Two Words: Potty. Training.

Greetings from the trenches. Yes, we are in the midst of serious potty training. And all I have to say is Oh. My. Word. We started exactly one week ago and I have never felt so exhausted by the end of the day as I have this past week. I feel like I'm either helping Ben get on the potty, asking him if he needs to go to the potty or cleaning up "potty" at all times. To be fair, he has done really well. He was already familiar with the potty because we've been having him go every morning and evening on it for a few months now. I wanted to wait to start serious training once he turned 2 1/2 though.

He actually had a completely accident-free day just a couple of days ago. But, today.....oh today.....he pooped on the floor. Thank the Lord it was on the wood floor in our kitchen. I'm not even going to try to explain the sequence of events that lead up to this. It would take too long. Let's just hope it never happens again. Because if it does, I may be throwing in the towel on potty training for awhile. The funny thing is, if we're out and about, he is able to hold it and not have an accident (within a reasonable amount of time of course). But if we're at home, I swear he has to go every 10 minutes. Actually, all but one of his accidents have been while we're at home. So, my goal now is to get him fed shortly after he wakes up and then quickly get out of the house!!! Too bad we've had waaaay too many of these lately.....

That is a picture of one SERIOUS thunderstorm we had a few days ago. That is what the sky right above our house looked like at approximately 6:00pm. Not friendly. It has been thunderstorm central around here lately. That definitely puts a damper on getting out of the house. We've had a couple of sunny days in row now though so hopefully we'll get a few more.

Also, I totally meant to do a Father's Day post several days ago, but I didn't get it started fast enough and then there was ALL THE POTTYING to contend with and here we are still with no Father's Day post. So, I thought I'd include some pics of the day. Greg decided he wanted us to take Ben to the zoo on Father's Day (such a selfless daddy!) We got there right when it opened and there was hardly anyone there so we pretty much had the place to ourselves.

Ben trying to determine just how close he would like to get to the peacocks....

Peacocks kind of freak me out. I don't want to make Ben scared of them, but I feel like they would be totally down with pecking Ben in the face if he got too close. I think this stems from my fear of turkeys. I can remember when my parents would take my brother and I to the zoo and they actually had a sign on the turkey cage that read "We Bite Fingers" (I'm not sure which is more pitiful, that sign or the fact that the zoo actually included turkeys as an attraction). Also, it seems like every time I catch an episode of "America's Funniest Home Videos", there is a clip of some kid getting pecked in the face by some blood-thirsty turkey. Peck me once, shame on you, peck me twice shame on me....or something like that. Anywhoo, here are some more pics of our turkey-free day.....

Posing with the stuffed bear in the "Bug Hut". Ben loves the "Bug Hut" because it is teeming with all manner of bees, spiders, hissing cockroaches and other specimen that typically send me running in the opposite direction....

Daddy and Ben posing on the caterpillar outside the butterfly building...

A series of photos showing our big boy climbing from the bottom of the spider web all the way to the top...

Feeding the goats....

And finally, the little man in his new big boy undies....

Right now we have him in training underwear which is severely lacking in style. I can't wait until he gets to wear true big boy undies that have all the fun characters on them. Grandma Reynolds sent him some adorable Thomas the Train undies awhile back and I can't wait for him to be able to wear them!!

Well, that has pretty much been our life over the past couple of weeks. Truly thrilling, I know. Hopefully my next post will not have to include a sentence that has anything to do with poop on the floor.

Have a great day!

Brooke