Drums (vid)

These are back from christmas day...






I'm working on getting some video from our video camera (as opposed to the digital camera). Hopefully there will be some more drum play and some Guitar Hero footage soon.

Potty Mini-update

We are so proud of our boy! He spent the whole day in underwear today. He had 2 poopy accidents and a pee that he waited a little too long on. He did catch a poop in time to make it to the bowl though. Lil'daddy secured 21 RockBand points on his potty chart today for a total of 40. He was really into wearing the underwear. So much so that he wanted to wear them to bed! With much trepidation, we let him. He said that he wants to wear them tomorrow to school! We will see if he still feels that way tomorrow, but I'm inclined to let him.

Baby steps?! (Potty/GHIII Update)

I thought it would take two weeks but it took only one. lil'daddy got to his 30 pts quickly but we are not yet consistently going to the potty. We enacted a 'potty to play' rule and he has been going sporadically.

We needed another reward to further our efforts but the only one the boy is interested in now is Rock Band! He was given several other alternative choices but he seems to be focused on guitars! Rock Band, for those that don't know, is the game that incorporates the playing of guitars, microphones and drums into the gameplay. We already have guitars and mics that we could use, so I think we only have to get the game itself and no peripherals! Sadly playing the drum controller would be the closest to the actual way you play the real instrument but they are not available separately. At least he could take those skills to a real drum kit (btw no gift ideas!! besides, he already has a 3 piece kit).

Lil'daddy has set the goal of 101 pts for Rock Band. I told him that if he wears underwear at home (staying dry in them or even if he has an accident) for a whole day then he would get 10 points. A dry pull-up for a day is also worth 10 pts. Trys are still 1 pt, pees are worth 2 and poops are 5. We'll see how this goes...

I'll try to change the subject and get some pictures up of the boy. We wouldn't want to start scaring people away with all this potty talk!

btw I realize how obnoxious the animated pic is... more the reason to start burying it with another -topic changing- post!

Potty/GHIII Progress

I'm getting the feeling were not establishing that pee and poo belong in the toilet. I'm afraid after we reach our goal, he's not going to want to try anymore. I'm sure the boy just wants Guitar Hero. At least were getting him on the bowl again though!

Seeing how GHIII seems imminent, I'll take a cue from Andrea and institute a 'potty to play' rule. I'm also starting to think of another goal/prize to work for next. Building upon this experience, I think we will weigh pee less, poo about the same, and maybe emphasize a reward for wearing underwear at home or having a dry pull-up. hmmmm.

Potty Training for GHIII

This is on 20" x 30" Foam Board.
The Legend reads:
Try = 1 pt
Pee = 2 pts
Poop = 5 pts
30 pts for GHIII

Another Guitar Hero Update

Lil'daddy is still rocking strong on Guitar Hero. Lately we are playing Co-op Mode (ie - with him playing guitar on easy and me playing Bass on Expert). He is quite obsessed with guitars in general. Early last year, I had gotten him a First Act kids acoustic guitar that recently had lost a screw from one of it's tuning gears. We spent some time in a few different Music stores in search of this screw. I was absolutely floored when lil'daddy started to correctly identify the Gibson Les Paul, Flying V, X-plorer, Kramer Vanguard and the "USA guitar in Natural finish". Of course these are all guitars featured in the game. He was also correctly identifying some guitars as bass or acoustic as well! Our screw finding adventures were quite a blast.

My lil'g'tar hero has also been getting better and scoring higher and higher. First, on Freebird, he scored 17,269 with an 8 note streak and 39% of the notes correct. On Surrender, he then scored 19,969 with a 6 note streak and 71% correct. On Hangar 18 he scored 26,495 with a 4 note streak and 65% correct. On random songs, his highest note streak has been 32 notes. His highest percentage of notes correct has been 79%. I have set up a ScoreHero account for him. This is mainly to record our Co-op play. He mostly likes to play as Johnny Napalm so his User Id is JohnnyRocks. He's starting to pass songs in career mode all on his own! Maybe I'll start recording those as well!

This of course leads us to our next post...

Eight years and counting…

Today is the eight year anniversary of my mom’s passing. I always have to count the years each time I think about it, in great contrast to my sister, who at one point could easily tell me the number of months & days it had been.

I suppose that it does get easier as time passes. However, as the pain fades, so do some of my memories. I can barely recall the sound of my mom’s voice or her laugh. Some memories are still vivid, but others fade with time. It hits me the most when I think about my mom never holding any of her grandchildren and how my kids will have never met her in person. I try to keep her memory alive and do truly believe that she is watching over us, but of course, it’s not the same.

Today especially Mom.. I thank you for all that you have given me and pray that you are watching over all of us, especially your grandchildren.

Ugh! x 2

I'm not sure how much longer we can NOT put pressure on him to use the potty. I thought the peer pressure at school would work on him. He is fully aware that there is not even one other boy or girl in his class that is still in diapers. He watches the other boys and girls line up to use the potty. He, on the other hand, goes into the "baby" room to use the changing table. He's OK with all this. We've regressed back to diapers from pull-ups. (He says he wants to go back to wearing pull-ups but he does not even want to try to use the toilet.) I'm not at wits end yet but ...

I hate New Years resolutions but why not use today as an excuse to redouble our efforts!