Two big accomplishments

We've had two big accomplishments in our family lately. The first one is that Claire is officially potty trained! We are so excited. I was dreading doing this with her because the experience with Andrew was not so good.

We had been trying on and off since the first of the year to do potty training. She was not interested at all.

In conjunction with Natalie we decided to make a valiant effort to try at the end of June. Claire caught right on. When she saw the new princess underwear it was a done deal. She has even cried out in the middle of the night that she needs to go potty. I'm not sure I like this, but what ever it takes to make it stick. She tells us when she needs to go whether we are at home or out. It will be a nice reprieve from buying diapers for two months.

The second big accomplishment is that Andrew can officially ride a bike without training wheels.

We got him a new bike back in May for his birthday -without training wheels. He was leery about riding it as he had fallen when we had tried on his old bike. Motivated by the shiny blue bike and new helmet we kept trying a little at a time.

He got some encouragement from bike expert Uncle Pete. Pete came over one day and asked Andrew if he wanted to try to ride his bike and he said yes.

And all of a sudden it clicked! He did it! He asks if he can practice every day now. He still has a bit of trouble stopping, but he is doing great.

Bad Mom

I was shopping at an office supply store the other day and I saw scissors for kids. We only have one pair at home and they are Andrew's and Claire asks to use them all the time. So, I purchased her a pair.

These are the lovely green scissors. Even though they are for kids they and still cause plenty of damage. Claire loves to cut paper into small pieces. So when she asked to use them the other day I said sure. I gave her paper and pens to draw with and she was in heaven. I told her that scissors are only used for cutting paper. She nodded and went about her business. No issues - everything was fine. Then she asked again on Sunday afternoon so I said yes. I once again reminded her about the rules with scissors and left her at the table with her supplies. Well this time, I was a bit distracted. We've been trying to clean out the office/junk room so that the baby will have a place to sleep. I came back out what seemed like only minutes later and she was sitting on the couch watching TV with Andrew. I noticed that she had the scissors and a pen in her hand and I said that they should be on the table. When she didn't want to take them back I moved closer to take them from her and noticed a small lock of hair on the sofa! So I moved even closer and what did we find.....

Yes, while watching TV she was also cutting her own hair! I may have slightly freaked out which scared her. Now this looks like a lot of hair, and it is, but I couldn't see any hair missing in the front or on the sides. Then I thought that there must be a large chunk missing out of the back but there wasn't. She somehow skillfully cut many layers into the back of her hair. Unless you look really close, you can't actually see the missing hair. This is mostly due to the fact that her hair is slightly wavy. The odd thing is that Andrew was sitting next to her the whole time and never noticed what was happening. In the end the new green scissors have been hidden and I am a bad mom for leaving my three year old alone with scissors. It is just hair and will grow back and I just keep thinking that it could have been a lot worse.