Lessons Learned (part two)

9. I love to sing. Last night I toyed with staying home from choir to grade exams. I'm so glad I went, and I'm glad that A New Song was moved from 5/16 to early June because we'll be in Florida on the 16th, although now I'll miss singing Complete, which is also a wonderful anthem. I really missed not being able to participate in the Christmas cantata (since Ian was in the hospital); so I'm especially looking forward to choir Sunday in about one month when we'll sing 4 anthems one morning.

10. If you delay potty trainig, it might lead to your child being really upset every time she pees/poops in her diaper. I keep telling her it's okay, but she gets very upset. If we weren't going on vacation soon, I'd try again with potty training starting today. Beth said that when she gets her up from her nap she puts her on the potty and sometimes Nadia pees for her right away. So hopefully it will go better this next time around. Nadia is definitely wanting to go on the potty rather than her diaper. My plan is to resume potty training later this month even though I'll be teaching 2 days a week. I was planning to wait until early July (as I'll be home all the time then), but there are too many tears being shed over peeing and pooping in her diaper for me to wait that long.

11. I'ts almost impossible to keep track of your child's expressive vocabulary once it exceeds 400 words. My plan had been to try to keep a list as best I could until she turned 2 years old. Well I've decided to cry uncle. She is adding soooo many words to her expressive vocabulary every day. Many verbs such as cut, help, carry, coming, running, etc. She also can say the names of most of her cousins and most of the VeggieTale characters. If she hears one of them singing (we have several VeggieTale cd's) she can accurately identify the character - Junior, Laura, Larry, Bob, Lunt, Jimmy, Jerry, etc. If she sees a picture of a cousin she will often point to the person and say his name (ex. "Andrew"). She's also saying longer words such as one she said today was "refrigerator."

12. Ian takes great naps in the Snugli or car seat. He usually only sleeps an average of 40 minutes for each nap in his crib, but he will sleep for up to even a couple of hours in the Snugli and/or carseat - even if the car is parked in our garage after a shopping trip.

13. Our alarm clock (which I've had for several years) has a button that you press when the time springs forward and it adjusts the time forward one  hour, and then in the fall you press it again to have the time go back. Brilliant! Nadia was the one who pressed the button yesterday. The clock is a "no no," but I'm grateful she helped me discover this feature. We have to change the time on our VCR/DVD player four times a year now that they changed the dates of DST as the time changes automatically on the old dates.We also have 3 analog clocks that we adjust the old fashioned way twice a year. I'm glad the computers adjust on their own.

14. Play-doh trumps a lot of things - even chocolate ice cream. I am not sure how long it will stay THAT high on Nadia's list, but between that and outside time, she definitely didn't notice that she didn't watch much tv today.

15. Sippy cups can be a nuissance. I plan to transition Nadia to a regular cup when we get back from Florida. She leaves them lying on their side or upside down and sometimes milk still spills out. Plus sometimes we have to play a long game of hide and seek to find where she put her cup. I've had enough! I remember at this point last year being concerned that she'd never learn how to use one. Well it was useful for a time, but now it's time to move on. I also plan to switch from 2% to skim milk in June and also try to get her to start drinking more water.

16. Blogging is important to me. Last night when I came home from choir rehearsal I had three choices: go straight to bed, grade some final exams, or blog. I chose to blog. However, sleep is also rather important so I decided to split this into two posts so that I could go to bed around 9pm. I'm not 100% sure who all reads the blog. I know that my mom, Paul's mom, and my friends Jeanie and Donna read it on a regular basis, because they have told me that they do. Frequent comments from Joy and Regina lead me to believe they do as well. Beyond that I am not really sure who all reads it, but even if it's just a handful, it's something I do enjoy keeping up with. Of course grading is also important. I did finish grading the Tuesday exams today and have started grading the ones I gave yesterday. Since I'm only teaching two classes this semester, it means I'm over half-way done!