Daily Life with the Gubbins Family

Our day-to-day lives are pretty busy these days. Andy tends to be at work about 6 days a week, and has evening meetings about 4 nights a week. Jess is teaching two evening classes and trying to do data analyses for her dissertation. This means Simon and Theodore are both at daycare full time for the semester, and during the week tend to spend the evening with one or the other parent...those relaxed family meals together are (sigh) hard to come by these days!

Here are some updates on the kiddos...

We tend to let Simon's hair grow until its hanging down in his eyes enough that we notice him swatting it away on a daily basis. Then we go to CostCutters in the mall (because its right next to the mall play area, so he can play while we are waiting for our turn), and get it cut there. They are pretty good with him the few times he's been there--I imagine they get lots of practice with reluctant and squirmy kids. After adding in a tip, his haircuts usually cost about $15. Its not a lot, but as a girl who always had long(ish) hair, cut straight across by my mother or sister, it sometimes pains me to hand over the money, knowing we'll just be back when his hair has grown another 2 inches! I'm not used to this whole boys-hair-cut thing.

So a few weeks ago we started mentioning to Simon that he would need his hair cut soon...and he surprised me by asking, not once but several times, "when can we cut my hair at home?" Huh. I hadn't really considered that option. He asked persistently enough that I began to seriously consider it, and then decided to give it a try. I bought a cheapish hair trimming set for $15 (about the cost of one haircut, I figured, so if it was a total disaster I just wouldn't use it again and it wouldn't be much of a waste). Unfortunately, I had no one to practice on, as Andy wasn't terribly interested in having me practice on him...its as if he has to make public appearances on a daily basis or something, and doesn't want to risk a disastrous haircut! Theodore doesn't have any hair yet, so he wasn't really an option either...so, Simon it was! For my very first time, with a very-cooperative-for-a-three-year-old-but-still-a-three-year-old client, I am pretty happy with the results. Not perfect, but good enough. I figure by starting now, by the time he's old enough to actually care what his hair looks like, I'll have enough practice to make it even better!

Simon, after his first at-home haircut

Theodore is nine months old today--at his well-child visit we learned that he's a little peanut compared to his peers--below the 3rd percentile for weight! But he is doing well. In the past two weeks, his first two teeth have come in (he won't cooperate for photos of them, though). And, he loves to stand...he needs support, either leaning against something or having someone hold him, but he LOVES to stand. At times when we try to get him to sit he just stiffens his body and refuses to bend at the waist...of course this tends to happen when we NEED to set him down, so it results in our laying him down which does NOT make him happy. But so it goes--I've tried explaining that if he would just bend at the hips he could sit and reach his toys, but he seems quite determined. Oh, and as far as we can tell, he has no interest in crawling.

Theodore, happily standing/leaning against the now-resurrected-from-the-basement activity table

Simon's most recent accomplishment is becoming (mostly) potty trained. This seemed to take forever...seriously, we've been potty training in some form for over six months, in fits and starts (i.e. a week or two of serious effort, before the semester started, then over Thanksgiving break, then over Christmas break, with little progress, followed by a month or so of less-intense-effort). Granted, I know that is normal. But it was still rather frustrating--not so much because we thought he had to be out of diapers, but because he had decided both that he did NOT want to use a potty AND that he did not want his diaper changed. Not a good combination! In any case, we are over the hump in terms of training...he has spent the past week in big boy undies during the day, and is doing quite well overall. He seems to go about two days totally dry and then have an accident, but is getting much better at actually telling us he needs to go (rather than "staying dry" because we made him try every hour). We used a variety of reward schemes over the past six months--the most recent (and last) involved a chart where he got to color in squares for various kinds of successes, and pick prizes from different boxes...little things like a sticker for attempting to go, and bigger things for more difficult tasks, like staying dry all day. I dug through our toys and found a bunch of things we had bought for him but never actually used or given to him, and some old toys of mine, and threw them into the various prize boxes, so it was actually a virtually free prize system for us, which was nice.

Simon using his finger paints, a prize he picked after staying dry all day (one of those things I bought about a year ago and then forgot about...)

So that's the news from Gubbinsland, where all the women are stressed, all the men are stressed, and all the children are adorable (and we hope not too stressed)!