Any Suggestions?

Hey, I was thinking I’d bring this up, in case any of you have had similar problems and had any good suggestions for me. Over the last week Kolby has started to wet his pants a few times, and I tried to not make a big deal about it the first few times, but when it continued I figured we had to do something to stop the behavior quickly. (I mean, he has been fully potty trained, day and night, for a long time now, so we definitely know that he can do it). I have heard of kids regressing when they are still in the potty training stages, but I didn’t expect it to happen this late. And I know that I had a problem with wetting my pants when I was even older than Kolby – which my mom hated (rightfully so) and I really wanted to quickly get him past this before he formed any kind of a habit or anything. Anyways, we told him that his special blanket would go on time out for more than 1 day if he did it again, and he did. So we put his blanket away for 2 days – he stayed dry for those 2 days and I gave him his blanket back, and then he did it again that afternoon. We took his blanket back away and said he couldn’t have any toys or books in bed when he went for naps or bedtime. He did it again, and we gave him the same punishments, adding to it that he couldn’t color or read his special magnet books during the day. He stayed dry since yesterday, and we had several talks about how everyone gets the same signals that they need to go to the bathroom and we just need to pay attention to those and go when we need to. I also talked to him about choosing the right and choosing the wrong, and good and bad consequences, and he seemed to understand those ideas, and the fact the wetting his pants was choosing the wrong. And this morning I told reminded him about when we got “big boy underwear” for him and how we told him then that he could only have them if he stayed dry, and I told him that I would have to take away his big boy underwear if he kept choosing to do this. (I am running out of ideas for things and privileges to take away from him, since his blanket is his most special possession and I don’t really want to take away preschool or piano lessons, which are his favorite activities). So, when we were changing clothes after church and his pants were wet, I got pretty mad. I spanked him, put a diaper on him, and put him in bed without lunch. It’s frustrating, because talking to him nicely and explaining why we do things and calmly taking away privileges hasn’t seemed to be having any effect. So, I have been thinking today that we should make sure at his 5-year checkup with the doctor tomorrow that he doesn’t have a bladder infection or anything, but assuming that that is not the case, does anyone have any suggestions for us? Staying dry at night doesn’t seem to be his problem, and he has stayed dry for months at a time in the past so we know he has the ability to do it. And reasoning, punishing, and getting mad have not yet helped. I know that this is one of the things that parents have no control over, but it really doesn’t feel like this is a power struggle – he doesn’t seem like he’s doing it just to be naughty. (I’m kind of hoping that the doctor will say it is a bladder infection – although that would make me feel pretty guilty for getting mad at him today, which I already do a little – but that would be something easily fixable. I’m concerned, though, that that won’t be it and we won’t have a quick fix for this problem. So, any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

Last Month of Medical School

This week I started into my last rotation of medical school – the preparing for internship course. This is just a 2 week lecture series – daily lectures from 8:30 to noon on various topics that the school feels will be most helpful to us in preparing for the intern year. I am amazed by how short my attention span has become for listening to lectures and wonder how I survived the first two years of lectures. :) The things they have taught so far seems pertinent and a good refresher, and it has been especially nice to see all my classmates that I haven’t seen for a few months or years.

Monday we went to the domes, since it is free for Milwaukee residents on Monday mornings. This is a set of 3 large dome-shaped greenhouses, each with a different theme inside them. One had a garden theme, one had a southwest desert theme, and one had a tropical theme. It all smelled really good and was quite pretty. We especially liked the tropical dome and so had lunch on some benches in there.

That night Steph and I were invited to dinner at an Italian restaurant with my dermatology advisor, Dr. Valerie Lyon, and her spouse, and another student that has worked with Dr. Lyon, Christine Palmer and her husband. I tried anchovies on pizza and conch (like the conch shell) in a salad for the first time. It was so nice of Dr. Lyon and her husband to treat us out.

