The waiting game..

Ugh! call me crazy but this has GOT TO BE the worst part of pregnancy. Will I ever go into actual labor? Will I go past my due date again and have to deal with all the "When are you due?" questions and looks!? (ps how do you answer that one.. "um 3 days ago, but thanks for reminding me, bc I'm not thinking of it constantly") I should be more thankful. I know this. I am praying for patience and a better attitude this time. I think, so far, I have been doing a little better. But not great.

Thankfully, I have other big distractions at this point that I did not have last pregnancy.

We are closing the deal on our big "Stand Your Ground" book project. ..which has taken forever to get this far! We found an awesome friend to use and abuse as our writer and since then it finally took off running. (ok maybe sprinting, but we had a lot of time to make up!)

Also, Joel III has decided to cut his 2nd year molars just in time for the last few weeks of my pregnancy (and hopefully delivery at some point!) He has had 1 of them for about 1 month.. but it seems like maybe the next 3 are all coming in at once or something. He will be eating just fine then bam! all of a sudden crying hysterically, wont finish his food, wont stop crying unless being held and walked by mommy. (yeah, when he only wants Mommy you know it's bad.. bc 90% of the time he prefers Daddy to throw him around and wrestle with him).. so that's been tough on the back and belly. But good for the purposes of distraction from the waiting game.

Another good thing is that Joel has been around quite a bit to play with Joel III, bring me milk for heartburn, do the dishes.. ya know all that good stuff that an awesome hubby does when his wife is the size of a cow. This week is an easy one (only 1 speaking engagement) but next week (week 39!) will be rough.. very rough.. 5 engagements.. Which means I gotta suck it up and get up off the couch, play with the boy, get my own milk, do my own dishes, etc. Poor me! But after that is another good week. I am secretly hoping to go into labor next week so I dont have to deal with him being gone so much and a needy 19 month old! (ok it's not a secret)

one cool thing that could happen (but probably won't).. Joel III was born on my brother Mike's B-day. My future SIL (his fiance)'s B-day is Sept 9th at which point I will be 39 weeks exactly. How cool would that be if he was born on Lindsey's B-day?!? See their engagement pic at the bottom of this Christmas blog post - Here

Ok, bedtime.

Potty Time Day #3

Morning: accidents 1 successes 0

hm.. by now something should be clicking. However, we sat on the potty for 15 mins twice this morning. he held his pee a solid 2.5 hours before his morning nap and I'm sure once his diaper was put on he peed in it. We are thinking that perhaps putting on loose underwear that will get all wet with accidents might motivate him a little more. Sadly though, I don't think the problem is motivation, he is clearly learning to hold it, the problem is the connection being made that pee goes in the potty. Since it hasn't happened, he has no idea why he is sitting on the potty.

afternoon: accidents 4 successes 0

ok so he's definitely holding the pee longer, but there is absolutely no connection at all of where it is supposed to go. He now enjoys 'potty time,' after we say "Joel it's time to sit on the potty." he says excitedly "Bot-tee Bot-tee!" and runs to his little potty where we show him youtube kid videos with songs, he never gets this anywhere else so of course he loves potty time! We got him to sit about 15-20 mins each time today so that is an improvement as well.. I guess. By 5pm we had officially given up and put a diaper on him to go on an outing to the park. If I really want to make myself feel better I could count that poop 'success' from yesterday and also today one of Joel's accidents went 100% into Daddy's shoe so that should count for something right?

The following article outlines Julie Fellom's Book and the 'Potty Training in 3 days or less' method which we attempted. At one point she says "if your child is having less than a 75% success rate or worse, or doesn't seem to notice the pee running down her leg, stop and try again later." I think that a 0% success rate would qualify. However, he did notice the pee running down his legs he would whine and look over at us, but he never did anything right before it. It was like the pee just came out to his complete shock every time! ha.

http://www.babycenter.com/0_potty-training-in-three-days-or-less_10310078.bc?page=1

She also says "It's pretty much guaranteed to work for children who try it before 28 months."

