Life as a Leach

This was the conversation Caleb and I had in my room last night shortly before bedtime: Caleb: Mommy, I want to watch cartoons. Me: When do we watch cartoons, Caleb? Caleb: When Mommy is in the shower. Me: That's right. I'm not in the shower, so you're not going to watch cartoons right now. Caleb (without missing a beat): Please go take a shower, please! Yes, Matt and I did laugh A LONG TIME at this one! Side Note: When Caleb REALLY wants something, it is always asked for using a "please sandwich." Example: "Please go take a shower, please!" You know he's serious if he uses the please sandwich!

I follow a blog pretty regularly...while the bulk of the blog is devoted to the medical treatment of her son Stellan, she did take the time to post a great blog about her experience with potty training. She has 4 children, 2 were potty trained before age two, one is currently training, and one is still in diapers (that's Stellan, and with all of his issues, I doubt if she'll be pushing for early potty training!) While nothing that she wrote was especially earth shattering, she did give me some good reminders about the whole process. I'll be starting soon with Caleb...in 33 school days in fact! :) I haven't actually bought any "big boy underwear" yet, but I have started to stock up on Poop Prizes! Caleb is so good at going pee on the potty now that I don't think he needs any extrinsic rewards for that. I have a feeling that pooping might be a little more difficult, so I have gotten some small prizes to keep on hand for those times! I think the first ...

So, Caleb is really getting into this praying thing. A few days ago he thanked God TWICE for his basketball hoop (I'm still not sure what that is...we don't have a basketball hoop except for in the bath tub and he didn't take a bath that night...). Last night, he thanked God for the library, Jump Bunch, and his wipes container with the Lightning McQueen sticker on it. The library and Jump Bunch I can understand; afterall, he does do both of those things every week! But the wipes container??? I guess we're all thankful for different things... :) I remember two Thanksgivings ago when Owen was talking about what he was thankful for. I distinctly recall his gratitude over his kitchen cabinets and Parker's two beds. KIDS! :)

I have changed the permissions so that anyone can post comments now. You don't have to have a blogger account to post now. I honestly didn't know that it was set up to require that people have a blogger account. Sorry about that...I fully expect to see tons of blog comments now... :)

Our next door neighbor, Wally, is an avid VW car collector. He just got a new Bug that is painted to look like Herby the Love Bug. Caleb absolutely LOVES it and points it out whenever we drive by his house. Recently, we began praying with Caleb before bed. Mostly, he just repeats what we say. After repeating some "God bless ______," Matt asked Caleb if he wanted to thank God for anything else. He promptly bowed his head and said, "God bless Herby the Love Bug!" :) It made us both laugh silently while trying to stay serious. Last day of Spring Break...*sigh* I will miss my sweet boy. We have had a lot of fun together this last week!

After a fabulous Easter dinner of pizza and shrimp salad at my parents' house (we were all away this week and decided to go simple...and I don't think anyone missed the big hoopla at all!), the Leach clan headed home and got right to work putting the toddler bed together. It really wasn't as hard as I'd thought, and Caleb loved "helping." We got the bed upstairs and switched over the mattress. Unfortunately, we couldn't get the crib through the door without taking it apart and it was too close to Caleb's bedtime to do that...so we shoved it to the side and put the bed where we thought it would be. Turns out his head would have been right next to an outlet, so we moved a few pieces of furniture around before we got the crib where we wanted it. How did Caleb react? He was THRILLED!!!!! We were a little concerned that his enthusiasm would keep him from falling asleep, but it really wasn't too bad. We talked to him and laid out the ground rules ...

I haven't blogged in over a week and am going through withdrawl. I keep meaning to; life has just been rather chaotic. Here is a rundown of the more entertaining events of the last week. * Amy and I had a moment of bravery and decided to take the three kids SANS HUSBANDS to Massanutten. Matt did come Sunday evening, but Amy was on her own the entire time because Bruce stayed home to study for his sargent's exam. Mass chaos insued...I felt like I was living in the twilight zone!! It was fun, in that crazy what-have-I-done kind of a way. * Sunday night, we had a moment of insanity and thought it might be a good idea to throw all of the kids in the whirlpool together, put bubbles in, and turn on the jets. Sara hated it and got out almost immediately. Caleb and Owen had a great time and played for quite a while, until Caleb went under and swallowed a lot of water. Matt pulled him out and turned him upside down to get him coughing. That was the end of bath time for him! Th...

Today, Matt and I have been married 5 years! Wow, time flies... I feel like we've accomplished a lot in the past 5 years: Perhaps our greatest accomplishment has been that cute, cuddly little boy we have! We made our first house a home (with a lot of elbow grease!), and tearfully sold it almost two years ago. We scrimped and saved enough to purchase the kind of house we plan to live in for a long, long time! We are still loving it just as much as we did the first time we saw it! About 4 months after we got married, Matt got his first job as a youth pastor at Grace Chapel. We learned a lot and made some wonderful, life-long friendships. It is funny to see how the "youth" we had when we first started are now true friends. A little over a year ago, we were given the opportunity to go back to our home church (Calvert GBC) where Matt now serves as the youth pastor. It was hard to leave GC, but we are very excited to be home! I'd say we've done a lot in these five ...