funny. So now he wants to look out the window and look for "crazy doggy". Maybe that's a good thing.

One more thing. We were at the commissary yesterday and I could tell this guy kept looking at us. He eventually came up to us and asked us if JoJo was Ethiopian. After some exchanging back and forth, he was from Ethiopia too and we were talking about JoJo and when he came home and how marvelous it was etc etc. Then he speaks to him in amharic. I haven't been teaching JoJo amharic and he wasn't even speaking until a few months after we came home with him.  I do think JoJo understood what the language was though, he seemed to smile and then turn his head away almost embarrassed. But it was great meeting someone from Ethiopia, we certainly don't meet that many over here, and I would love that for JoJo.  That's why I am seriously considering a culture camp in the next couple of years.

teeth brushing (again) (warning: gross pictures!)

Ok. So we were having problems with JoJo not wanting to brush his teeth. again. It's been an on going battle and it changes every day. One day he brushes, Next day he refuses. Uggh.  This is the 2nd worst battle we are going through....with the poop one being the first of course.

So. In desperation I am thinking...what if I show him pictures of rotten teeth? hmmmm.....isn't that too gross though? Would I be a mean mommy to do something like that? Well, that thought crossed my mind for all of 2 seconds and I was on the internet googling rotten teeth like there was no tomorrow.

I found some. Some pretty gross ones. Some that were TOO gross. I even showed my friend and she about jumped out of her skin when she saw them. Ok, not quite the effect I was looking for, but it worked. She didn't go running to the bathroom with her toothbrush, but hey, she is also not 3 1/2 yrs old. She knows better.

So. this morning, I get the proverbial "NO" when it came to teeth brushing time.
So I said "ok" you stay right there I have something to show you.....(thinking in my head, omg is this really going to work, am I going to give him nightmares, is it going to freak him out, will he start crying....) and then after those 2 seconds passed I got the pictures, sat down, and showed him these.....

yep, pretty gross.

He just stood there, in shock I think, just staring at them....

I told him this person didn't brush his teeth and this is what will happen if you don't brush your teeth.

Then I showed him this picture...

look at these nice clean teeth! This person brushes her teeth EVERY DAY.

Then silently, he just took my hand, walked me to the bathroom and said "I wanna brush my teeth".."no black" "no black mommy".....

SO we have victory. for today anyway.
I am hoping he won't need anymore reminders, but you never know.

private parts

we have always talked to JoJo about anatomically correct names for body parts, and a matter-of-factly, pointing to each area.....head, eyes, ears, chin, shoulders, mouth, arms, legs, penis, feet, toes....etc...etc...

He knows that he is a boy and so is Daddy. He knows that Mommy is a girl but we have never discussed what "mine" is called. He has always said "Mommy no have penis". And we kind of left it at that, no further discussion.

So last night in the shower, he looks at "mine" and says "JoJo have penis, mommy have.......???" and he wanted me to tell him what mine was called.....and I was speechless!! I didn't know what to say!!! Should I say the V word?  OMG He's only 3 and a half! Does he need to know? By the way, we have an open door policy in our house, meaning I usually don't get any privacy whatsoever.

So I had to think about it all night. We have always been honest with him, and well, he seems to be curious enough to ask so I'll wait and see if he mentions it again.

Well. This morning on the way to school, we are talking about BOYS again, JoJo is a boy, Daddy is a boy, and he mentions it again.."boys have penis....mommy has.......???" SO I look at Clive in panic mode...shall we tell him? Clive said go ahead...so I told JoJo....mommy has vagina. It's a body part. Not to be ashamed of. It's a word like arm, leg, head, ears, and penis. There I said it.

Well. JoJo thought that it was the best thing in the world now he knows what mommy has and he let out a big "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" and big smile on his face. And that was that.

He carried on playing his harmonica.

Phew.

school

I have no clue what he's doing with his finger, squeezing his eye or something, lol, but he is quite the character.  He sure is picking up a lot of things from other kids (some that I don't like).  Don't judge, yes my living room IS always that messy. I have a 3 yr old. nuff said. lol (that's my excuse and I'm using it for the next 15 years).

 surfer boy

AND....check this out....Mr. Rowena, his school principle, is going to test him next month and if he passes, he will be going to the next class!! Woo hoo!!  Technically he shouldn't move to the next class until next September, but he might be ready, he is doing really well!! Go JoJo!

writing

JoJo did this in the van on the way to school this morning. This is freehand, he doesn't need to trace anymore! He does the alphabet and numbers. He can do it neater than this, but we were moving around alot in the back seat (what can I say, my husband was driving...LOL).

doing pretty good don't you think?

water boy

JoJo loves to put his head under the water....I don't and it scares me half to death...but he loves it so what can you do?

i heart faces - smirk

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i heart faces - vroom vroom!

we were up at Neo Park and as soon as he spotted this Fire Truck, he was hooked. He latches on to anything with a steering wheel.

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update

Well here's a little update on his progress...

