Home of Douglas Loots

Lauren Claire is really talking alot now. She walks around greeting everyone in sight, even George the cat. This video was taken at Grandma and Grandpa Anderson’s just before we departed for West Des Moines.

Out of all the wonderful clips we took this weekend, I decided to post this one because I love the sweetness in her voice. It’s so perfect and innocent. She just loves George, but I’m certain George is happy she is gone. If Lauren wasn’t riding her new car from Uncle Daron and Aunt Ginger, she was chasing George around the house saying “Hi George” “Hi George.”

The video below is a clip of Brayton singing Swing Low Sweet Chariot on the way to Mallard for Christmas. He is really starting to sing alot, I think he’s taking after his Grandma Cindy and Aunt Audra, they are great singers.

When he first started singing this song, he was saying “Swing low, sweet cherry yougurt.”

I really love the little head nod he does to the beat of the song.

Today’s drive home was pretty uneventful, until we got about 10 miles east of Perry when Brayton informed us he had to go to the bathroom, specifically he had to go #2.

A few weeks back, he said the same thing but that time it was #1. We told him to try to hold it until we got home, less than five minutes. Well, that didn’t go so well as about a minute later he told us he peed his pants so he got to sit in a puddle for the next four minutes and daddy got to clean up the mess.

Well, tonight we didn’t want to risk telling him to hold his #2 for the next twenty miles so we decided to stop in Granger to let him take care of business. It seemed like a good time to get Lauren on the potty too, so we all piled out of the van and into the womens restroom at Casey’s along highway 141.

Colette put the potty seat on the toilet, I plopped Brayton up there to do his deed. He sat there for about 10 seconds and then immediately became distracted from the task at hand by the toilet paper dispenser. There was nothing unusual about it, matter of fact it was exactly like the ones in our house except it had a stainless steel flap, what I call “the toilet paper protecter.”

I thought to myself “why would they need a toilet paper protector in a womens bathroom?” I thought only mens restrooms had these because some men cannot control the urge to pee on the toilet paper and ruin it for any subsequent men that come along. There must be something infinitely satisfying about peeing on toilet paper that I am not aware of…but I digress…

So, Brayton is flipping up the stainless steel toilet paper protector. I decided I needed to step in to help him concentrate on the reason we stopped and all piled into this womens restroom in the first place.

I squatted down in front of him, took both his hands in mine and told him he needed to work on going #2. I asked him to concentrate…After a few strong pushes and grunts he looked at me and said:

Brayton: Do I get to pick treat for going poopie?
(we had to walk through the candy isle to get to the restroom)

Dad: Yes, but you’ve got to go poopie first, before you get any treats.

Brayton: Daddy, what do you got in your eyes?
(As I’m squatting and he is leaning forward on his potty seat, my face is about six inches from his)

Dad: Daddy has his contacts in.
(thinking he could see the outline of my contacts in my eyes, not realizing he could see a reflection)

Brayton (now trying to poke my eye): Daddy, you got a picture of Brayton in your eyes, do you got a picture of Lauren in there?

Once again, I learned another important lesson from my son. Never underestimate the ability of a 3 year old to observe even the most minor details.

Children see and hear everything, if only adults were the same.

Thanks to Grandpa Anderson for letting me borrow his clamps for the chalkboard.

See you all in the next few days…

As you know from reading previous posts, we took the kids to Santa’s workshop at Jolly Holiday Lights. There Brayton and Lauren got to meet Santa up close for the first time. Last year Brayton wouldn’t go anywhere close to Santa.

On Monday, when I took the kids to the mall to play we also stopped by the Santa exhibit. While we were standing there, a kid got up from Santa’s lap and before the next one came Santa turned and looked directly at Brayton and waved and smiled. I played this up quite a bit for Brayton. I told Brayton that Santa must have remembered him from his workshop when we vistied him. Brayton soaked it up like a drunk soaking up Boones Farm…

Tonight we got home from Matt and Audra’s house after going to Christmas Eve Mass at Holy Trinity with Matt, Audra, and Tim & Kathy Meyer and eating some soup and having a little play time.

When we got home, there was a message on the answering machine from Santa (Actually Grandpa Anderson). We played it one time for Brayton, after a seeming to be in a state of shock and disbelief he proceeded to push a chair over to the counter and play the message over and over and over…About six times. To get him away from the answering machine, Colette and I had to coax him into helping to clean the ashes out of the fireplace so that Santa could come down the chimney without getting all dirty.

After we cleaned out the chimney, we put out two cookies and a glass of milk. Brayton asked if I thought Santa would like the cookies he baked. I assured him Santa would be very hungry and that he would love the cookies.

