Expect the Unexpected

Oh boy, over memorial day and the following week our house was invaded once again by some travelers. Loren, Luke, and Elise paid us a visit and we had so much fun! They had a seriously packed week, so for Riley's (and my) sake we didn't tag along with all their adventures, but even just hanging out in the house was a good time. Britt and I loved hanging out with Luke and Elise now that they are all grown up. It was so fun to see the people they are now! They are some of those rare teenagers that are actually fun to be with. 

So the crew showed up around 11 pm on Friday night. We chatted for a bit and explained all the house rules, but then it was off to bed because I would have a child waking me up in not many hours. 

Saturday was our only day we would have the whole crew together so we did the easiest thing with a big group, walked around the National Mall. I wanted to get everyone out of the house as early as possible to not delay Riley's nap too much, but that proved to be difficult and not just for the teenagers. Loren came upstairs looking like death, the jet lag was real for these Mountain Timezone people. Britt also wasn't too thrilled with me when I knocked on her door, but we all made it to the cars just 15 minutes after my desired departure. When I looked at the forecast for the week of Loren's visit a few days earlier it said that almost every day was supposed to be rainy! It turned out to be a much nicer week than that, but Saturday was a little rainy in the morning. It ended up probably being a good thing because Loren chose to visit DC on Memorial Day Weekend so it could've been full of people, but as it was it wasn't too crowed. Loren kept us all cracking up through out this trip. Half the things he says makes you roll your eyes, but he always keeps you laughing! For example, at one point a man who may not have been all there walked by use saying loudly over and over, "Expect the unexpected." For the rest of our day Loren would randomly, loudly proclaim, "Expect the unexpected!!" Making it seem like he was the one who wasn't quite there.

As we arrived at the Mall Britt and I both realized we hadn't eaten anything yet and we were real hungry. As we walked by the collection of food trucks a guy let us sample a chicken quesadilla. It was the most effective sampling there has ever been! It was SO good. Britt and I vowed we'd be back for that quesadilla on the round trip. 

There are fences blocking the view of the White House so it wasn't worth the walk all the way up there.

After seeing the White House and the Washington Memorial we headed to the WWII memorial. Luckily, the fountain was back on, unlike when Mel and Kip were here. I felt so bad that they missed out on that experience because the fountain really is the thing that makes that memorial. (But remember Mel, they missed the cherry blossoms!) The sound of the rushing water just takes you out of your surroundings and lets you focus on the sacrifices and suffering that happened during that war. 

The wall they are standing in front of is where you stand and cup your hands behind your ears. When you do that it changes the sound of the water and it's said it sounds like roaring applause for the men and women who helped in the war. 

Just flexing my photography skills.

After WWII we headed to the Vietnam Memorial which turned out to be the highlight of this trip. Since it was Memorial Day Weekend there were a few hundred bikers called the Nam Knights that had come to pay their respects. We figured most were Vietnam veterans and seeing their emotions as they looked at the memorial really made it hit harder than ever before. There were also pictures that had been placed along the bottom of the wall by loved ones, being able to see their faces and not just their names also made it feel more powerful. 

This Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial has quickly become a favorite of mine. It's a little tucked away so you have to search it out, but it's so worth it! It is absolutely beautiful and the solitude of it adds to its affect.

Lukes look of absolute fear when asked to be in charge of a child. ;)

So, as promised, once we checked out all the sights we were going to see this trip we hit up the line of food trucks and enjoyed our delicious quesadilla in the rain. That night at home we played a rousing game of Codenames that nearly got Loren kicked out of the house and also determined that if you want to win you just have to be on Ben's team. 

Sunday and Monday we hardly saw Loren and fam as they took off to museums that had scarce tickets on Sunday and headed up to Gettysburg to connect with Jared Childers on Monday. Good thing I didn't need to get around much either of those day because I don't think Last Minute Loren mapped out all of his planned outings. ;) They went all around the area, they know it better than we do at this point! 

On Tuesday evening I made us a reservation at a place called Ted's Bulletin that was on both mine and Britt's list of places to try. The thing that we were excited about were the Homemade Poptarts and the fact that they serve breakfast all day! Between all of us we got to try almost every poptart they had. We decided the Blueberry Cheesecake was definitely the winner. We also really loved their hashbrowns. Other than that I don't think we were blown away, but it was fun to try a new place. 

