Canadian Thanksgiving - so much to be thankful for!

Since my last blog post, we decided to go and get Adam a costume at the Disney Store as well. He had been talking so much about the Olaf costume, and while we were fairly certain he only wanted Nathan to put it on again, we decided that if there was even a SMALL chance that he wanted a costume of his own, we needed to jump on it! So, I had a very pleasant trip to the mall with Adam. I love going on outings with just him (if it's to a place he likes to go, of course! Hair cuts and doctor's visits are not necessarily included in this!). He is so quiet and just observes everything around him, and on this trip, he discovered escalators! He actually stepped on the escalator all on his own - braver than I was at a much older age, that's for sure! We went and picked out a Jake and the Neverland Pirates costume, but he has unfortunately not agreed to put it on yet:-/. I'll try again in a while. I want him to think it's fun, like it's fun when Nathan wears his costume, so I'm trying not to force it. He is starting to have opinions on some things now - like which pajamas he wears, and what color toothpaste he wants (we have three colors to choose from), and I was told today that he has independently joined the craft table at preschool 2 days in a row. I know he's making progressions, but as that 5th birthday looms ahead, I can't help but wonder if he is still falling further and further behind where his peers are. According to the charts they show me at preschool he is not falling further behind, but I have a hard time imagining him in a Kindergarten setting less than a year from now! We will keep plugging along and trying to encourage him to communicate and socialize, what more can we do! Worrying certainly doesn't do any good.

Nathan is getting into a bit of an, "I will do it" stage. It's not too bothersome yet, just small things like car seat buckles and putting his boots on, but it could be expanding, who knows! He loves to play in the car and the van, and apparently he needs more supervision because the other day Brian pulled 4 DVDs out of the van DVD player:-/. Oops! Yesterday, there was a quarter precariously perched in the dvd slot and I inadvertently pushed it in while trying to pull it out, ugh. Hopefully we can fix it, but for now it's actually kind of nice to not have movies in the van. I get to use the excuse that it's broken and I can listen to the radio more:). I will not be using a happy face if it's still out of commission on our first big road trip. It will be fixed by then, one way or another!

I guess I should do a potty training update . . . Last week, I was ready to give up. Monday was a particularly bad day. How long can a person rinse out tiny, poopy shorts before they lose their mind!! I really thought I had reached my limit, but we decided that we should keep going for a while longer. He has to catch on to poop sometime! Pee is getting slowly better, he doesn't have a lot of just pee accidents, and is often dry at night (maybe every 3 or 4 nights, and the night that he does pee, it's just a little bit). I have gotten smarter about putting diapers on him when he goes to the gym childcare (was I ever thankful for that on Tuesday, phew!!) and even at naptime - he doesn't pee, but just in case he waits until naptime to poop which he does do sometimes, it has saved me from a very undesirable task! So we're sticking with it, but I'm not a diaper nazi - he wears one when I feel like it makes my life easier!

We had Lynsey's parent/teacher conference today. I usually leave these conferences feeling either a bit deflated/discouraged, or mildly hopeful that things are improving from the last conference. This was the most encouraging conference we have been to with our Lynsey yet! She is solidly where she should be in all the categories of the reading assessment that they do - like, off the charts in the green! Her teacher says she is very strong in math and is self-motivated when she gets to school - while she waits for others to get settled into their desks, she pulls out a workbook and does some work. What?! Apparently she's "that kid" in that she is often telling other kids to get going to their desks so class can start, and lecturing ones that aren't following the rules. Wow! I asked how she was at sitting still, since this was a struggle for the last two years, and he said it was no problem at all. She is great at following rules and the only behavior suggestion he had for her was that she needed to be a bit better with raising her hand in class before blurting out the answers:). Something she needs to work on for sure, but I'm thrilled that she has so much enthusiasm! Now we just have to do our best to nurture this self motivation by not turning school into an undesirable chore - how we would LOVE for her to continue this love for learning and reading!

Some picture explanations - we had an owl in our backyard the other day! I thought that was pretty cool:). He just hung out for about an hour and then left, and we haven't seen him since. Hope he comes back! Lynsey and I got some cool Jamberry nail stickers, had to show them off! Oh of course - we had a Canadian Thanksgiving celebration here on Sunday! Our friends from Calgary and Australia joined us and we had a wonderful dinner! How thankful am I that we now have friends to share these holidays with - feels a lot less lonely, that's for sure!