We have started selling our big furniture on Craigslist.com and have had some success this week – we sold the bunk bed, a couch, a dresser, a bookshelf, and a small cabinet. If we can fit all of our stuff into one pod for long term storage in Rochester rather than 2, that will save us about $1000. We are going to put the “furniture money” aside and save it for when we get to Rochester to apply towards new furniture. We have also been able to get some more packing done this week and only have a little left to do after graduation. The apartment is looking quite sparse recently.

Tuesday night we met with Kendra McMullin, a resident wife in our ward who has talked with us before about finances and some suggestions to prepare for the future. She came this time to give us some advice of things she has learned since they started residency – things that we should and shouldn’t try to do once we are living on an income – I think she had some really good advice. She also gave us a book to read, called The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach, and so far it is really good. He stresses coming up with a method to pay yourself first in order to have enough saved to enjoy retirement. I was also shown a new website this week, poormd.blogspot.com that a recent graduate from my school has put together on different financial topics and he and his colleagues advice – from Roth IRAs to renting vs. buying to what to do once you start earning an income. Steph and I also sat down this week and started to put together an Excel spreadsheet showing what our monthly expenses will be next year and what things we want to start saving for. I guess we are just excited to finally have a paycheck and to start saving for the goals that we want to accomplish in our life.

Wednesday we went to the playgroup at the park. The weather was almost perfect and the boys had so much fun with their friends on the playground and in the sand. Camden is now old enough to run around with the older boys and do most of what they do, so it is fun to watch all of them playing together. We packed lunches so we could eat there at the park.

Kolby and Eli continue to improve in their swimming skills. Eli was able to swim back and forth across half the pool with only a flotation assistive device that looks like a weight barbell – his teacher just walked in front of him to make sure he was doing ok. He is also almost just tall enough to stand in the water by himself, so he likes jumping off the side and then trying to walk from me back to the wall – it is really funny to watch since he is not quite tall enough. I swam with the boys in the water after they were done and we had lots of fun.

Kolby and Eli have been working on staying dry all the time for potty training. We decided to start a new chart, and if they went 7 days straight with no accidents, then they could get some “big boy” underwear – boxer briefs – from the store. They have been so excited to work on it, and Eli actually was the first one to get to 7 days, so we went to the store and let him pick out some new underwear. He was so excited. We also had a 2 for 1 at Noodles, so we packed dinner for the boys and Steph and I were able to enjoy a nice dinner for under $8. What a deal.

We have had some fun with friends this weekend as well. Friday night we had the Kearls and the Hedgecocks over for games and dessert. They have both watched our kids for us a number of times and so we set up to watch both their kids for them last night so they could both go on a date. Then, the Wells called and came over to do an ice cream bar and games, as well as helping to watch the kids. We had 9 children last night and they all did reasonably well together. We were even able to get most of them to sleep and able to enjoy playing some games. Steph and I borrowed an old Disney movie from the Kearls called The Happiest Millionaire that we finished watching this weekend and that was really funny.


Well, it is a nice sunny Sunday morning and the kids are getting a little rowdy, so I probably should end to go and help Steph get them all ready for church.