LOL.

Potty Time Day #2

Morning: Accidents 5 Successes 1!

Not sure why the frequency of poop & pee is going up rather than down, however we had a minor success this morning! The day started off with the plan to sit him on the potty every hour for at least 2.5 minutes.. so he 'gets it' and so maybe one of those times intersects with actual poop and pee, because he just isn't getting it. Mommy woke up late this morning and so by the time I got downstairs at 9:30am the Joels had gone through 4 accidents and 0 successes. Joel said he was whining and making a face and looking at him during the accident so maybe that is progress? Still I am shocked by how small the streams are. I had this vision of whisking him off to the potty midstream to complete the pee stream in the potty, then a connection would be made in his brain. Little did I know the pee stream would be less than 2 seconds. There is absolutely no chance of doing this in most cases, even with a 'larger' pee, which is like 5-7 seconds by the time I notice he is peeing it's over. I guess that's why we need to keep a closer eye on his face and other cues. This specifically is why I was able to catch his only 'success' this morning and get him to the potty in time: it was poop. I am very familiar with his poop face, and so I was able to scoop him up and get him to the potty in time for it to drop in. Afterwards we made him sit even longer (probably 4-5 mins total on the potty) and nothing more came out. We rejoiced, showered him with praise and kisses and showed him his poop and told him he did a great job 'putting it where it belongs.' oh yeah, then we gave him a cookie. oh we also had him sit on the potty about 4 times this morning for about 3-4 mins each, so that is minor progress too (he didn't refuse it, and he sat longer than we even anticipated!)

afternoon: accidents 2 successes 0

hm... someone is figuring out how to hold it I think. Accomplishments for the afternoon included 2x15 minute sessions of sitting on the potty.. yeay! Sadly, when he went down for his morning nap he let out probably enough poop & pee in his diaper for the entire rest of the day. Also sad, we are going to have another nap today which means another diaper, and I think somehow he knows that.

encouraging note: we went on a walk this evening and ran an errand and Joel stayed dry for all of it! in fact, in the evening, he held his pee for 3 hours! we continued to sit on the potty for long periods of time (10-15 mins) but Joel never let it out.. that is until dinner time. He ate like crazy and peed himself like crazy and was very happy.

Potty Time!

Before I go into our "Potty Time" I feel I must justify why I'm being so insane by even attempting to train an 18 mo. old boy (and first born!), there are 3 main reasons why we are attempting to train Joel.
1. Our Dr. recommended it - seriously. He said "if you don't do it now, he will for sure be in diapers another year or more because of the new baby" I said.. hm you are probably right, might as well try.
2. I feel he could be 'ready' - ok I know everyone's definition of 'readiness' is different, however Joel was telling me 'potty' before he would poop about 3 months ago, has an interest in the potty, poops at regular times each day, listens and follows commands pretty well, and likes to 'put things where they belong.' oh and he can fart on command.. seriously. if you say to him "Joel, Fart." he will make this cute little strained face, fart, and then laugh hysterically about it.
3. The best time is now - Joel my husband is home more often in the Summer than any other time of year, and we only have 1 child that is running around currently.. so that makes the ratio easier than in the future.

I've been inspired by numerous blogs, websites and nannies or childcare workers who have said it is possible to train 'early' Here is one that really got me thinking positively
http://www.chateaukaufman.com/2009/11/everyone-poops.html

So, with all that said, we blocked off Wednesday the 28th - Friday the 30th for full-time potty training. We have committed to 3 full days assuming he doesn't take MAJOR strides backward in other areas (I've heard of this happening) i.e. not sleeping, not able to play by himself or extremely clingy, sick, or being very disobedient without explanation. Given these things don't happen, we will proceed on our 3 day venture.


