Slide Therapy

Jackson has always been amazingly un-afraid of slides. I say "amazingly" only because he tends not to be the most adventurously soul in most other aspects of his life (and really, I can't imagine where he got THAT from...), but he has always been willing to go down any slide no matter how tall or steep. So we were really surprised when we took him to the park this weekend and he was suddenly too scared to go down the tallest slide. I decided that this was a good sign - a sign that he recognized that it really IS tall and really IS a little dangerous. Matt disagreed and embarked on a 20 minute therapy session that involved doing the slide together, and then slowly fading himself out until Jackson could do it on his own. I swear he really misses doing therapy even though he says he doesn't.

Here are some photos from the "slide therapy" session:

And here are some photos documenting treatment success:

VOTE!

When we picked Jackson up at daycare today, we were greeted with a roomful of not-so-subtle reminders to do our civic duty. Even in a state where the election is all but decided before the polls even open, there was a lot of excitement this year. Matt and I waited two hours to vote, but it was worth it since Jackson's daycare teacher demanded we show our "I VOTED!" stickers when we came to pick him up. We're both a little scared of her, so we were relieved that we could comply. Happy election day, everyone!

PS Yes, that IS a bowlful of miniature sherbet scoops. Our little pollster is still demanding daily rewards for potty training and we are more than happy to comply.

Trick or Treat

Jackson really go into Trick-or-Treating this year. Despite some early protests regarding his costume, when the time came he put it on proudly and couldn't wait to go to the neighbors for candy. We did a lot of practicing with the whole "Trick or Treat!" and "Thank you!" thing, but he still had trouble getting it right. Matt says that the person would open the door and Jackson would proudly announce, "Thank you!" to them. Ah well. Here are a few pictures from the big event.

Halloween Carnival

They had a cute little Halloween Carnival in our neighborhood last weekend. All the kids dressed up in costumes and they had jump castles (which Jackson calls "jump casicles"), face painters, balloon animals, firetrucks to climb on, and more. Jackson wasn't too keen on wearing his costume, even though he was supposed to be a fire truck, and fire trucks are pretty much his favorite thing in the world. I told him that he wouldn't get any candy at the Halloween Carnival if he wasn't dressed up, so he grudgingly put his costume on. Let me ask you this: Would you ever considering having a Halloween carnival WITHOUT candy? Apparently someone would, because this was a candy free zone. Nary a Candy Corn nor a Sweetart could be found anywhere. Jackson wandered through the crowds of princesses and scarecrows and spidermen saying sadly, "Where candy? Where candy?" I finally gave in and let him have a bag of popcorn (choking hazard) because I felt so bad. As a consolation, we went home and carved a pumpkin together (and by we, I mean Matt).

Jackson was pretty excited about the "Scary" pumpkin

He was even more excited when we showed him how it can light up

Jackson giving the scary pumpkin a kiss

Potty Training Part 3

Jackson has had the "front end" of potty training down for a while. He stayed dry for two weeks straight to earn Rocket from Little Einsteins, which he was so excited about, and continues to remind us, "I EARNED that!" This is the cute little sticker chart I made for him with the picture of Rocket.

Anyway, despite our "front end" success, the "back end" part continued to give him trouble. We bribed him, cajoled him, reasoned with him (which involved way too much frank discussion of bodily functions for anyone's comfort), and even threatened him, but nothing seemed to do any good. It wasn't until a couple of weeks ago that it dawned on me that he didn't just not want to poop on the potty - he didn't want to poop AT ALL - anywhere or at any time. It's ironic because I work with stool withholders all the time at work, but it never crossed my mind that this could be Jackson's problem. Anyway, after a little trial and error and TLC (AKA regular doses of prune juice), he finally started pooping on the potty! After months of trying to get him to do this, we had pretty much promised him a pony and a BMW for pooping on the potty, so he started cashing in on all his promised rewards at a rapid rate. Ice cream? Sure! A big mylar balloon? Here you go!

So on Thursday we picked him up at school and he came running up to us announcing, "I poo poo on the potty! I get ice cream! I get ice cream now!" We tried to shush him so his teachers wouldn't figure out that we parent through bribery, and shuttled him home. He had been settled into his seat at the table with a big bowl of rainbow sherbet for only a few minutes, when his eyes fell on a giant orange pumpkin sitting on the counter and filled with awesome Halloween candy (no cheapies around here!). He immediately demanded, "I want candy! I want that candy! I want that candy now!" "Well honey," I said sweetly, "Maybe the next time you poo poo on the potty, you can earn a special piece of candy from the pumpkin!" I then sat back quietly and marvelled at my brilliant parenting. He sat back quietly too. Then he announced suddenly, "I have go poo poo! I have go poo poo on the potty!" and ran off to the bathroom. About 10 minutes later, Matt walked in the front door to discover his son sitting at the kitchen table eating a bowl of ice cream and munching on a "fun size" bag of M&Ms (which hold way more candy then you would ever think). The truth is, however, that we were both SO EXCITED to be done with diapers that we almost didn't care when he didn't eat his dinner that night. Yay for no more diapers!

Sorry for the intermission!

Ok Advanced Psychology fans - I took a little intermission from posting due to some problems with my photo program, but I am back in business now!

Animal Care

One of the big selling points when we bought our house was the cute little pond out back that is full of turtles, fish, ducks, and birds. We just sort of assumed that ponds naturally attract wildlife, and for the last 3 years, we've been enjoying nature without much thought about the whole thing. The illusion was broken when our next door neighbors (see World's Best Neighbors) went on vacation for three weeks and asked us to take care of their house. Apparently, the World's Best Neighbors are also the World's Best Animal Lovers. We had some vague notion that they fed the wildlife of the pond, but we had NO IDEA of the extent of it. Jackson has had a blast with the job.

On the way down to the duck feeding area

(they have their own little concrete pad to eat off of)

The pampered ducks get two scoops of corn plus a scoop of turtle food
(who knew turtles had their own food?)

This picture doesn't really capture the frenzy of a feeding session - the ducks peck at each other and step on each other while trying to get the food

Back to the house to reload

Time for turtle food

Getting the turtle food into the pond itself takes a

little bit of effort when you are 2
But whatever spills on the grass is gone by the next day

We no longer have to wonder why the turtles in our pond are freakishly large
On the way to feed the fish

Aww...our happy little zoo keeper

Not pictured: refilling of no less than 4 bird feeders every three days. Apparently our backyard is teeming with wildlife for a reason....