Happy Birthday Corbin!

Yesterday was Corbin's second birthday. What a big kid he is becoming. I don't know if he really understood what a birthday was, but people kept telling him Happy Birthday, singing to him and asking him how old he was all day long (to which he has learned to say, "two," while holding up one finger -- we are still working on learning numbers :) I think he was mostly likely confused about why we were all acting so weird.

His Grandma Lloyd stopped by and brought him two balloons, which he is in love with. He always points out balloons in books and at the store, but I think this is the first time he has ever actually owned one. His biggest problem is he always wants to hold them both at the same time, the actual balloon, not just the strings, which his little arms can't handle, and as soon as one slips, it flies up to where he can't reach it. He also enjoys grabbing the strings and flinging them around in the air, which is fun to watch because the whole time is face is all scrunched up as though he is bracing for impact because he can't control them enough to not hit himself in the head repeatedly.

It being a weekday we mostly just hung out at home all day, other than a trip to story time at the library, and played as much as possible. When Caleb got home we had Corbin's favorite food for dinner:


If you ever ask that kid what he wants to eat, I would say 80% of the time he will ask for pancakes. I found a pancake mix at the health food store that has no eggs or milk, so he can eat it, which we use in the mornings when I am too lazy to make them from scratch with the proper substitutes for him (which is becoming more and more frequently :) The only thing is the mix is made with kamut flour, what kind of a grain is that? Anyway... he likes them.

Caleb ended up having to work kind of late, so after dinner we just hung out at home as a family and showered the kid with as much attention as possible and let him stay up late and eat a bowl of soy ice cream, what a lucky day!


Having only had ice cream one other time in his life, which would have been a year ago on his last birthday, he was kind of concerned that it was so cold, and played with it the majority of the time, rather than eating it. But oh, well... as long as he had fun, right?

Success!

A little while ago we bought Corbin a little potty chair. At first he would sit on it, with his pants on, and read books while I showered. Then he started asking to sit on the potty naked. So I let him try.

He seemed to like it, he would sit there for well over an hour and ask me to read him books. I was excited, thinking holy cow, this potty training thing is going to be a breeze, I haven't had to do anything yet, he's not quite 2, and he wants to sit on the potty chair. Great!

Then I discovered that he liked to sit there, for a long time, and the second he announced he was done, he would stand up, walk two steps and pee on the floor. This happened on numerous different occasions over the last month or so. Okay so clearly he isn't ready and does not understand the concept. But for some reason I kept letting him sit there and try whenever he asked.

So today he tells me he is all done after sitting there for about 45 minutes, and I grab the diaper, lay him down and get his bum covered as soon as possible, to avoid the inevitable accident on the floor. Then I notice, he actually did it! He peed in the potty chair before he got up!


So we celebrated big time with lots of hugs and congratulations and of course, lots of marshmallows (his favorite sugary treat). I still won't hold my breath, hoping that he is ready to potty train, I think that it was mostly luck and he's still too young, but either way, that was a pretty exciting moment for me.

Side Note:
No, he is not hugging his pee, the pictures were taken AFTER I had emptied and wiped down the chair :)

Halloween

This year for Halloween we attended Caleb's work trick-or-treating. Since there aren't a whole lot of treats that Corbin can eat, and I still think that 2 is a little young to get a basket of candy anyway, we weren't going to take him trick-or-treating, but then when we showed up he saw the other kids and got really into it. He was wandering up and down the hallways of Caleb's office, saying "tick-o-teet" to everyone.

They had people who knew they would be in the office that day, and had candy available, tie a balloon onto their door, so that the kids new which offices to go to. However, Corbin didn't seem to notice that and while we were talking to someone, he wandered off and made friends with one guy that didn't have a balloon. I think he felt bad since Corbin keep telling him "tick-o-teet" and holding out his basket, so the guy gave him a couple of paper clips he had lying around, which satisfied Corbin and on he went, collecting goodies.

He came home with a huge load of candy, which is particularly hard since Caleb and I have sworn off sugary sweets for the next month, and now we have tons of candy bars, that Corbin can't even eat, staring me in the face all day. Oh well, what doesn't kill you will only make you stronger, right? So hopefully this will only prove to strengthen my will power.


After the work party we went home and Caleb and I got dressed in our costumes as well. Since Corbin likes to pretend to be Tigger and has run around the house jumping (well trying to jump, both feet have yet to leave the ground at the same time) and saying, "I bounce like Tigger" ever since he met the "real" Tigger at Disneyland this summer, we got him a Tigger costume. Since I am a bit strange and like to make the whole family dress up every year in themed costumes, that meant that Caleb and I were Eeyore and Pooh. Corbin thought it was pretty great hanging out with his Eeyore Dad and his Pooh Mom, it was fun to see how excited he got.


We then had to show off our cool costumes and so we drove around and visited family members and friends that live nearby. Corbin discovered skittles, and ate more sugar than I think he has in his entire life combined, and was wired all night, until our last stop when he crashed. Within minutes he went from running around playing with Kona (Harm and Derek's dog) and the toys to full on ornery and even told us he was tired. It took him maybe 2 minutes to fall asleep in their guest room and then we stayed up and played games. It was a fun night.