Starting 2012, the Blog is going to change. Rather than the single massive update covering a two month period of time with hundreds of pictures set to music, I'll be doing shorter blog updates weekly or sooner, reducing the picture count to dozens and no more than a hundred, occasionally splicing in a video, and still setting it to music. The updates were becoming so cumbersome and time consuming that I was avoiding them and watching material pile up in huge amounts and often missing a lot of good stuff that Antoinette and I would simply forget. Hopefully this new format make these easier to read and watch and hopefully it makes them a little more enjoyable.
Unfortunately to reset this, it means that hundreds of pictures won't be included in the first update including Christmas and Thanksgiving for last year. But many will be included.
A quick little update for both of the boys to kick this off:
Billy's potty training is really the biggest change for him. He realy wasn't taking to it much and we were trying varying different tricks to get him started. We even went as far as buying him a miniature urinal to practice standing up. None of it was working. After doing a little research, I think we are finally starting to have a little breakthrough. The trick seems to have been a better routine. Instead of trying to get Billy to tell us when he had to go, instead we tried to set a timer for every 45 minutes to an hour or before or after major events like leaving, arriving, napping, waking up, eating, etc. By dramatically increasing the frequency of trips to the "potty" it increased the likelihood we were going to have a successful trip, which of course would be celebrated with my wife singing and dancing, clapping and cheering, and some sort of treat. Even unsuccessful trips were congratulated for trying to reinforce the idea that it was a good thing one way or another. As a result, he's been averaging a good visit every other day or so, which is a vast improvement from never, which is where we were at a week ago.
AJ's biggest change is talking. He's doing a whole lot more of it these days. He also sits on the potty just to try it out and still climbs on everything, but trying to talk seems to be his thing now. He's trying to say everything and has turned a 3-4 word vocabulary into a 20-30 word vocabulary, including mutiple syllables (like banana), and occasionally a couple words strung together into something coherent like "Brutus eye" or "Brutus hat" (Brutus Buckeye for all of you non-Ohio State fans). He's also starting to point at things and then waiting for you tell him what it is, so he can try out that word. Sometimes he repeats what you say and sometimes he doesn't even try it, but at this rate, I think he's 6 months from being a much better communicator, which should be helpful.