Day 1 of Potty training attempt:
first morning = 4 accidents 0 successes
The poop accident was fortunately outside on the deck. Joel didn't like the idea of letting little Joel run around naked on the deck for potty training (something about appearing trashy to the neighbors) but after a few pee accidents inside the house he quickly warmed up to the idea. After the first 2 pee accidents, Joel held his pee much longer for the 3rd one. Each time he had a pee accident he cried. So I guess that is good. After the poop accident we had him sit on the potty for a couple of minutes to see if anything else would come out, it didn't. But since he sat well (watching blip videos of himself of course) we gave him 1/2 an M & M as a reward.
He is confused about not being allowed into certain areas of the house and that is upsetting him. I would like it if we could spend all day outside on the deck but the humidity is 84% so it's not that enjoyable for us. We might get desperate enough though. He keeps saying "daa pur" .. like "where is my diaper?" but doesn't seem to be bothered that it's not on. He is enjoying getting all the juice he wants and getting more attention from mommy and daddy.
afternoon = accidents 8 successes 0 Discipline 3 (spankings or time outs)
It is hot out. Joel is enjoying lots of juice and skyline crackers (to make him pee more)
side note: we just got the summer infant 'best view' video monitor delivered and we are really excited about it! see video of the video monitor HERE
Joel is not liking being confined to the kitchen area, he is also cranky from only having one nap today, we have broken many rules today to just get through it for instance: Joel was allowed to walk around and eat chips or whatever we wanted to give him, Joel was allowed to drink as much juice as he wanted, and at the end of the evening just to calm him down we allowed Joel to watch a veggie tales video. So, all in all, we took a few steps backward today and 0 steps forward. Hopefully something will click on either day 2 or day 3. We had to discipline Joel more often today bc he was either 1. bored 2. confused as to what was going on or 3. tired or 4. all of the above.. Joel my husband suggested at the end of the day that we reward ourselves with chipotle, wine coolers and cookie dough ice cream. It was rough for all of us but there were three good things about today I could find: 1. we saved about 4 diapers (what does that add up to.. $2.00?) 2. we got some great organizing in the kitchen cabinets done and 3. we realized that the whole 'no diaper' thing conveniently allows for easy spanking access so even though Joel was being extra disobedient, we don't feel like we moved backwards in this area bc we were able to remain firm.
video of the morning click HERE
oh ps - we are not sure of the whole cookie or M & M reward, it seems to make him even more demanding and whiny as he thinks he should be getting them all day long. oh, we only gave him two rewards - 1 M&M and 1 small cookie, the first one is mentioned above, the second one was for him actually telling me 'potty' going to the potty and sitting there for over a minute - a huge accomplishment even though nothing came out. that was in the afternoon sometime.. it all went downhill after that.

Ohh man..

Long time no post! June ended up being busier than expected. We took 2 'working getaways' to attempt to write a book, aimed at HS and MS students titled 'Stand Your Ground.' Which is based off of Joel's school assembly presentation. The trips went well but the time away from Joel was difficult for us both!
Both getaways were at Indian Lake, in NW Ohio. A generous friend of ours and ministry donor encouraged us to use her huge lake house whenever we needed it.. we took major advantage of her offer! Joel writes about our book writing endeavor HERE in one of our latest Pentons' Progress issues. We made good progress, however, we still have a LONG way to go.. please pray for this huge undertaking as we would love to get it to the editing stages come September.