I'm So Lucky

So, this week has been great. Not only have we got a lot accomplished with packing and posting things for sale on Craigslist.com in preparation for the move, we have also had lots of fun activities this week. On Tuesday Michael and I got to go to an award banquet downtown where Michael and some of his classmates were inducted into AOA, the medical student honor society, (thanks, Monica, for watching the boys!) Then on Wednesday morning we got to take the kids to playgroup at the McDonalds play area with the Kams and Lythgoes, which was fun. And, one day after taking Kolby and Eli to the grocery store with him, Michael came home with a bunch of pretty yellow daisies that he told me the boys picked out for me – how thoughtful! Thursday was my night out with Camden, and I considered taking him to the library, but thought that making him go somewhere where he had to stay quiet the whole time wouldn’t really be fun for him. So I took him to the mall so he could play at the little play area there. He wasn’t too interested in the play area, especially when the other kids playing there left, so we ended up walking the mall for an hour, and I let him run free and go in and out of many of the stores, which he just loved! And then on Friday I went to an MSSA scrapbooking activity, which made me want to take up my scrapbooking again (since it has mostly been on hold since Kolby started crawling). Maybe when we move and have a little more space I’ll be able to find a place to work on my scrapbooking sometimes. And then yesterday morning was the stake women’s conference at the church, which was fun to go for a brunch, a nice program, and a fun rummage afterwards. Then that night we went to a championship soccer game that Michael won tickets to when he signed up for some drawings at the KidsFest a couple weeks ago. The soccer game was between Baltimore and Mexico, and was a nice game to watch, although we realized that the boys aren’t really old enough to enjoy big sporting events yet, because we spent a lot of the game trying to get the boys to sit in their seats, trying to get Camden to stop crying, and taking the boys back and forth to the bathroom – that reminds me, another nice thing about this week is that Kolby and Eli have both been doing great on their potty training. We made a chart and each day that they are dry they get to color in a box. Once they have each been dry a full week, I told them that we can get them “big boy underwear” (boxers). They have both been so excited that neither of them has had an accident and we haven’t had to change a diaper on Eli (even during naptime or bedtime) for several days now. And having only two boys who need diaper changes is a lot better than three!!! And several times this week the Kearls watched our boys for us, and then we stayed after going to pick them up and played games together. It really is going to be hard to leave this place. And, to top off a great week, this morning, after getting up at 6am with Isaac, then at 7am with Camden, and 7:30am with Eli, Michael let me sleep in and brought me breakfast in bed at 9am. How lucky am I to have such a wonderful husband?

Swimming, Zoo Trips, Potty Training, and Car Seats in Church

This week the boys enjoyed their preschool class. Kolby and Eli love their classes, and on Friday I even got motivated and took all 4 boys and worked out during their classes. Camden and Isaac went to their kid care, and I used the elliptical machine for a while. Afterwards I picked up the boys and it was all I could do to keep Camden from joining in with Kolby and Eli in their gym class. That was a fun morning.

On Tuesday it was Camden’s night out with Daddy and they went to the YMCA in Menomonee Falls because it has a nice kid’s swimming area with a little wading pool and slide. Unfortunately there was a problem with their heating system in that room that evening, so they got moved into the lap pool. Camden wasn’t able to go down the baby slide anymore, but they still had a lot of fun. And then on Wednesday night Kolby and Eli had their swimming lessons, and they both did great. Kolby is now able to jump in from the side of the pool without anyone to catch him and he can walk out to the middle of the pool. Eli is still as brave as ever – dunking his entire head under the water over and over. It’s pretty fun to watch.

On Thursday we had an Enrichment activity at Catherine Call’s house sharing all of our favorite children’s books, which was nice to have a night away from the kids. I enjoyed remembering the books that we loved as children and thinking about which ones I would like to add to our collection for our kids. Then on Friday evening we had a ward dessert night at the Spencer’s house and Alicia and Steve Taylor were there too. That was nice to get together with some ‘new’ people, and it was fun to see all the little boys running around together too.

And then yesterday was fun. We went to the zoo in the morning because it was a free zoo day (our membership had expired on Friday). We told the boys that there was going to be a surprise at the zoo (Eli was sure that the surprise was going to be the animals, but Kolby was excited to find out what it would be). When we got there we met our friends, the Hedgecocks, and Kolby was excited that the surprise was his friends, Jordan and Carter, at the zoo with us. My favorite part of the Milwaukee zoo is always the big cat house, because the lions and the cheetahs are always right there in front of the glass and they are usually active and moving around so they are so interesting for the kids to watch. We stopped on our way home and picked up some tennis shoes for Michael since his were getting his feet all wet every time he went out in the snow because he had so many holes in the soles. Then, after naps we took the boys to Denny’s for their kids eat free night. After we got home, picked up around the house, and put the boys to bed, the Kearls joined us for some games.

