Happy 18 Months to Bryce

Today is Bryce's 1 year and a half birthday. Time has flown by so fast. He is becoming such a big boy. He can read books to himself. He often turns the pages and babbles about what he thinks the words are saying. He can talk in 3 word sentences. His favorite word has to be Why and Have a nice day. (smile) He is getting better at being able to brush his teeth and often times wants to do it on his own. He lets me know when he wants do something on his own by saying "Mine" and lets me know when he needs help by signing and saying "help". He enjoys playing with balls and his laptop. He repeats everything that is said on his laptop. He also knows how to count to 5 and how to say 4 letters of the alphabet song, ABCD. He is showing signs of being ready to potty train. He lets me know when he is wet or when he has a poopy diaper. He enjoys sitting on the potty at daycare and at home, but he rarely actually goes. I still think I am going to attempt to start potty training him sometime next week. This is the age that I started with Myles. He knows most of his body parts, everything on his face (eyes, ears, etc) his head, knees and his shoulder. He loves to sing. His favorite song is twinkle twinkle little star. He is an amazing little boy. But the crying fits and tantrums have definitely started. He throws things when he is mad. And screams and has a great fake cry. But all in all he is a great growing boy. He will have his 18 month check up next month and we will see how big he is. He had his 15 month check up when he was 16 months and he weighed 21lbs and was 29in long. He is now in 18 month clothing so I know he is a bit bigger than his last appointment. The things that are ahead for Mr. Bryce are definitely potty training. I would also like for him to get involved in a toddler sport program. I can't imagine that 18 months ago I had a newborn in my hands. Looking at old photos and even ultrasound pictures and thinking how fast the time flies.

Happy 18 months Bryce Nicholaus OmoOla Oluwaseyi Adekoya

Looking

Trying to start a trend where I am updating this blog at least once a week, and definitely on Fridays.

Today we received our tax return money. I am relieved. We will be able to catch up and even go ahead on some bills as well as get other needed things for ourselves, kids, and apartment.

I am betting this will not be a long blog post just because I do not have much to say. I will say that just in these few days of my distance from fb and twitter and mainly my birth board groups on facebook, I have had time to get a few things done. I have been able to clip and organize my coupons a bit better as well as send some coupons that I will not need to people who will use them. I have also taken time to write here, of course, and time to decorate the boys room a bit. I have put artwork that they get from school up in their room on the walls. The idea just came to me. (laugh). I guess I will have a lot of ideas coming to me because I will not be sitting on the computer or on my phone staring at facebook. It is liberating. But I do still find myself looking. I am looking for someone who has the same interest as I do, someone who has similar struggles, someone with a similar background. See now I have taken away my main way of socializing, facebook, but I have not replaced it with anything as of yet. So I do feel a bit empty because of it. But I know as I find other things that interest me, and I began to take part in other activities that I will find moms, and women that I can find true friendship in. I do have a few friends. But I just can not seem to find the time to spend time with them. I think maybe I need to work with the friends I do have instead of searching for new ones. I can not seem to keep up with the few I do have, so why am I looking?

Update...

Hi, there.

Again I find myself updating after an extended period of time. I continue to say that I will do better about coming on here, and then I taper off. Now I am sure I will at least update once a week on this blog. I love reading the blog post that I have written in the past. So I am hoping that will motivate me to write things out on here. Plus, writing things out has always helped me. I guess we will start with an update of each of us.

Myles
Myles is a growing boy. He is so smart and has a great over all personality. He has been having some struggles at school. He seems to be looking for attention by doing negative things in the classroom. I do not think that it helps that he sees other children participate in negative behavior and in turn get special one-on-one attention because of it. At home we are trying to reward him for the good things that he does so that he understands that it is good behavior that gets rewarded not bad behavior. Nevertheless, it can be a be hard to reinforce because of the school situation. I really wish we could afford the lovely Montessori school that is around here. I think he would benefit from the structure of the school as well as the way learning is obtained. We are thinking of getting him a chore chart and starting him out with weekly awards to reinforce good behavior. Besides a few behavioral problems Myles is doing well.

Bryce
Bryce will be 18 months in about 16 days. Time is passing by so fast. He is really smart. He knows how to say and sign so many words. He also knows how to say some of the alphabet as well as how count to 4. This month I will be starting potty training with Bryce. I will attempt to do it the same way I did with Myles at this age. Go straight to underwear and do the 3 day method of training. He already goes pee on the potty at school so I do not see this potty training being a problem with him. Bryce will also be turning to forward facing this month. He has been in his infant car seat from the beginning. At his 15 month check-up he still did not exceed the weight recommendations to be out of his infant car seat. So I just kept him in it. I figure by 18 months, and with the tax return money we can buy him a nice new forward-facing car seat. Myles was turned around about this age as well. Bryce is showing some signs of the terrible twos. He has started throwing some fits. I think his fits are a bit exaggerated as well because he has seen what Myles is capable of, in terms of the length and type of tantrum. But on the other hand, Bryce has better language skills than Myles had at this age, so he knows how to communicate his needs better which helps with cutting down confusion. He does not get frustrated often because he can communicate his wants and needs. I think most tantrums at this age is do to frustration because they feel like no one understands what they want or need. We normally understand Bryce very well, and if there is a time where we don't Myles normally can explain what he thinks Bryce is trying to say.

Ola
I am not too sure what to update when it comes to Ola. I guess the first thing that needs to be said is that he is indeed back in school. Yes! Yay! I am so happy about this. School is really important to me, and it is also really important to his mother and father. I am really glad that he has chosen to make it an importance in his life. He is taking classes at the local community college. He will apply to be accepted back in to his university this summer. I am excited about this. I think he deserves to finish his degree. Also he got a promotion at his job in December. This is also good news to him. Working and providing for his family is something that makes him really happy. It also makes him happy that his new promotion means that I do not have to work as hard at my job. Other than that, I can not think of anything else that I would have to say about him. I will say, that he and I have been doing really well. He is learning how to be a good partner for me and a great father for the boys. For him it is all a learning process and I see his willingness to learn has increased in these past months.

Me
First I am happy to announce that Ola and I are getting married. As for right now the date is set for next year, July 6th, 2013. We are really excited about this. We will be going ring shopping the Wednesday after Valentine's day. Also, I am now taking classes that will go towards my Masters in Counseling Psychology. I have mixed feeling about this. I am happy that I am taking this step but I also have some doubts about myself and whether I am capable of actually doing this while being a full-time mother of two, planning a wedding, working, etc. I need to find the confidence in myself and get it together. There seems to be so many people who have confidence in me, I just need to find it in myself. I am also having an issue with not working as many hours as I worked last year. It felt good to work and be able to provide for my family. I am having a hard time depending on Ola financially. It is silly really, but I was raised to be independent and I am having trouble feeling like what's his is really ours. I have always treated the situation the other way around. What's mine is ours but what's his is really his. Silly I know. I have been this way in our relationship for as long as I can remember, actually from the beginning. He has always tried to change this but he has never been able to. But now that we live together and we depend so much on each other, I really do need to change this. When I look at all of this, it seems like I am the one that is struggling with a lot of the change that is going on around here. My children are great, and my relationship is moving forward and yet I feel stagnate. Silly. I would like to blame this on motherhood, why not, can't you blame everything on motherhood? But it truly does not have anything to do with motherhood. It has to do with me. Because of this, and other things, I have chosen to take a step back from the online social networks that I am involved in such as Facebook and Twitter. I need to find time for the things I need to do and things I want to do, such as reading, scrapbooking, and blogging amongst other things.

Wow! That was one mouthful of an update. (Smile). I am glad to be able to come here and update.