We also did some major house projects in June which were fun and much needed. The biggest one (in amount of hours) was moving Joel's former office into the loft so that we could set up and make room for Little Joel's new big boy room.. which will eventually be the room for both boys. (Hopefully the Lord will continue to bless us with more children!) sounds so easy.. right? Yeah, why are these projects always more difficult and time-consuming than expected? After we finally got Joel's new room mostly done we moved him in there and thought he would sleep just as well on a mattress on the floor as he did in his old crib. Ha. We sleep deprived him for a week (he would only sleep 1 hour for his nap but usually sleeps 3 hours) and then got horribly sick for a week straight after that. (See Below) So.. we moved him back to a pack n play inside his new room and will try again here soon. I attribute most of the problem to him not being adjusted to the room as 'his' room. So. ...we will see if time has helped or hurt the situation. Here is a pic of Joel enjoying his new table and chair set from IKEA, he is also enjoying a wrench of Daddy's.
We attended a couple of friends weddings, here is a pic of us at our friend Tim Rader's wedding.. I'm about 28 weeks in this pic, that would explain why I still look 'cute.'
We then had a lazy B-day celebration for Joel Jr. with some cake.
Then attended another wedding - a fancy wedding of Joel's good friend David Patterson, who was #97 on the D-Line.
With each wedding I get hotter (like, temperature wise) and huge-r. We are going to another wedding of a friend of mine in mid-August. I don't think I will be posting that picture!
We recently took a much needed 'Spiritual Retreat' where we watch and listened to 6 talks on 'The Supremacy of Christ and the Church in the Post Modern World." Click HERE for details. Again, we shipped our boy off to the grandparents.. It was refreshing and as I said above - much needed. We are considering doing this annually and possibly as a ministry.. because seriously, what is more important than Jesus? Honestly though, I think we were challenged to ask ourselves that question over and over during the trip itself as our dear son came down with high fevers for 4 days (like above 103) and then a rash and extreme irritability. (it was Roseola) Finally, he recovered and we were all reunited just last week - it was a relief!

Right now I am focused on making it through each day without passing out and trying not to become a whale. The new baby seems to move much more than Joel did and does seem to be bigger, however its easy to forget. Right now I'm almost 32 weeks and I feel like I did at around 37 weeks with Joel.. I am not sure how I will make it through August!

VIDEO UPDATES
Joel sitting in lawn chair : http://blip.tv/file/3895131
Joel lifts weights: http://blip.tv/file/3895226
Joel and Daddy sword fighting: http://blip.tv/file/3897975
Joel does his 'funny walk' : http://blip.tv/file/3900266

Finally!

We are so excited for this time in our lives! The ministry has slowed down significantly and we made it through an exhausting May. Little Joel is a huge joy lately as he is repeating everything we say and doing what we do. It is very cute. Some exciting new words are "Bi-bull" for Bible, "Pees" for Please, and "Daa-pur" for Diaper. He has also learned the word "No" which is not so cute, but I guess we have to take it all of the good and the bad that comes. We are gradually preparing for the new baby or as many family members lovingly call him "Joel the 4th." Here's a recent pic of Joel, does he look like he's ready to be a big brother?

Ministry went well in May, Joel traveled to many different states as I mentioned in my last blog. Joel discovered on a 5 hour flight to Casper, WY that snacks are no longer handed out on flights now, of course he could buy a $5 2 inch x 2 inch bag of peanuts but we want to be better stewards of the ministry's money than that! He admitted that he should have brought numerous protein bars with him on the trip when he came home (something I do for every trip now, 'just in case') He also visited the mormon temple in Utah and shared the gospel with 2 Mormon teenagers who were working at the temple. They weren't interested in Jesus, go figure. Other than those two slight disappointments, the trips went well but we were both extremely happy to have him back home. We had a small bet going (what do you bet when you share everything?) about the number of words that little Joel would learn when Joel was gone.. I said at least 7, Joel said 2, at that point he had about 15 words total. Needless to say, Mommy was right and you can view some of the videos HERE. Also here is another video of Joel attempting to use a spoon to eat an italian ice from a cup, you can see that HERE.

Ok so you want to know about actual ministry? Oh! Well in that case, in some ways May was a struggle, concerts performed for assemblies that were more than 4 months previous tend to be difficult. Plus, well, I guess around April something happens to most HS and MS kids and they cannot concentrate on anything else other than Summer. However, we did have 5 successful concerts in Huber Heights, Cincinnati, Bellefontaine, Muhlenberg, KY and New Lisbon, WI. Here is a quote from one of the students from Bellefontaine HS, "I thought this was cool. It made me realize I should reconnect with God and Jesus."
Awesome.