And today started out with Michael waking me up to help with the other boys because he needed to take care of Eli, who had had an accident. We are working on the potty training with Eli, and he is doing pretty well most of the time. He still wears a diaper at naptime and bedtime, and we have been using pull-ups for school and church (just in case), but during the daytime when we are at home he is just in underwear, and he has only had two accidents since we started this week, so I guess that’s pretty good – we are using less diapers, anyways.

Today went pretty well. After getting the boys ready and making bread, we headed to church. (On the making bread, if anyone has any good suggestions for getting bread to rise well, I would be open to them! I have made bread now every Sunday for the last five weeks and am starting to get a little discouraged. The first time the bread barely rose at all and turned out very thick, the next time it took hours and didn’t rise much but was a little better, another time it rose pretty well and then sunk right before I put them in the oven, last week they rose nicely and then they sunk while they were cooking, and this week they rose ok but still not very high. I know the recipe is good because my mom’s bread turns out great. I have tried letting the bread rise in the oven on “warm,” letting it rise sitting on top of the stove while the oven is on warm, letting it rise on top the stove on a cooking rack, letting it rise while the oven is on higher, and letting it rise just sitting on the counter top. There are just so many things that could be affecting it, and I don’t know which thing it is I need to fix – is the yeast bad? (but it has risen somewhat), am I letting it get too hot or not hot enough while it rises?, am I letting it rise for too long or not long enough?, or is it something totally different that I haven’t even thought of? At least the bread tastes really good and it’s nutritious, but I sure wish that it looked good and it made bigger slices for sandwiches. So, any suggestions would be appreciated!)

Anyways, on the way to church Camden fell asleep in the car, and Michael and I spent the entire ride to church considering options of how we might keep him asleep (church is hard with a child who is too young for nursery, too old to sit still, and too tired because it is right in the middle of naptime). Various ideas were thrown around, including taking a playpen and setting it up in an empty room at church, leaving him in the car, or putting him in the shed out behind the church – but none of these seemed satisfactory (and some rather illegal), so we ended up deciding on carrying his entire car seat in and setting it on the bench next to us. Now, Camden has long outgrown the little infant car seats that are meant to be carried with a child in them, and he is in an upright, forward-facing seat. Michael huffed and puffed and lugged that big old seat into the church building, and Camden actually slept through a good portion of the first meeting. Michael also decided to take a separate container of snacks for each boy to eat, and that actually kept them all entertained for the entire first meeting, which is uncommon. So, other than the fact that Camden can now open doors and escape from the classrooms at church and so the second two hours of church were not the easiest, it was a good day so far. Camden has two more Sundays before he is old enough for nursery class – yeah!!!

Well, only 18 more days until Match Day when we find out where we will be going for the next four years. We are not-so-patiently awaiting that day. So, tonight we are heading over to Amy and Vicente Cortez’ house for dinner, which will be nice since we haven’t had a chance to visit them for a while. We’d better get ready to go to their place now.

Things I've Learned from Raising My Boys

This is a little list I put together about a year ago, and I came across it on my computer the other day and decided to add a little to it and post it here. Enjoy!

Things I've Learned from Raising my Boys (so far):

1. Whenever there is silence, something is going on.

2. It’s probably not something good.

3. No matter how expensive the new toy is (or how entertaining it is to you and your spouse), the cord to the nearest lamp will always be more exciting to your child.

4. If most of your home is full of hand-me down furniture or cheap pieces of furniture that you purchased at Wal-Mart and had to assemble yourself; your one-year-old will choose one of the only nice pieces of furniture in the home to destroy.

5. A one-year-old thinks that it is funny to bite down on the leather seat of a piano bench and pull his head back, leaving little white holes all along the black leather seat.

6. A two-year-old can empty a tall bookshelf of family albums and important documents in less than 40 seconds.

7. A pet chinchilla can outrun a one-year-old.

8. A pet chinchilla cannot always outrun a two-year-old.

9. A chinchilla sheds an incredible amount of fur when it is scared.

10. A two-year-old and his one-year-old brother can empty a refrigerator of all its contents (food, milk, shelves and drawers) in less than 1 minute and 30 seconds.

