Update on the Kiddos

So we've reached the end of Tyler's first week on formula. He's done really great taking a bottle, with the exception of having some bowel issues. Those were solved either by switching to the "Gentle" version of regular formula or by my giving him acidophilus in his bottle once a day, or by both, I'm not sure which. I gave Jake acidophilus also and it seemed to do really well for him, at least I never had any bowel issues with him, and Riley seemed to struggle in that area sometimes when she was taking formula. I highly recommend it if your baby seems stopped up or having a lot of digestive issues including gas either from forumula or breastmilk. I plan to try to switch Tyler back to the regular version of formula now that he is getting the acidophilus and see if he does ok since that formula is cheaper than the gentle kind. He has also been on a pretty regular schedule for the past couple of days with eating and then being awake for a little bit and then taking a nap. He has also gotten so much better about falling to sleep on his own. I've even been able to put him down for a nap and not had to go back in his room at all a few times. The exception is when he goes to bed initially at night. When I put him down then he still wants to cry for a little bit and I usually still have to pick him up at least once before he goes to sleep finally. But I'm still willing to put up with that. Probably in another month if he is still doing that I'll start letting him cry longer at that time so he'll learn to go to sleep completely on his own. But I'm expecting that he'll just keep improving each day and it won't even take another whole month for him to be going down for every sleep time relatively easily.

Jake is also doing so great with potty training. He's had only one significant accident in the past week, with some other smaller accidents in there too. The only thing we still haven't accomplished is doing "number 2" on the toilet. I'm still at a loss as to how to get him to do that too. He tends to go into a different room when he needs to do that so I don't usually know that he's doing it in his pants. I'm not feeling too urgent about it yet since he's only been going potty on the toilet for a week. If another week or two goes by and he still hasn't gone on the toilet even once, I'll start trying to come up with a real strategy for getting him to go.

We are getting ready to start Riley's last week of kindergarten. I can hardly believe how fast this year has gone by for her! I am so excited to have a couple of months off the school schedule but I'm sure by the end of that time I'll be glad for it to start back up again to give some regulation to the days again. The one big thing I dread about the summer is how often I'm afraid Riley's little friends are going to be coming to our house once school is out. Riley being somewhat timid in certain situations, won't usually go over to the other girls' houses unless they come and take her there or she is invited specifically but already the other two girls show up unannounced at our house after school and on Saturdays wanting to play with Riley. I'm going to have to establish some ground rules just to preserve my sanity. It would be easier if the little girls were easier to handle but one in particular doesn't even treat Riley that nicely in my opinion (although Riley allows it probably because she hasn't figured out that she doesn't have to be treated that way if she doesn't like it). That same girl also talks back to me when I tell them not to do something, such as go into the corn field behind our house. The other girl is easier to tolerate, but she shows up a lot more often.