Eric is progressing pretty well in potty training. He anticipates about 25% of the time and then has accidents about 50% of the time unless we prompt him. The other 25% (for those math nerds out there who added 25 + 50 and realized that the result was less than 100 -- you know who you are!) we remember to prompt him.

He's going on his own most nights after going to bed but before falling asleep. Friday night he pooped in the potty after bedtime, of his own initiative. This was a big milestone (though he hasn't repeated it yet) and so he got one of the rewards I've been stowing away. He chose the Crayola set of crayons, markers and pencils.

Little by little he's reading more words. Today he asked what the word was on the Subway napkins and I had him sound out the first syllable, at which point he sounded out the whole word. He's also memorizing phrases in books (which he's never shown any interest in before) which tells me that his proto-reading is helping him remember what the words are.

We gave him a lamp with a dimmer so he can read after bedtime (and go potty). He's doing ok turning it off but I often find him face-down asleep in a book with the light still on in the morning. Nice to know he's breeding true.

Kyle is using See quite a lot and is very proud of the things he can point out in the I'm A Kitten book -- mouse, flower, bird, ball, shoe, kitten, puppy. He can name all except mouse and flower. In other books he can usually point out bugs and sometimes 'moon' and 'tree' but only names bugs ("buh"). He seems to love the word 'shoe' ("siu") and will repeat it over and over.

The kids have had a cold for the last 10 days or so, mostly minor (stuffy/runny nose) except for the first day or two. Greg caught it, however, and was flat on his back on Sunday after church (he did slides this week). I mowed the lawns on Saturday but he only had enough stamina to get the mower started for me and cut the rest of the stair pieces. We'll put them on next weekend I guess. He took today as a sick day but (so far) expects to be at work tomorrow.

We're interviewing babysitters because our awesome sitter is moving to Florida in a week. We've interviewed 3 of 4 young women in the last week -- two don't have schedules that match and the other would probably work fine though she wasn't a standout (she's in high school and this might have been the first babysitting interview she's been on). She immediately knew how to treat choking in our two age groups, though, which is big props to her.