11. A two-year-old can reach things that are placed at three times his own height.

12. A little boy might normally run away when you want a hug, but when he has a runny nose, hugging is all he wants to do.

13. A Christmas tree is never safe from a two-year-old, even if you surround it with a large circular baby gate.

14. When a two-year-old pulls over a Christmas tree, throws ornaments around the room, and plays with the broken glass, he will not cry when he cuts his hands on that glass.

15. He will cry when you try to take the broken glass away from him.

16. Even though a two-year-old might know better than to drink laundry detergent, it won’t stop him from getting it out and squirting it on the floor so that his one-year-old brother can lick it up.

17. Even though a two-year-old may know better, it will not stop him from opening a diaper pail and letting his one-year-old brother play with the contents.

18. No matter how mature a two-year-old seems when he has decided he is old enough to start potty training, he is never old enough to leave in the bathroom alone.

19. He will find something to put in the toilet and try flushing it repeatedly before you can reach him.

20. If given the opportunity, a two-year-old boy will turn on the gas stove while his parents aren’t looking.

21. If a gas stove is turned on (but the burner is not lit) right before the family leaves home for several hours, the entire apartment will be filled with gas by the time the family returns home.

22. Fortunately, pet chinchillas are hardy animals and can survive being in a room full of gas fumes for a few hours.

23. Even though his stomach is supposedly the size of his fist, a one-year-old boy can eat a half-pound of lunchmeat in one sitting, and be hungry for the next meal a few hours later.

24. A one-year-old thinks that he can do everything that his two-year-old brother can do.

25. When you finally get fed up enough of all the toys being dumped out of the toy box over and over that you decide to screw the toy box into the wall, you need to realize that this will only last a few weeks until the one and two-year-olds realize that if they sit in the toy box and push hard enough against the wall, they can pull the screws out.

26. This is when you realize it is time to invest in a stud finder.

27. A two-year-old boy takes about 3 seconds to learn how to climb onto the kitchen counter.

28. A one-year-old boy can easily climb under a bed.

29. Getting out from under the bed is another story.

30. A one-year-old and a two-year-old can conspire to hide the television remote control, and two adults will never be able to find it again.

31. Once you teach a two-year-old a song he likes (especially one with hand motions), be prepared to continue singing it over and over for at least the next hour.

32. A one-year-old is not too young to realize that if he is playing with his two-year-old brother and he cries loudly, his parents will usually scold the two-year-old for not sharing the toys.

33. In the defense of the one-year-old, the two-year-old usually is not sharing the toys.

34. A two-year-old has radar that immediately detects the one time that you forget to replace the baby lock on the closet doors.

35. For a two-year-old, the idea that he has to pick up all those clean clothes that he dumped all over the floor sounds like a fun game, not a punishment.

36. There really is no such thing as “baby proof.”

37. Any bookshelf is a ladder.

38. Any toy that enters the home automatically belongs to the two-year-old (even if it comes wrapped and labeled with the name of the one-year-old), and you will never convince the two-year-old otherwise.

39. A two-year-old boy can easily outrun a reasonably in-shape 24-year-old woman.

40. When you accidentally lock your one-year-old in the car, the Milwaukee police department takes about 15 minutes to arrive and jimmy the car door open for you.

41. 15 minutes lasts forever when your one-year-old is sitting happily in your car, finding pennies and candy wrappers to chew on and you are searching for the best stone to use to smash the car window open in case the happy one-year-old starts choking on the penny before the police arrive.

42. The police do not give you a ticket or make you pay a fine for accidentally locking your child in the car, but they do record your name and your child’s name in a police report.

43. No matter how many times you tell him “no,” a one-year-old boy will always knock over the piano bench one more time.

44. A one-year-old boy may not be able to climb in and out of his crib yet.

45. But his two-year-old brother can climb in, at 6:00am, and he will bring his large toy trucks with him, so they can throw them over the edge onto the wooden floor together.

