The time has come for me to push Manny in the direction of potty training. I know that physically he's ready (can hold his bladder for several hours, doesn't have BM's at night, can take his pants on and off), but I'm not sure that he's emotionally ready.

He's at a very argumentative age. If I say 'yes', he says 'no'. I say 'up', he says 'down'. I've heard that this stage starts to phase out at 3.5 but, I think it's time to get the idea into his head.

I put him in training underwear this morning. They are like regular underwear, except there's extra padding in the crotch so that if he wets himself, there won't be a huge mess (still a mess, but not huge). It's about 1:00 p.m., and things haven't been going so well.

He's had three accidents. I've given him a big glass of juice for breakfast, snack, and lunch. About 10-15 minutes after his drink, I have taken him to the potty. I've been playing games with him while he's on the potty so that he'll stay seated for about 5 minutes, however he refuses to pee in the toilet. It seems as soon as I take him off, that's what he pees.

I'll try and keep this up for a couple of more days to see if he gets the hang of it, but if things keep going the way they have, I may have to suck it up and admit that he's really not ready.

It has been a beautiful week in the bay area. I feel like I've spent most of the week outside. Today, I took the boys to the zoo. As soon as the word was mentioned Manny was super excited. He's been watching Madagascar nightly, so he's always talking about giraffes, lions and zebras....oh, and hippos too.

We got to the zoo around 11:00 a.m. I seriously think that Manny ran from one exhibit to the next for the first hour that we were there. It was so fun to see how excited he was.

It is amazing to watch Manny grow. He is such a head strong, independent little boy. He knew exactly which animals he wanted to see, and the order in which he wanted to see them.

First, he wanted to see the giraffes, which was lucky because they are the first exhibit after entering the zoo. Next, he wanted to see the bears. The unfortunate thing about that was that they were on the complete opposite side. On our way to the bears we saw monkeys, gorilla's, and zebra's.

I had to carefully bypass the marry-go-round because I didn't have any cash on me, and if he had seen the horsies (which he mentioned by the way) there would have been a meltdown to end all meltdowns.

We finally made it to the grizzly bear exhibit. One of the bears was taking a bath, while the other bear was sleeping. I think we spent about 15 minutes just staring at the bears.

After the bears we saw tiger cubs (that are HUGE by the way), lions, and penguins.

It's been a really beautiful day, but I was hoping for a storm this week. John and I want to take the kids to the snow for some sledding, but we won't be able to if this nice weather keeps up. Let's all pray for some rain!

I realize I haven't posted in a while, so I thought I'd give a brief update of the Bauson household.

Christian is now 9 months old (he'll be 10 months on the 23rd). He recently had his 9 month check up, where we found that he weighs 23lbs 10oz, and is 30 inches long. He recently learned how to wave, and to clap - two things he does constantly throughout the day. He loves playing the "hot and cold game" with people...waving to strangers to see if they'll wave back; nine times out of ten, they do :)

He is determined to walk before he turns a year old. He has been taking one or two steps here and there; nothing consistent. You can tell which side is weaker by the bruises on his forehead. The poor kid can't live without a bruise for more then a day. When one bruise disappears, another appears in its place.

The countdown for Manny's 3rd birthday has finally begun. Wow...three, it's hard for me to believe that he is going to be 3 years old. While I let that sink in, let me give you some updates....Manny is a spitfire of a child. He is extremely opinionated, and independent. He likes to decide for himself what he's eating for dinner, and what movies he'll be watching. The only thing he refuses to do? Go potty on the toilet.

We were in Target the other day, and I pointed on the Transformers "big boy" underpants. Manny was instantly in love. When I informed him that in order to wear those "big boy" underpants, he had to sit on the potty, he said, "Mommy, I don't like Transformers". Here's to hoping that he'll be potty trained by this summer.

Lately I've been teaching Manny the real names of body parts. Since doing this, he has become super aware of other people's body parts. I also openly nurse Christian in front of him, so he sees my breasts numerous times on any given day.

Last night we had dinner with some friends of ours. During dinner, Manny pointed to John's chest and asked, "Daddy, what's this?" John said that they were his boobs, and Manny asked, "Daddy, you feed Chick-ran? Chick-ran hung-wee?"

John declared that he needed to lose some weight. I spit out my root beer.

After dinner Manny's friend Edgar decided he wanted to watch Sleeping Beauty. Manny said, "We're watching Sleeping Doody?" John said, "No...Beauty". Manny said, "No...Doody".