Is it true?

We've been working with Zadie for the past week or two on potty training and I think it might finally be happening! She wears a diaper for her nap and at night, but other than that she's been pretty on the money. Two days with no accidents! She gets dried cranberries for going pee and a teensy piece of organic dark chocolate for going poop (on the toilet, that is). When she gets the chocolate she jumps up and down for a few minutes because she's so excited. Hopefully she's not going to start straining to poop just so she can get more chocolate!

I'm still not sure it's really happening, but even thus far it's been really great to have one less kid in diapers. We use a cloth diaper called Bum Genius and they're really great, but with two kids in diapers we have to wash about every other day. Combined with all of our other laundry, sometimes it feels like all we do is laundry! So this will be a welcome relief...if only it's true!

A Boy and His Duck

This is a story about a boy and his duck. Skip loves his yellow duck. Actually, I think this stuffed animal might be a chicken because when Aunt Susie first gave it to us (or to Zadie) it would dance and sing the "The Chicken Dance" when you squeezed it's foot. But it really resembles a duck more and now that it no longer sings and dances, we just call it the duck.

Anyway, Skip can sit on the floor for hours (well, hours in infant time, which is kind of like how dog years are multiplied by seven) and play with this duck. He's typically sitting up with the duck and the duck's beak is level with his mouth. He chews on the beak and all the appendages and also likes to pull the tuft of hair on its head. It's so cute how he squeals with joy!

This video doesn't really do his love for the duck justice since he's not sitting up face-to-face, but you get the general idea. Plus, he has some great giggles in this video. And below is a photo of him and the duck. He's so cute!

So Long, House?

Lately we've been getting some pretty strong indications that our landlord is going to be selling our house (an appraiser came by yesterday, and a few months ago potential buyers visited). Although nothing has been officially communicated to us, we're starting to prepare for getting 30 days notice by browsing around the neighborhood.

All this is very sad since we love our neighborhood, our house, and the front and backyard we have here. The funny thing is that Tori was really the one who insisted on moving in here and I disagreed and wanted to move to a cheap apartment and save the money. She won that battle and, as occasionally happens, it turns out that she was right.

In addition to the money, I was also worried that we'd have a hard time downsizing once Tori eventually stops working and now it turns out that day is coming sooner than we had planned (the downsizing day, not the stop working day). We will likely need to move into an apartment with no yard, which is particularly sad now that Zadie is at the age where we can close the gate and let her play back there by herself.

But we're just going to cross that bridge when it happens since we'd like to delay moving as much as possible. This is also because we'd have to go through paperwork hell in order to get everything inspected if Skip is not technically ours by that point. We'd really like to avoid that!

But for the time being, we really enjoyed our yard today and soaked up the first sunshine in a few days with a game of Scrabble.

Two-Year Checkup -- She's a Big One!

Tori took Zadie to her two-year checkup this past week and she is rather large. She's 31 inches long (100th percentile), 28 lbs and 14 ounces (75th percentile), and her head is 20 whatevers (100th percentile). People always comment on Zadie's big belly, which is funny to us since we struggle every day to get her to eat. She can gorge on fruit and snacks, but it's challenging to get her to eat any kind of meat or protein. Sometimes we succeed with tofu if we put enough hummus or ketchup on it.

p.s. The above photo was actually taken 3-4 months ago, but I never had a chance to post it. It makes me happy to see how much fun Zadie has playing with a cardboard box!

By Popular Demand

People said they wanted to see the "after" shots of the haircuts, so here they are. Zadie's hair looks pretty similar except it looks healthier and less stringy. Like I said, Skip looks like a little Marine, but in a good way!

Birthday Presents!

Zadie hauled in some good loot this year for her birthday. In addition to pajamas, a bathing suit, sandals, a bubble machine, etc., she received two very special gifts from her grandparents. My parents gave her swimming lessons (I still need to sign her up), which of course she will love. And then Grandma Linda searched high and low for a trampoline (not just a trampoline but a DEAL on a trampoline!). Here is a clip of Zadie enjoying her new trampoline and thanking Grandma Linda. Thanks to everyone for their presents -- we didn't get her nothin'!

The day after her birthday, our friend Sidney stopped by the house for a special delivery of a cupcake and a birthday present. She got her a pretty dress and some cool bracelets (although of course Zadie probably liked the cupcake best of all!). This came out blurry, but I still wanted to capture Sidney, Zadie, and the cupcake...