On Wednesday Riley and I ventured out with the travelers again. We headed to a place I'd never heard of called Harper's Ferry. Actually I lie, I hadn't heard of it before like 3 days earlier when Britt was saying she wanted to go there. Haha, she was a little peeved I'd be going on a day she had to work, but I told her I'd see if it was worth seeing. It was cool, not sure if it was worth the 50 minute drive out there cool, but hopefully Loren, Luke, and Elise enjoyed it. I may have liked it more with a two year old at my side. It was a little tough trying to keep her reverent in the museum about John Brown. I think the best part of this destination was that I was able to flash my military ID and get my free National Parks pass. That's right! One of the perks I actually enjoy about the military is free entry/parking at any National Park. So, for those that don't know, Harper's Ferry is the place you could say the Civil War revolution began. John Brown was a white man that tried to get the slaves to fight for their freedom by storming the armories. He did not succeed. But his efforts are appreciated by this town. Another claim to fame is that Lewis and Clark stopped at Harpers Ferry for a month to prepare for their journey and gather all the supplies they needed. They spent some of that time trying to make a boat they could fold up and carry with them and then assemble as needed. The boat did not work. But their efforts were sure appreciated. This town has a lot of stories that don't end quite how you'd like them, but they are proud of them all the same. There was also a confusing memorial in the town paid for by the Sons and Daughters of the Confederacy. Apparently, the first person killed by the John Brown conflict was a free black man. So the S&Ds of the Confederacy bought a memorial honoring him...it was a very confusing statement on the memorial and we weren't really sure how we were supposed to feel about it, but it didn't feel good. Here's a wiki link about it I just found, kind of interesting. Memorial Wiki

Just chilling in an old building looking cute.

Not sure climbing on a memorial is encouraged, but I just took a pic before intervening :) 

One of the nice views at Harper's Ferry

Thursday was our last full day with the Messerly crew and we finally did something Riley actually enjoyed...we went to the Zoo! This was the first time Riley had been to the zoo where she was old enough to appreciate what was going on. I'll let the picture below tell you how she felt about it....

This girl was on cloud nine the whole time at the zoo. The first animal we saw was a tiger that was pacing around its habitat and yowling over and over. The rest of the day she kept talking about the tiger and it's tiger sounds. One downer of the trip was that we weren't able to secure tickets to see the baby panda, but that didn't get Riley down. She loved the big Panda status that were all over the zoo more than she would've just seeing a panda from afar. 

Hugging the panda with Cousin Luke.

She loved them so much on the walk back to the car she kept requesting to stop and see each one. Luke was driving the stroller at the point and sweetly took her up to each one so she could touch it. He also made sure she got under every little misting station which she also loved.

Riley LOVED the elephants. She talked for days after about how the elephant was using it's trunk to throw dust on its back and belly. She also really liked the antelope thing that she thought was a reindeer. 

Thursday also happened to be Ben and my 5 year anniversary! In celebration I made pizza, and one I shaped in the form of a heart. Half with pepperoni and half Hawaiian representing half Ben and half me. Well I took a picture of it and sent it to Ben because he was going to be home late and that pizza would probably be gone by the time he got home. That text ended up providing some laughs because instead of saying that 'IT won't exist by the time you're home' I had typed 'I won't exist by the time you're home.' Presumably thinking that I'd had a rough day he responded, 'I won’t know what to do with the Hawaiian half with you gone, so hang in there!' When I looked back and realized my typo it gave me a good chuckle.  

After dinner Loren and Luke experience the never-ending energy of Riley. They started a game of Keepy Uppy and didn't realize that Riley would never let them stop! It was very enjoyable so I have a few videos for you to watch. 

Their visit was a lot of fun and we were so glad they came to visit! It was so fun for Loren to get to know his niece and Luke and Elise to know their cousin. Loren got to appreciate how many times Riley will say a sentence that gets in her mind, her love of books, and her absolute love of Paw Patrol. While Loren was at the house he ordered another stuffed Paw Patrol to be delivered, Everest, one of her favorites. When she opened it she was initially very excited, but then soon started saying, "Rubble will be my last surprise." Hahaha she had just gotten a surprise and had already decided she needed just one last surprise. That's very in character. (I have to add that a few days after Loren left a Rubble arrived at our door. Thanks Uncle Loren!) 

Something else we learned in this trip is that Loren has a phone from the 90s. Look at this would be cute video of Bo and Riley playing...the video quality is a travesty! 

It was also really fun for Britt and I to get to know Luke and Elise better as teenagers. They are basically adults now and sometimes we still think of them as those adorable little kids! It was super fun to see that they are really good kids and fun to hang out with. 

He Is Mother Shout Hooray!

If you can't tell from the title this blog post will be a combination of Easter, Mothers Day, and Ben's Birthday. We didn't party too hard on any of these holidays so they didn't seem to need their own posts, but we did take pictures I wanted to post so I figured this was the best option.

