monkey gets a prize, beanie gets a tooth.

When we started potty training, we gave Bennet a small, wrapped present for each “success” on the potty. He’d excitedly unwrap a matchbox car, or a coloring book – feeling motivated to make his next trip to the potty in hope of earning another little reward. After a few days, we moved the reward system from a prize every time he used the potty, to M&M’s for using the potty, and a slightly larger present every night if he “stayed dry” all day, with no accidents (thank God for the year I went crazy at the 75% off Target toy sale and stashed away lots of good presents!) Since that couldn’t go on forever either, we then moved to a chart where every day that he “stayed dry” until bedtime, he would get a sticker. After getting five stickers, he’d get to go to one of his favorite places – Marley Bounce Party.

I’ve talked about Marley Bounce Party before, even hosting a giveaway a while back for one of their parties. We love it there, and Bennet was very motivated to get his five stickers and get his “bounce” on! There were a few days in between when there were accidents, and we didn’t get a sticker, but finally the big day came.

Off to Marley Bounce Party we went – meeting Andrew there when he got off work. Bennet had a BLAST, as usual.

I’m so proud of his potty training success – and just as I posted previously about this time around with potty training – you really do have to wait until your kid is ready. Once Bennet was ready – potty training was much easier than I thought it could be. He even motivated his best friend, Zachary, to make the move to big kid underwear! I’m so proud of our little guy!

After our time at Marley Bounce Party, we went to dinner at one of the restaurants in the mall where they have paper on the tables and you can draw on it with crayons. Andrew taught Bennet to play tic-tac-toe, and Bennet had a very nutritious (sarcasm) dinner of mac & cheese and Oreo cookies. I figured it was his big potty celebration night, and I should let him have what he wanted!

Kennedy was terribly grouchy throughout the night, until I gave her the orange from my beer. She chomped and chewed it through all of dinner, back to the car in the stroller, and on the car ride home.

In the days that followed, she was still grouchy, so much so that I had her pediatrician look at her ears at her six-month check-up (more on that later) just to see if she maybe had an ear infection. Last night, we had dinner with friends and again, she cried all through dinner. I was starting to feel at my wits end with her when I fished around in her mouth last night after her bath and found…a tooth! Finally! The presence of this tiny, little tooth on her bottom gum explains the past few days of grumpiness AND gives me quite a bit of relief. I had started to wonder when she would ever get teeth, since Bennet got his first one right around turning four months! I’m so glad her miserable bout with teething is finally producing some results!

We seem to be getting increasingly busy, which is the opposite of what I thought life in the ‘burbs would be! Where is my slower pace?

At the end of the day – busy or not – we have two beautiful, smart babies – and I feel so blessed! We’ve had such a fun week, and I must throw in that a Steelers win really was the icing on the cake around here!

Have a great week, everyone!

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