flea

On chocolate-covered dates, a gift from a neighbor just back from Dubai: Dillo, "It's like a giant raisin!"

We've got about an inch of heavy wet snow over two days' worth of steady rain (there's a small lake in our back yard.) It's still coming down steadily, and it's not supposed to get above freezing until mid-day tomorrow, so all bets are, no school tomorrow.

This is how Casper feels about it:


The weaning has occurred. Casper was a whining mass of jealousy at the mall yesterday, and covets and appropriates Dillo's new bunny. Dillo has asked to nurse multiple times, and cried angrily at several times (including the middle of the night) but we made it through okay.

Dillo is suddenly full of rambunctious, physical, boy energy. He's been a bit of a runner for a bit - not reliably, but occasionally just dashes off in public - so I worry a lot in parking lots and tend to carry him. He's also loved to run laps around the house. But suddenly he's doing a lot of punching and in-your-face physical stuff, and reacting to action scenes on TV or even in books (Curious George Rides a Bike, yesterday - not exactly a race car book) with boy-like Zooooom! and Whoooosh! and so forth. I hope he is getting enough outside time at school (not today, it is pouring rain) and we need to work at getting him not just outside but running.

I'm ready to wean him, and we plan to sit him down and tell him so today. The Mall of Georgia has a Build a Bear Workshop store - which is where Casper picked out her purple pony the day she was weaned - so I think it will be nice to repeat the tradition and do the same with Dillo. I am hoping by telling the story of Casper's weaning we will be able to include her in the process and and also make him feel less like this is something happening to him and more like it is a family transition to be celebrated. We'll see. I'm not sure if we should set a date of this weekend (the mall is open Sunday afternoon; we have commitments already on Saturday) or wait another week. Kids (even Casper, still) seem really to have no sense of time passing, but would it help to talk about it for more than 4 days to prepare him?

Part of the reason I'm feeling some urgency to wean is he'll have to be potty-trained by this summer (for day care, to move to the 3-4 year old room), and we have not begun. I got him to sit on the little potty, but not pee, the other day; he refuses to sit on the toilet because he is scared (he told me I would flush him down the drain!) Once the weaning is done, we can pull out the books and start talking about potty in earnest. I hope warmer weather and no-pants will help too. Need some Daddy examples.