Hopefully It Helps

We have this toy our German landlords gave us when we were living over in Germany. It's a wooden toy that has red straps to tie it to whatever. The other day, the boys took the straps off and started using them as scarves. It was pretty cute until I looked at Deacon and noticed that his "scarf" was wound awfully tight around his neck, making his face look slightly purple. I took the "scarf" off of his neck and gave them real scarves to use instead.

Hopefully it helps. (And that's how Zeke watched the movie the other night. What can I say, he's so weird sometimes.)

Of course, the red straps are still a draw to the children. When I saw them eyeing the straps while struggling with their swords the other day, inspiration struck.

Hopefully it helps keep the red straps away from their necks, as well as keep their swords in a handy place for when the next dragon shows up (because apparently we have dragons out here).

Every day since Josh has left Zeke has asked me, first thing in the morning, "Is my daddy home yet?" And every day I have to sigh and tell him no. So, in order to try and help him understand a little better just how long Josh will be gone, I made this paper chain to count down the days.

Hopefully it helps him to stop asking every day if Josh is home. Too bad it won't help Zeke not miss Josh as much (he's been having a rather emotional day today - "I'm sad because I miss my daddy").

And finally, I made this calendar/chart/countdown thing for Deacon, hoping that if he has some sort of visual thing to see when it's time to start using the toilet he'll be more willing to actually start using the toilet.

So, hopefully it helps him get into the potty mindset so I can get him trained before the summer (I'm really hoping to have him fully trained well before me move so that moving won't make him regress any, so he can go to some sort of preschool in the fall.)

Now that Daddy's gone, Mommy's had to put on her super-duper-thinking cap. I think I'm doing alright so far. Right?