cool tricks

talan loves to stack cups, thanks to yo gabba gabba. however, he does this with the bathroom cups and it drives me nuts. he actually started this quite awhile ago...and if my brain actually worked i might recall if i posted a blog about this long ago. he stopped doing it, but today he decided to pick the habit back up again. hopefully it will be short lived. but boy is he proud of himself once all of the cups are stacked.

talan's first movie

this evening, the whole family (plus jess, justin, dad and tina) went to see toy story 3. the boys have been really into toy story and toy story 2 for over a year now so they couldn't wait to see toy story 3 in the theater!
i figured that with as much as talan loves the toy story movies, this would be the perfect one to take him to for his very first movie theater experience.
he did a great job and mostly sat and stayed quiet through the whole movie. he did get up and want to sit on someone's lap toward the end, but he was great!
everyone loved the movie and the boys asked if they could see it again another day!

wasn't this in a scene in e.t.?

talan loves coming out of the bathroom after his bath with his animal towels on. and he insists on going into the living room to either bark like a dog, roar like a dragon or bite like a shark (depending on the towel, of course) every single time.
today, however, he went into his room and i couldn't find him.

cowboy talan

many times talan does not want me to take his picture. however, when he is in the mood, he likes to strike as many poses as possible. today was one of those days.

officially potty trained

talan has had pretty much zero interest in potty training. and as much as i think diapers are way more convenient than a kid in underwear, i figured it was about time to get him potty trained.
so we decided to stay in for an entire week, just like we did with hayden, until we knew he was good and trained! he actually got it SO much quicker than i ever thought he would. actually, on day 1 he pretty much had it down. he even pooped on the toilet which was pretty surprising to me. hayden refused to poop on the toilet and would just wait until nap time when he had a pull up on to do his business. that lasted for awhile.
talan has had a few accidents, but nothing too major. and on day 2, he did actually hide in a corner and pooped in his underwear to which he very quickly realized that was a BIG no-no. and he hasn't done it ever since.
the way i have trained both boys is to tell them the nite before training that this is the last diaper and then stick to it. from them on, it's underwear except at nap and bed time. then at nap time, i put a pull up on talan and told him that it was "nite-nite underwear" and that we DO NOT pee or poop in our underwear. he looked at them and said..."this is a diaper!" then i showed him that he puts it on just like regular underwear so... it's underwear. as he was putting his feet in he felt it and realized it did feel a little more diaper like and he said "this is fluffy underwear!"
talan has actually done a great job at even keeping his pull up dry at nap and bed time. he wakes up on a very regular basis dry which is another huge accomplishment. again, something hayden didn't do for quite a long time after being trained.
we have been out in public several times now, and have even had to use a couple of restrooms and talan has done a great job. no accidents in public so far!
as much as i hate public bathrooms, it has been pretty nice being back to just 1 kid in diapers!
great job, talan!!!

the real deal

talan decided that a blow up guitar just wasn't good enough. so this evening, he and dave started rocking out...talan on drums and dave on guitar when he apparently wanted to switch things up. talan LOVED playing dave's guitar and he even played right handed!! guess we'll be having to get him a guitar soon....

stuck

today i heard a call from talan in the basement telling me he was stuck. i immediately knew where he was stuck so i brought my camera down. i was right.

when he's not drummin', he's guitarin'

most of the time talan doesn't want me taking pictures of him. but today, while taking a few pictures of london (imagine that!) talan told me to take some pictures of him playing his guitar.
he's got some hot moves and he just wanted me to take some pictures so he could then look at them.
and yes...he plays guitar left handed. everything else he does right handed, but he always has the guitar the opposite way.

3 year check up

we brought talan in to the dr. for his 3 year check-up and london in for her 2 month check-up today. i wasn't quite sure how it would go with me taking both of the little ones (mostly talan) to the dr. on my own, but thankfully dave left work early today and met us up at the dr.'s office.
talan actually did really well. he held onto our new little "tag-along" thing on the stroller the whole time we were walking, and he wasn't nearly as crazy as he normally can get in the office.
he stood up on the scale (but didn't want me to take his picture) and then was measured up against the wall. then we all headed back to the room where they both got undressed and waited for dr. newcombe to come in.
talan used to see dr. newcombe ALL the time between ear infections and his old man smoker's cough. but he hasn't had to be in to see her since his 2 year check-up! what a great year!
talan's tubes are still in his ears and he doesn't have any drainage. and everything else looks good and healthy as well.
he weighed in at 35 pounds which puts him at about the 80th% and was 38 1/2 inches which puts him at about the 75th%.
i thought he was a little tall as the pj's i just put on him the other day for the first time were floods.

the best shot i could get of him on the scale:
always a showmen:


london already knows he's crazy:

and so it begins. kind of.

i know that is time for talan to begin potty training. i'm ready...i'm not sure how ready he is though. hayden was pretty easy to train but i have a feeling talan will be a bit harder. i've been waiting to have a week where i know we won't have any appointments or anything so we can just stay in all week and train. but today, talan mentioned a couple of times that he had to poop on the potty. of course he didn't really have to, but i figured it was a good day to put some underwear on him and see what happened.
he had MANY accidents all day. and when he would pee in his pants he'd say he pooped in his underwear. he did eventually sit on the toilet for a REALLY long time and he ended up pooping! i figured this was a pretty big step seeing as though even when hayden was trained, he'd still wait until nap time to poop when he could poop in his pull up. a little bit later talan then peed on the toilet. at that point he told me that "water came out." and i then explained that was pee.
we had a big party and he got stickers for his sticker chart, candy and he even got to call grandma.
that is it for the day though. he then continued saying he had to go on the potty, but every time he did, he didn't do anything. and when he wouldn't say anything, he'd end up going in his underwear.
i'm hoping in a couple of weeks we'll be doing the potty training boot camp 1 week...and i'm hoping it goes fairly easily!
man i hate potty training!