46. The neighbors in the apartment building do not appreciate this form of an alarm clock.

47. When visiting relatives, even if you think that you have removed most of the large hazards from a bedroom, a one-year-old boy and his two-year-old brother will find something to get into.

48. A one-year-old and a two-year-old can accumulate a pile of shredded paper that measures about 2 x 3 feet if they find their aunt’s scriptures and remove several books from the New Testament.

49. A one-year-old boy may not be able to climb out of a playpen by himself.

50. If a two-year-old boy is impatient for his little brother to get up in the morning and play with him, he will ‘help’ him get out of the playpen by tipping the entire playpen over on it’s side.

51. It doesn’t take long for the two-year-old to realize that he can also tip the playpen entirely upside down, effectively trapping the one-year-old in a ‘cage.’

52. It only takes about 20 seconds for a one-year-old and a two-year-old to dump a bottle of black ink on brand new carpeting in a new house.

53. Surprisingly, it takes a couple days, but two women scrubbing the carpet for hours on end can actually remove much of the ink until there is only a grey spot on the carpet, rather than a dark black one.

54. Escalators are very exciting toys, especially if you can get onto one before Mommy can catch you.

55. If given the chance, a two-year-old boy will throw his shoes from the second floor of the shopping mall down to the ground floor.

56. It takes about 15 adults 20 minutes to find a lost two-year-old boy at a church building.

57. A two-year-old boy who has never sat still for more than 3 minutes at a time before, can sit still and silent behind a stack of folding chairs in a church classroom for 20 minutes while his parents and other adults walk through that room several times searching for him and calling his name.

58. After running around inside and outside a church building for 20 minutes thinking of all the terrible things that could possibly have happened to her missing two-year-old son, a 9-month-pregnant woman feels like she is going to go into labor for the next few hours.

59. While supposedly taking a nap, a two-year-old will find the set of crayons packed at the bottom of a full storage bin under numerous other items and color all over the rug, wall, and door.

60. When visiting relatives, even if you strip every item from a bedroom, take pictures and mirrors off the walls, use zip ties to secure all the doors and drawers of the armoire, and install a baby gate in the bedroom doorway; a two-year-old and a three-year-old will still find something in the bedroom to get into when they are supposed to be asleep.

61. The two- and three-year-olds will pull stuffing from the underside of the mattress on the bed.

62. The two- and three-year-olds will find any tiny cracks around the window and pull the plaster off the wall around these spots.

63. The two- and three-year-olds will pull the window coverings off of the windows.

64. And the two- and three-year-olds will wake up in the early hours of the morning, push over the baby gate in their bedroom doorway, make their way to the opposite side of the house, and empty all the file papers from a dining room hutch before the three-year-old will wake up members of the household by calling for help because his arm is stuck in a drawer of the hutch.

65. A loving grandmother will be forgiving and will still want said two- and three-year-olds to return for another visit.

66. It takes two grown women a full day to put up a Winnie-the-Pooh wallpaper border to decorate a baby’s room.

67. It takes a three-year-old less than 2 minutes to remove a wallpaper border from the walls.

68. Everyone says that you should wait until your child is ready and shows signs of interest in using the toilet before beginning potty training.

69. Just because your child likes to sit on a potty chair and he will pee in the toilet on command every time you set him on the toilet, does not necessarily mean that he is ‘ready.’

70. Parents are advised not to start potty training at a time in the child’s life when there will be major changes (such as a move or the birth of a sibling).

71. Starting potty training 3 months before the due date of the child’s sibling is not enough time for the child to be fully trained long before the new baby arrives.

72. Anyone who tells you that their child was completely potty-trained in less than a week is either lying or their child is amazing.

73. If your child does not fall under the ‘amazing’ category above, you may need to expect that potty training will take up to a full year to really take effect.

