The longest post ever . . .

Okay . . . so it's been a while. Sorry. Because of my failure to stay current on posts, I will now proceed to combine about three weeks of posts into one very long segmented one. For those of you with the attention spans of gnats (like my children), this post is not for you. Consider yourself warned.

June in the GemKemp family - in no particular order:

UTAH TRIP & ETHAN'S FIRST FISH:

We headed to Utah last week because Greg had five days off. It was a great trip - I can't remember a better one, actually. Lots of time with family, cousins, sunshine . . . and bikes! Link has a bike with training wheels now, too, although he couldn't be less interested. Here's a great shot of Ethan and Brody . . . we had some good afternoons racing bikes in the church parking lot.

We went out on the Pontoon boat on a whim one afternoon and had a ball. Greg, Ben, Mike, Rich, Brody, me and our boys were there. Brody and Ethan were the only ones who caught fish (with help from daddies, of course). Proof of boys happily cat-fishing with their daddy:

POTTY TRAINING THE INDEPENDENT ONE:

Okay, so before I went on vacation to my parents' house in May, Lincoln started showing a lot of interest in toilet training. He peed in the toilet a few times before we left but in the interest of savoring vacation, I decided not to push it until we got back. To my surprise, while we were at Granny and Grandpa's, he really ran with it and started going pretty consistently in the toilet. We even achieved poop a few times while we were there. He was not, however, interested in peeing standing up (which was the magic for Ethan when he was potty training). After we got back, I got really tired of mopping pee up off the bathroom floor every time Lincoln went to the bathroom (because no matter how hard he tried to "point down" he always peed right in between the bowl and toilet seat and made a mess - those of you with boys know exactly what I'm talking about). So we started putting Cheerios in the toilet so he could aim and make them spin. Success . . . no, backfire.

Now that Lincoln could pee standing up, it was like Armageddon trying to get him to sit down on the toilet which meant pooping was now out of the question. After cleaning poop out of underwear for days on end . . . and out of the bathtub . . . and off the floor, I wondered if I just ought to put him back in diapers until he left for college. No joke - when he had to poop, he would get this panicked look on his face and start to squirm and kind of whimper. I knew the signs. I would whisk him away and sit him on the toilet - kicking and screaming. Over the last few weeks, I've spent hours on our bathroom floor trying to remain cheerful: Reading books, singing songs, making up stories . . . doing anything I could think of. We would push the way we imagined different animals pushing when they had to poop (that worked once with Greg but never with me). We tried EVERYTHING but to no avail. In fact, Lincoln mastered the art of clenching so hard he could hold it for days even though it was painful for him.

Then last Sunday after the warning signs at church, the resistance, the clenching and denial, we got home and I was so sick of the battle, I put him on the toilet, closed the door and left him there screaming. Ethan poked his head in to try to help (which he has been wonderful about - even giving demos and tutorials), but he was met with more screaming and "get out of here!" And then . . . it got quiet. A minute later, Lincoln started yelling again but with a different tone. "Oh, mom! I hear my poop! Oh, mom . . . oh, mom! I pooped!" Could it be? Success? Yes!

So we discovered the trick. When Lincoln has to poop, he squirms and whimpers and dances and fights me when I put him on the toilet. BUT . . . I leave him there, screaming to himself, and now we're down to less than a minute before "production" is achieved. This has worked without fail for nearly a week now. In fact, just this morning - moments ago - Lincoln was watching a movie with Ethan and said very calmly, "Mom . . . I have to poop." No fighting. He just did it. *Sigh. Although there were days I didn't think we would, it appears we've made it. We're finally down to just one in diapers.

ETHAN'S GROCERY LIST:

I try to hang on to the wonderful things that my kids create and put them in a file. In the fire, the file I had been building was lost, so I'm very particular about collecting and saving the best projects, drawings, etc. Whenever we go grocery shopping, Ethan is pumped when we're done because he gets my grocery list. This week, he made one of his own and it just thrills me. Seriously - how fantastically adorable is this?

TOY BOX - NO, BOY BOX:

So I talked Greg into "helping" me build a toy box for the kids since we've been using a U-Haul box that's totally trashed by now. I found one online that I loved online, kind of crate-like, so we tried to build it like that. I looks kind of like an Army crate, or so Greg says. I really did learn a lot - he had me cutting lumber and drilling/screwing/fastening the box with him. We were, however, a little ambitious in our measurements. When we finished - the first time - it was more like a boy box than a toy box. We could've shipped all three of our boys - comfortably - to the destination of their choice. Needless to say, we reevaluated and made it a bit smaller (still large enough to hold maybe two boys) . . . and now the kids can get toys in and out without help. It's even got one of those lid with spring-loaded hinges so it won't slam down on little fingers. Now I just have to sand it, paint it, and stencil it, and it will be the greatest toy box ever! Really, though, it's not hard to beat a U-Haul box.

MORE T-BALL:

Ethan loves T-ball. Well, I think he loves the idea of T-ball. More than playing, he loves to make sure the little girls his age are watching. Seriously - sometimes I have to get involved to get him to focus!

And apparently there is some serious contemplation that goes into batting in T-ball. This is something I didn't know. Also, just in case you haven't had the pleasure of watching children play T-ball, be aware: It takes a village to hit the ball.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

The other day Porter stood by himself for about three seconds before sitting down. Ethan got really excited and said, "Mom! Porter can stand all by himself! Now he can be a human like the rest of us!" Well, he's a pretty cute human if I do say so myself.

Whew! You made it. If you read this whole post, let me know and I'll send you a gold star.