On the Saturday before Easter we invited over our friends Calan, Josh, and Owen. Owen is just a month younger than Riley so we thought maybe it'd be fun for him to come over for a little Easter Egg hunt and dye some eggs. The egg hunt was definitely a good time, but the dying eggs was definitely a stressful time. At one point Owen's parents just let him drink the vinegary colored liquid to try and show him it wasn't actually yummy, but it didn't really deter him much! I thought Riley would love being allowed to play with eggs because she often tries to get into them when I'm using them to cook, but she only wanted to grab the eggs that were soaking in the cups. It was a pretty tearful afternoon. 

On Sunday I set out a basket for Riley and hid two baskets for Britt and Ben. Riley was thrilled with one specific item in her basket, Paw Patrol fruit snacks. She didn't even know they were fruit snacks. She just knew it was a little bag with her favorite pups on it. Oh! I almost forgot! I actually started Easter the most Easterly way possible! I saved a bunnies life! I opened our back door and saw a fox in our backyard! I was totally thrown, but then as the fox is staring at me I see a little bunny bolt from one of the bushes near the fox and run across the street while the fox retreats the other way. It was wild! (Although I can't save all the bunnies. A few months later as I was mowing the lawn I discovered a bunny carcass.) :(

Mid chew after discovering the eggs were filled with treats!

I have almost no memory of what we did for Ben on his birthday. He worked on his actual birthday, but we tried to make the Saturday before a special day. He'd spoiled me so much on my birthday that I wanted to return the favor, but either I'm easier to please or he just knows me better because other than food related surprises I couldn't think of much. I attempted to make a special breakfast of beignets. I don't like the smell oil leaves when you fry stuff so even though Ben had bought a beignet mix a long time ago we'd never made them. Well either that mix being so old really affected the taste or it wasn't as good as it claimed because they were very mediocre tasting, but Ben and Britt claimed they were good. For his present I bought him a big computer screen for him since he's often said he wished he could have two things up at once for working purposes. Well once I gave him that present he was so excited about it he spent the next few hours of his birthday celebration day doing work on it. It's hard to pamper him much. The one thing I can do on his birthday is make a sheet cake, so we had sheet cake to celebrate our doctor entering his thirties! 

For Mother's Day I didn't require much. We've never really done gifts on Mother's or Father's day, probably because I have to reduce the amount of times a year I need to try and come up with a gift for Ben. :) All I wanted for Mother's day was a cute picture with Riley which does require some real effort! With Britt behind the camera and Ben providing smiling material we came out with a few darling pictures! 

Ben was demonstrating giving Mama a kiss for a picture, and Britt captured the cute little moment

Sooooo Happy Easter Birth Mother's Day! 

Gotta Go Gotta Go Gotta Go Right Now

Fresh off our trip from Utah I decided to tackle one of the most anticipated moments of toddlerhood. Potty training! Riley was getting more and more difficult about diaper changes (or so I thought...I learned later that Ana had to change Elena standing up for the longest time because she wouldn't lay down). Riley just never wanted to stop playing to let me change her diaper so she wouldn't tell me when she was dirty and she would get bad rashes. I kept thinking in the back of my head that I just wanted to get this over with, I didn't want potty training to be hanging over my head anymore. Ben and I had purchased a little toilet for Riley a long time ago just trying to get her used to the idea, but all our casual attempts of sitting her on the toilet yielded no results. So, on May 1st with my kindle app at the ready and Ben away for weekend on retreat I told Riley that we were done with diapers and she'd now be using the toilet. 

The unfortunate casualty in all this was Britt. Although she tried, she didn't get much say in how this all down, but every moment the child was diaper-less she felt absolute terror. I knew that Britt was terrified that anything she regularly used would be soiled, but there were more precious things upstairs than down so I tried to force Riley downstairs all the first day, which happens to be Britt's lair. The book I was following tells you get your child naked (or at least bottomless) and watch your child 24/7 in the first step of the process. Luckily, Riley's first step didn't last too long, thank goodness, because it was exhausting. It was nice at first to have an excuse to not accomplish anything because I was potty training, but then I would have to get Riley a snack and I'd be trying to do it as fast as possible to not miss her going. Once nap time came I felt a ridiculous amount of relief putting a diaper back on her. Constantly staring at someone waiting for them to start peeing in a rough life. I was also pumping her full of fluid as the book suggests so that you can have plenty of chances to practice during the day. It took a while, but eventually she went...and I totally missed it. I saw it happening, but by the time I got to her she was done. Well it still served the purpose of showing her when we don't have a diaper on pee ends up on us and on the floor. After the second time of a puddle ending up on the floor something seemed to click and Riley started doing amazing! I tried to look for signs of her needing to go to the bathroom on day two, but she would run to the toilet before I even said anything! It was only day two and she was already self initiating! I was amazed! 

