Bread and Butter

Nadia is studying American history this year. We started with the Vikings and then progressed to Columbus and then to the Pilgrims, Jamestown, etc. Next week we'll be focusing on Ben Franklin. I've been reading books to her about this time period, and I have learned (or maybe relearned) a few things along the way. For example, did you know that young children wore a pillow around their middle called a "pudding" to protect them when they fell down? Today Nadia had a slight glimpse of how much harder life was during the colonial period because she helped to make some butter. She wanted to know if she'd ever have to do that again (because it was so hard). All she did was shake whipping cream in a jar, but it did take a lot of shaking to turn it into butter. She also helped me make yeast bread, which also tied in with our theme the past two weeks of Jesus is the Bread of Life, Nadia enjoyed seeing everyone eat her rolls with butter at dinner. Naturally, she also wanted some apple butter on it, but that was very fitting since our jar was cooked over a fire at the Heritage Days event last weekend. She enjoyed punching down the dough after

it had risen the first time. I think she enjoyed making bread much more than making butter. The recipe we used was from a cook book that my Grandma gave me for my 12th birthday (1984). 99% of the time I use the internet for recipes, but that is one cook book I plan to keep for the rest of my life because of its sentimental value. My Grandma taught me to make yeast bread, and now I am teaching my daughter. Priceless.

Oliver has been regressing the last several days in his potty training. He's been having more and more accidents (5 today), and he's actually making puddles on the floor, which he hadn't done in almost two weeks. It's been rather frustrating. Right after he has an accident he'll tell me "froggy potty." The most frustrating times have been when this happens less than 5 minutes after I just had him on the potty. I have no idea why he has been regressing, but I hope he gets back in gear because I don't want him to do this in the nursery on Tuesday morning or in his class at church on Sunday or Wednesday. Thus far he hasn't had any accidents in either church, and he's been

wearing underwear for 18 days, but I'm nervous about Sunday morning. The positives would be that he sometimes tells me when he needs to go soon enough that I can get him on the potty before he has an accident (that happened again this evening), and he stayed dry last night (and then peed on the potty as soon as we came downstairs this morning), and he stayed dry during his nap (but then didn't go when I put him on the potty and shortly after that had an accident). I've bought M&M's and Hershey kisses as the reward for pooping on the potty, but neither of those have done the trick. He loves getting Goldfish crackers after he pees on the froggy potty. I am going to try buying some small toys to give him as a reward for peeing on the regular toilet OR for pooping on either the froggy or the regular toilet. Hopefully that will help. I got really spoiled with how easy it was to potty train Ian, but on the other hand, it is a million times easier to feed Oliver. As long as I do the laundry every other day, I have enough "wear" (as he calls it) and pants for Oliver.