At the end of May we spent some time in Joel's hometown of Van Wert, Ohio to visit with family and get some much needed R & R while we had ample family members to look after our boy. Joel tried to take little Joel swimming one morning while Mommy was getting a massage (what a life!) and here's the progression of events:


"My skin may be extremely pale, but I've got my swim trunks on and I'm ready to go!"









"Wow this is terrible! The water is cold, and I have to use my legs! How do other kids even like this? Get me out of here immediately Daddy!"







"Please don't put me in there ever again Daddy."







I guess it might take a while for him to enjoy swimming, oh well. One last thing: this Summer Joel and I (with the help of the Hollidays) will be attempting to write a book! Crazy I know. We are convinced this would be appealing to administrators and help to expand Joel's platform. Our goal is to have it complete and sent to the publisher by early September (around the time 'Joel the 4th' will be arriving). Please pray for us if you think of it, we really have no idea what we are getting ourselves into!
Here is the completed (missing a few cushions and a fire pit) outdoor sanctuary project! We love it!

Endurance...

Well, we finally got Joel's first Christmas tree in the ground! Here is a pic of him checking it out. We didn't mean to dress him like a clown. Speaking of trees, Joel and I have been doing some major landscaping the past few weeks. I finished my tasks in 2 days (with the help of my mom), but I won't bore you with pictures of flowers... Joel's task however is taking numerous weeks. We are creating a courtyard/patio in the back corner of our yard. I am excited to see how another one of Joel's creative design ideas turns out. The kitchen and our master bath were creative ideas of his and we absolutely love both! However, due to Joel's lack of time at home, I believe it might not be completely finished until mid-June.. this May is a strange one. The ministry typically has 6 busy months, and 6 months that are 'lighter' (wow! better than a teacher!) the busy months are: September, October, November, February, March and April. However this year May has filled up significantly (see Joel's calendar if you are wondering - www.joelpenton.com/calendar.html) also August is a little booked up as well.. however I don't mind that one as I would rather have him be gone in August than September (baby due date Sept 16th)! Anyway back to May, Joel will be traveling to Kentucky, Wyoming, Utah, and Wisconsin! Just yesterday, Joel traveled 6 hours to an assembly in PA, then presented, packed up, and turned around for 6 more hours to travel home. He said he found me in the same position as when he left: in bed. Joel is not one to admit he has any limits but I believe he is approaching them. Please pray for his endurance - mentally, physically and especially spiritually. Little Joel misses him as well, whenever he sees a tall man with a white shirt on he says "Daddy!" also yesterday when I was running the washing machine he kept thinking that the sound was the garage door opening so he would constantly go to the laundry room and say "Daddy!" and then cry when I said no. :( It will be nice for him to have a companion to play with - along those lines we just found out that his new sibling will be a brother! We are so pumped and hope and pray they get along well and bring out the best in each other. I am excited because I get to pass them off to Daddy when they turn like 5 - right? The pic to the left clearly shows it's a boy! I know I am in for it as Boys naturally love to cause trouble - here is a pic of Joel's favorite place to cause trouble - the garage!

on a different note, we had an awesome Central Ohio FCA Legends event on April 29th. Joel was honored to present the Outstanding Christian Leadership awards to numerous HS seniors throughout Central Ohio. We were reminded of how difficult it really is to be a Christian in High School and how awesome these students are for 'Standing their Ground.' We hope and pray that the ministry we are doing encourages Christian students all over the nation to 'Stand their Ground,' we also pray perhaps even more so that thousands more students are able to "Stand their Ground" on Jesus if they haven't been doing that in the past. Please pray for the ministry and our family, thank you so much for reading our blog!