I decided she could move up to step two on the third day which just meant she was allowed to have pants on. After an initial accident in the morning she breezed through phase two as well! By the fourth day I was hardly worried about her at all. She'd have, and still does, undies that get a little damp before she would realize she needs to run to the toilet, but I still count it as a win. But, then came phase 3 (there are 6 phases...I don't actually remember them all) short outings outside the house. That's what terrified me. Being out and about with a toddler without the security of the diaper. Luckily, we've never had a problem! Riley seemed to take after her mother and just tried to hold it all in when we were out and about because she wasn't going to go anywhere other than her toilet at home. Although, with an upcoming trip a few weeks away I realized I needed to start having practice with outings where she successfully used a toilet other than her little one. I bought a little portable frog toilet cover that makes the toilet more Riley's size. So Andrew, you have a cousin who would understand your call for frog meaning it's bathroom time! Riley is nervous about loud noises and some new things so I was sure the transition to a big toilet would be difficult, but man did that frog do the trick. Our first week at church with a potty trained kid went flawlessly, other than the fact the Riley enjoyed her time on the toilet so much we missed half of the sacrament. Ah the joys of determining if your child really needs the bathroom or just wants an excuse to get out of church or nap time. 

I was also very relieved that she went #2 in the toilet without any problem as well! I know plenty of people have their kid totally potty trained with pee, but for whatever reason they will not poop in the toilet. (Not pointing any fingers...) So to have her totally breeze through that milestone as well did not go unnoticed! 

A week or so into potty training I started thinking about nighttime training. The book I was reading said it was better to do it at the same time, but understandably some people don't want to deal with all of it at once. Well after seeing her doing so go at the daytime stuff this big part of me wanted to just be able to get diapers out of our life completely. So, I reread the chapter on nighttime training and reminded myself that to this lady Riley was on the older end of the spectrum of when she says to start all this stuff so I told myself that had to mean she could be ready for sleeping through the night without an accident. The process for night training was to wake up your child two times during the night to put them in the toilet. So at 10 pm and 2 am I set alarms to wake her up. These were definitely the darkest times of potty training. It was so frustrating to try and find the right timing, based on the previous night I would change the alarms to 11 and 3 only to find that I was too late and so I'd change it back to earlier, but then nothing would come out. It was so frustrating, mainly because she's not going to go at the exact same time each night! Trying to catch it was the worst. After a week or two of waking up in the middle of the night I had a moment of nearly grabbing the diapers again. Britt was literally the only person who believed in Riley enough to tell me to keep going. Mom and Ana thought the whole concept was crazy and had just lived by the you take the diaper away once your kid naturally wakes up dry. Ben told me the AAP thought kids could go without a diaper at night by 3 years old. But Britt would constantly tell me Riley was "advanced" and that she could figure it out. Well after slowly moving that 2 am wake up to 3 and 3:30 without accidents gave me real hope! Finally I moved it to 4 am, but that morning Riley almost didn't go back to sleep! So, I decided 3:30 was as close to her normal wake up time as I could take it and just got rid of that wake up call completely. Well, miracle of miracles it worked! The first few nights she woke herself up around 5:30 or 6 to tell us she needed to go to the bathroom, but since then she's just woken up at her normal time and just needed to go in the morning. I do still put her on the toilet before I go to bed, but it's not a big enough inconvenience to me to try and get rid of it since it's working. 

Our motto through this whole thing was, "Pee is sterile." Every time Britt would freak out about me having to clean up a mess or the danger of Riley running around without undies on we'd remind her that pee is sterile. So much so that I have seriously considered making a cross-stitch that says that to hang in the bathroom. :)

So there you have it, a very boiled down version of the adventure we've all been on the past month. It's still not perfect. Riley is still in a crib so there is a lot more in and out at bedtime than there used to be. There is still the occasional accident. Sometimes it feels like life was easier in diapers, but that's raising a kid man. Every milestone is exciting because it means a step closer to independence, but it also means way more havoc because they don't know how to use that independence yet. I can't wait for my baby to crawl because then they can reach the toys and things they want without my help. Oh, but now they can reach other things. I can't wait for my baby to walk so I don't always have to carry them. Oh, well now everything I don't want the baby to get to has to move up another two feet. I can't wait for my baby to eat solid food and not be so dependent on me. Now I'm putting together 6 meals a day, trying to make them some what nutritious, and the amount of stains on her clothes just tripled. 

After writing most of this post as if potty training was behind us Riley started struggling with getting to the toilet before she got some in her undies. The classic not wanting to stop playing until it's too late. Then we went to Idaho and she had a totally new toilet situation and it got even worse, but we started implementing scheduled toilet time and it's improved things. I guess even once you think your kid is potty trained there may be some more learning ahead. Well since you have sat through this whole boring potty training story here are some cute pictures of Riley to reward you. 

The Many Smiles Of Riley

El Fin