Goodbye training wheels for one, hello potty training for another!

The last few weeks have been very interesting for this family of ours! Lynsey decided it was time to say good bye to her training wheels, and she is riding her bike like a pro! It took no time at all, she got it right away. This is not something we ever could have tried to force her into, completely her decision, and that is why it worked! She loves riding her bike with the neighbour kids - it's gotten to the point where if there is a day when none of the kids are available to play, she can hardly carry on with the day. Such a social butterfly! I am happy she is enjoying her summer days with the neighbour kids, and it is pretty low maintenance for us. She just goes to the top of the cul-de-sac and rides up there, which we have deemed safe enough for her at her age.

Adam is potty training! Ack! We started Saturday morning. I had been thinking about doing it on this weekend for a while, and on Friday morning, he woke up completely dry! Brian took him to get his blood tests done at the Children's that day, so we didn't start the potty training until the next day. Too much trauma for one day! They did get the blood work done, thank goodness - what a load off my mind. He was totally off the rest of the day, though. Really rough experience, poor kid. So far, he has not made an association between his pee and the potty. He did wake up this morning almost dry, so I knew a big pee was coming. I followed him around all morning until I could him start peeing, and I whisked him to the potty. He kept going and hurray! There was pee in the potty! I tried really hard to be excited and show him the pee, and just generally try to help him see that this was what he was supposed to do, but he did not seem to care too much. I very much wonder how long this process will be. At this point, we're going to keep going with it and just keep trying to catch him when he starts. Several times on Saturday he started peeing just a little bit, but then completely stopped when we brought him to the potty. He seems to have great bladder control, which is working for and against us right now! I do feel cautiously optimistic that this is possible, so I guess we'll see!

Nathan is such a character! He is constantly bringing us books to read and trains to drive, saying "choo choo" the whole time:). He now tells us "ope" when he wants us to open something. Very interactive kid! He has started throwing rice from our rice table and sand from the sand box, so we are trying to redirect him out of these activities. From what we can see, a very typical little 16 month old:). Watching him and Adam interact the last few days has been interesting. It seems Adam is starting to enjoy bugging Nathan a little bit! Nathan had the two soft chairs set up on the couch and was switching back from one to the other. All of a sudden, Adam shows up and sits in one of them. Of course, Nathan immediately vacates the chair he is sitting in and wants to sit in the chair Adam just took. Adam smiles at Nathan while Nathan is pointing at the chair and crying. I am happy to see at least some "normal" interactions between the two of them!