Potty training:  going pee pee BY HIMSELF now! I don't have to go in there with him. He gets up on the stool, pulls his clothes down, sticks his belly out and pees in the toilet. yaay! He gets a little over the seat, he's not "holding" it yet...but he does pretty good! The best part is, is that he's doing it by himself, all I have to tell him now is "JoJo if you need to peepee go by yourself, ok?" and he says "ok".  I think he just needs to hear it.

Now, #2 is a completely different story. He'll do the poopoo dance for a few minutes (shuffling his feet and pacing the room in a circle really fast)...that's how we know he's "going". We used to ask him all the time "do you need to poo? do you need to go to the bathroom" and all the time he would say NO...then we'd get mad, threaten him, take stuff away... and feel really bad. SO we stopped doing that, it was stressing him out.  We now just leave him. We don't say anything, although I do have to slip in there "poopoo goes in the toilet". and leave it at that.  After he does his poo, in his pants, I USED to stress over wiping his butt...really get on him about it.  And he used to NOT want me to wipe his butt, we could go around in circles, oh for 30-45 mins and he would refuse to take his pants off.  Well, to heck with that.  Now I just leave it.  I just tell him "you let mommy know when you need to wipe ok". I just say it once, and however long it takes him, he will now come up to me and say "wipe now mommy" so I think we are making progress! little itty bitty steps.

He goes to bed around 8-8:30pm and wakes up at 5:30am on the weekdays and usually 6:30am on weekends.  He favorite food until recently was taco rice, now it's just plain ole rice. He favorite thing to watch is anything with dinosaurs in it. Favorite TV show is Dinosaur Train and movie is The Land of the Lost, because it has a big dinosaur in it. He loves to sing along to all the tunes in the shows and dances too. 

Starting next week we are going to try him at Karate.  The school he goes to, Santa Monica, has Karate, Yoga and Ballet lessons for 3+ yr olds.  I personally think he would do great in ballet, but my husband just won't have it. BOO!

He can count to 30, he might miss a couple, but he does really good. He knows his upper case and lower case letters. He can draw an almost smiley face. His coloring is more controlled and not so wild all over the paper. He can spell his name, he cannot write it yet. He loves it when we give him stuff to do, as long as he wants to do it of course!  (sweep, vacuum, put laundry in the basket, put something in the trash, get his clothes out for the day).  He can undress by himself, and dress his bottom half.  T-Shirts are still a struggle to put on, he puts his arm over the top through the neck hole and down, and tries to find the arm hole. It's quite funny to watch, but I usually end up helping him. He know his left shoe goes on his left foot and vice versa. He is learning the days of the week. I got him a chart and he loves running up to it every day and saying "TODAY IS......". of course he gets upset when it's not Saturday or Sunday.

thinking about starting him with gymnastics class on Saturdays, if he doesn't like the karate that is.

OH...and he LOVES playing TEACHER.  We play teacher every night and every weekend! It drives me NUTS!! He loves to get a pointer (usually something that's long like a back scratcher or stick or something) and points to the ABC and number charts we have on the wall and we have to say it all out loud. He says "stand up (please)" (we have to remind him to say it nicely) and then IF we do it correctly he says "Good Job Mommy! You get candy".  If Daddy doesn't say it right, he will say "no candy for you!". hahaha. Yes this is something I have yet to talk to the teachers about. The overuse of candy if the kids do a good job. No wonder he is so bloomin hyper in the evenings.  If he did not say it, I would never have known about the candy.

Oh and at school, starting next week, they are going to start going to the park from 9am-2pm.  Personally I think 5 hrs at the park is TOO long for a 3 yr old, so something else I need to talk to the teachers about.

I guess if I blogged more this post wouldn't be so long! LOL

phew.

say AHHHHH

JoJo had his first dentist appt. this weekend. Yes I know I left it a bit late...I guess I was just scared...but I wasn't doing him any favors so I quit being scared and took him. I didn't prep him much, just talked a little bit about it the fews days before. I even had a couple of bribes for him, which I knew I would have to use.

Our appt. was at 1130 the the New York Dental Clinic (no, it's not in New York, it's in Naha!!) lol
Place was quite nice, very new and very clean.....but.....we had to wait......and wait......and wait.....

 more waiting....

anyway, it's eventually our turn, we get halfway down the hall and JoJo stops and decides....UHHHHH no....I am NOT going down there....so we had to coax him a little....ok a lot......








here he is holding one of his bribes...he must be thinking OMG what am I doing here???

then he looks at me and is probably thinking...how COULD you? You're MY MOMMY!!! You're supposed to be nice and sweet and protect me and give me hugs and kisses and candy......









 I guess it wouldn't have been so bad if they didn't leave us in the room sooo long waiting for the dentist...but they did....which gave him more time to freak out of course....








you know he's thinking..WHAT THE HECK IS THAT?













OPEN WIDE!! Actually he was a good boy, but the lady couldn't get him to lay back in the chair, it freaked him OUT...we tried several times but no go.

I can't remember at what point I had to give him the second bribe, but they worked!  And here he is, one happy little boy with NO CAVITIES!! yaay.

 I have no idea how I am going to get him to go AGAIN, but I'll guess we'll cross that bridge......