Santa actually had too much to eat at Matt and Audra’s so the cookies, while very tasty, made Santa feel more bloated than he already was.

Today, the post man delivered Brayton and Lauren’s kitchen.

Grandma and Grandpa Anderson bought the kitchen for the kids but it would have been prohibitive to put it together and bring it back to Des Moines in the van, so Grandma had it delivered (sort of anyway). Colette and I put it together Sunday evening and stored it in the basement.

Colette took the kids to our room this morning and sequestered them long enough for me to get the kitchen out of the basement. When I got it up, I rang the doorbell a few times, Colette then brought the kids out and voila, a new kitchen.

Brayton, in his excitement coming down the stairs slipped and fell. I caught it all on video. He wasn’t hurt but did throw a bit of a fit.

They proceeded to play for the next hour without leaving the kitchen. They actually never fought over any part of it, there were plenty of accessories to go around. Lauren made about 100 phone calls to Grandma on the phone that came with it.

Over the past few months, I’ve deliberately been telling Brayton that he needs to be a good big brother and help his sister whenever she needs help. I really didn’t think these frank conversations had any effect on him, but once again I’ve been proven wrong. He takes everything in that I say to him. That became evident today.

Today I took the kids to the mall to play at the park there. Colette was trying to make some carmel corn and it’s pretty hard to work in the kitchen with two children at your feet all the time. So I packed up the kids and we went to the mall. Of course, since it’s two days until Christmas the mall was packed.

There were kids and parents everywhere. Many of the kids however are completely unsupervised, this is a problem that drives me nuts. Parents just drop their kids off at the park and then go off shopping or whatever, it’s like a mall babysitting service. It’s really shocking.

Well, B and Lauren were playing on the train in the park. Lauren was sitting by the slide and some little boy, about B’s size and age started pushing Lauren. Presumably because he thought she was in his way, if he was wanting to go down the slide, she wasn’t in his way. So, really there was no reason for this boy to be pushing on Lauren.

Brayton, seeing this happen rushed over to his sisters rescue. I was about to jump in but when I saw B taking charge, I kind of stood back to see what would happen.

Brayton said two times to the little boy, “Stop pushing my sister.” This didn’t deter the little pusher. When he pushed Lauren a third time, Brayton pushed his arm through placing his palm against the wall of the train and separating the little boy from Lauren. Then the little pusher proceeded to try to push Brayton. Brayton turned his body so his back was facing the little pusher and Brayton stuck his butt out and with a big hip thrust effectively shoved the little boy off the back of the train. He fell about a foot and was not harmed at all. He proceeded to stand up and ran off.

At that point, I went to Brayton and asked him if he was allright. He proceeded to tell me “That boy was pushing Lauren!!” I told him I saw it all and that I was proud of him for sticking up for his sister.

When we got home to eat lunch, Colette asked B if he had fun at the mall. He said “yes”. Then Colette asked him what had happened (I had not told Colette the entire story at this point) and Brayton proceeded to tell Colette the whole thing. “There was a boy who was pushing Lauren.”

I was very happy to see big brother stick up for his sister, and happy to know our conversations do get absorbed into his little head.

We are entering a who new era with Lauren this month. As you might have already read in some of the previous blogs that Lauren started potty training 6 days ago. She is doing fantastic, and we are all very proud of her!

Doug and I decided this week that since we were trying new things ~like Hello Kitty undies, that we might as well say Bye Bye suckie! Suckie is what Lauren has called her pacifier. In the last month or so she has used it only in bed for naps and bedtime. Last night was the night we said good bye. Not technically, I must admit, I did ambush her with the plan. We did our bedtime routine as usual, then up to her room for her favorite book (Opposites by Sandra Boynton, it’s her favorite because there are pictures of balloons, she LOVES balloons!) Then she got a drink of water, lights out and then prayers and snuggles. She was really doing great, then all of the sudden,”SUCKIE, SUCKIE!!” I continue to ignore it and snuggle, then she said,”Poop!” (this still sometimes means pee) Well, being in the early phase of potty training, I always take them when they say that. I want them to always know and trust that Mommy will take care of their needs. So, I proceed to take her to the potty and she squirts out just enough to make the venture seem somewhat necessary. We go back to our snuggles, again says,”SUCKIE, SUCKIE”, no response, then,”Poop”. Ok, I see the stall tactics here little lady, nite nite Lauren. She did cry for about 10 minutes or so, then had a peaceful night! Yeah!!! You are such a big girl!!!!!!! I love you Lauren Claire~Mommy