Zoo Day!

For those of you who don't live in Memphis, we have been having themost amazingly mild weather for late July! Of course, we had the most shockingly hot and humid June this year, so I suppose this is helping us average back out. But regardless, we made a trip to the zoo yesterday...I cannot remember ever using one of my many zoo memberships in July or August in this sweat-inducing town, so this was a pretty big event!

The kids are not huge fans of the zoo (nor was I as a child), but the beauty of a membership is that you can go for as short or as long a time as you want to without having to feel like you "didn't see everything" or "didn't get your money's worth". For example, we completely missed one entire side of the zoo this time (missed all the "big money" animals...pandas, giraffes, elephants, polar bears), but a good time was had by all and there were no meltdowns, so I'd say it was a successful trip! And the "Birds and Bees" exhibit really is awesome...last time we went, it was the first weekend the exhibit was open, so it was literally wall-to-wall people...kids were EVERYWHERE with the feeding sticks and the birds were all kind of freaked out by the crowd, so we really didn't get to experience it. As you can see from the pictures, the kids really enjoyed getting up close and personal with the birds and Ashley really wanted to take one home with her!

Poop Prizes

Yes, friends, I am one of those people who is going to share with you intimate things you may not really want to know...so just skip to the end if you're a little squeamish about bodily functions. As you may recall, I didn't think Tyler was ever going to be potty trained...Ashley was so easy in this area (as many girls are) and at the age of 28 months, we just decided one day to wear big girl panties, and that was basically the end of it. With Tyler, even at 2 1/2, he was nowhere near being ready to even attempt it. But though we struggled for a while, the peeing part of it just suddenly clicked one day when he was about 3 months shy of his third birthday, and he's done great with it...we even gave up nighttime pullups at the same time, because he REALLY gets it and has had very few accidents in the pee department.

Poop, however, is a different story altogether. Everything I've read says that you should not stress over it...kids sense the stress and sense that it's a control issue, and then they get even more set in their ways about pooping when and where THEY want to poop, if only to exert control over one of the few things that you as the parent cannot. But he basically poops in his underwear every single day and doesn't even try to use the potty, and is in danger of being "left behind" in the two-year old class next year for at least a little while until he is fully potty-trained. So we decided to implement a reward system, with Hershey kisses and Hot Wheels cars for successful potty usage. It seems to be working...as a result of having a case of salmonella poisoning for the last week, he's earned WAY more cars than we ever expected, but at $1 a piece, it's a small price to pay for getting this big milestone behind us! We're still working, but we've had a lot of successes in the past week, so let's hope it continues once his digestive tract is back to normal!

Cute story: Tyler got face to face with me earlier and started rubbing his nose on mine. He said "Mommy, I'm giving you escalator kisses!" (instead of eskimo kisses)...how cute is that? :-)