74. Once your child really is completely potty trained – doesn’t need reminders, uses the bathroom without much help, stays dry overnight and at naptime, and doesn’t use diapers at all anymore – it really does seem like maybe that whole year of potty training was worth it.

75. A fire alarm placed within four feet of the floor is not safe from a two-year-old boy.

76. When a fire alarm is pulled at a medical college party, the lights flash and a loud alarm goes off, and some security guards will eventually come to turn the alarm off.

77. Luckily, pulling such an alarm does not trigger ceiling sprinklers to turn on.

78. A potty-trained three-year-old is old enough to go in and use the restroom with out constant supervision.

79. An almost-potty-trained two-year-old is often ok using the bathroom by himself.

80. If the two-year-old is in the restroom too long, you can expect to clean up soap and water from the counters and floors.

81. If the two-year-old and the three-year-old happen to be in the bathroom together, it is just too tempting for the three-year-old – no matter how much he knows better, the three-year-old will be compelled to help the two-year-old spread soap and water over the counters and floors.

82. Even without moving from his seat at the center of a large picnic blanket, an 8-month-old boy will somehow get a hold of large leaves to eat.

83. It takes a two-year-old about 5 minutes to empty all the toys from his bedroom closet.

84. It takes the two-year-old, his big brother, and his mom almost an hour to sort through all the toys and get them all put away back in the closet again.

85. Even if a latch is attached to keep the closet door locked, a two-year-old will push his Lego table over to the closet, stand on it, and reach up to undo the latch and open the closet so that he can spend the next 5 minutes emptying his closet again.

86. If the Lego table is placed out of reach on top of the top bunk of the bunk beds during naptime, the two-year-old will turn his focus from the closet to the dresser drawers.

87. It takes a two-year-old about 3 minutes empty a dresser of all of his and his brother’s clothing.

88. It takes a mom about 20 minutes to re-fold and put away all the clothes in the dresser.

89. It takes a mom a lot longer to sort through all the clothes when the two-year-old empties the clean clothes out of the dresser and then mixes them with the dirty clothes from the laundry basket.

90. Two adults can make a container of foaming hand soap last for several months.

91. A two-year-old will go through half a bottle of hand soap in 3 days.

92. A 9-month-old boy does not need to be old enough to walk in order to be able to turn the television off and on, open and close the doors to the bookshelf, get into the trash can, open kitchen drawers, turn the computer off, and pull toilet paper off the roll.

93. It can take 15 to 20 seconds before the Heimlich maneuver works on a two-year-old boy.

94. 15 seconds can seem like forever.

95. If a two-year-old hears you tell his three-year-old brother that the three-year-old may not ‘help’ get the large pitcher of water out of the fridge because it is too heavy, the two-year-old will not realize that this also means that he, the two-year-old, may not take out the heavy pitcher.

96. A mother of three small boys is grateful for a pitcher of water spilled all over the kitchen floor because, as this mother is cleaning up the water from the floor, she is thinking how much more sticky it would have been to clean up, had the pitcher been full of juice.

97. The telephone number for poison control is 1-800-222-1222.

98. The people at poison control are very nice and helpful.

99. Small doses of the following items have not proven fatal in our home: nail polish remover, nasal spray, berries from the tree outside, laundry detergent, Echinacea, berries from the bushes in a friend’s yard.

100. If given the chance, a two-year-old boy will throw his sandals into an animal enclosure at the zoo.

101. A zookeeper will come with a long hook to get the sandals out of the animal enclosure, but the zookeeper will give you a look that lets you know she thinks that anyone who could allow their two-year-old to do such a thing must be a pretty lousy mother.

102. A two-year-old may be old enough to know better than to eat crayons.

103. This may not stop him from tasting them.

104. A three-year-old boy and his two-year-old brother know better than to splash in the toilet water, but their 10-month-old brother thinks that this is a wonderful pastime.

105. A hug and a kiss will fix almost any problem.

106. It’s all worth it when your baby smiles at you or your toddler tells you that he loves you.