Matthew is Potty Trained!

We are excited to say that Matthew is potty trained! He was a little hesitant to wear the "big boy underwear" because he would have accidents. But his teacher at school insisted that he was ready for it so we brought 5 pairs of underwear and pants to school with him last Monday - Nov 8th. He had several accidents but his confidence improved throughout the week with no accidents by the end of the week.

Ms. Leah, his teacher, would take him to the potty every 30 minutes. After a couple of days, Matthew started telling Ms. Leah when he needed to go. He gets an M&M every time he goes so he is super motivated to get "M's" as he calls it. Over the weekend, Matthew continued to use the potty and wear the underwear most of the time. We were shocked and pleasantly surprised when he pooped on the potty because he usually requests to do that in a diaper away from attention.

When we would go out to restaurants over the weekend, we would take Matthew to the potty right away and then as soon as we got home. He is doing very well. We just hope that this continues after baby arrives.

On Friday, I went to my doctor and my labor is progressing. I am 2.5 cm dilated, the baby has dropped from -2 to -1 position and I am 40% effaced. The doctor still predicts that the baby will be born this week. We spent most of the weekend getting ready and doing chores that we know we will not get to afterwards. I put a pink cover on Matthew's old car seat and made sure that the safety belt was tightened for a baby. The room is ready with the exception of a name on the wall - Andy and I still haven't decided on that just yet.

Matthew had fun over the weekend. I took him to the YMCA pool on Saturday. He doesn't swim as well as he did a couple of months ago. He didn't want to wear his googles and fetch things from the bottom of the pool and he didn't want to swim on his own too much. He can still swim -it's just a confidence issue. Nonetheless, he enjoyed the pool. Afterwards, he shared one of his gummy bears with a girl in the locker room. He only had 2 left and I was surprised that he gave one away. It was a yellow one and I commented how it matched her dress. After he did it, he says "we will have to tell Daddy". We saw Andy a few minutes later and Matthew had a story to tell "Daddy, [pause] I share yellow [pause] Sophia [pause] match her dress". He had to really think about what he was saying.

He loves to sing "Happy Birthday" and imitate the pirates from the Backyardigan cartoons - "Don't ever touch the boot!" he says with a stern look. He has a grumpy face that he will imitate sometimes on demand and then we try to get him to smile by saying "Don't you smile" and he smiles really big. He also talks about the ghost cartoon where Tyrone wears a sheet and says "Boo". Andy put the blanket on and acted like a ghost and Matthew thought it was fun at first and then got scared. The other day he says "Daddy, you was a ghost and scared me". His words are getting better every day. It's so fun to hear the things that come out of his mouth.

He wanted to keep watching videos over the weekend so I tried to come up with a couple of games to entertain him. I hid easter eggs around the living room that were filled with dried cherries and raisins. He loved it! Last night, he requested to play this game again. "I play puzzle, you hide, want to?" So cute. We also played a match game with some puzzle pieces and then playdoh after that. We went to eat frozen yogurt on Sunday and Matthew was dancing and smiling.

After church, we decided to drive around the neighborhood to look at a particular house and Matthew realized we took a different turn and says "Daddy, where are we going?" He doesn't miss a beat!