This week Asher has really discovered the letter s and especially in yes. About three weeks ago Mommy told him that a polite gentleman uses”yes” instead of “yeah.” Tuesday morning he woke up saying “yesssssss” to everything.

He  is doing REALLY well with potty training. The only real “accidents” have been when he misses the potty. We got rid of the timer, and he lets you know when he has to go. The major problem with that at the moment is we don’t know how long we have to get him there so we have to drop everything and run.

Here are this morning’s pictures before school:

Asher’s been having really bad dry skin, almost like eczema. The udder cream that has been working really well for well almost two years has not even been touching it. He developed really red, dry itchy spots under his arms on his chest about a quarter of the way down and red dots over most of the rest of his body. We have tried Aveno’s eczema cream and it made him worse, mineral oil didn’t do a bit of good, and the moo cream (udder cream). Mommy read online about using Vaseline so we tried it. It seems to be helping some, but since it doesn’t really let your skin breath Mommy was concerned about using it as frequently as we are (twice a day). After doing more research we (mostly Mommy who feels HORRIBLE now) decided to try coconut oil which is supposed to be good for numerous things including eczema.
Auntie Cathy and Mr. Matt were here visiting so we let Asher stay up later. Not even 10 minutes after putting the organic coconut oil on him Asher started itching his chest. When Mommy lifted his shirt he was covered with red bumps and little welts. 🙁  Off to the bathtub he went. We rinsed him with oatmeal and let him soak for a few minutes which seemed to help. He was in good spirits about it and continued to be super silly, tired Asher after while showing Auntie Cathy and Mr. Matt all sorts of fun stuff. Here is a not so great photo after his bath.

This looks WAY better since most of the welts are gone and some of the redness has dissipated. Now we are on another search for a not chemically solution to his skin issues.

So, the moral of the story is: you can put the PINEAPPLE in the COCONUT, but DO NOT GIVE THEM TO ASHER!!!

This morning Asher, Daddy, and Mommy went bowling.  Asher has become obsessed with bowling on the tablets at Papagug’s and the iPad (which has an earth bowling ball).  One Sunday mornings Twinstar Lanes in Kent (by Walmarts) has bowling for $1.75 a game from 9 to 11 am with $2 shoe rentals.  We went intending for us to play one game of bowling as a family.  Asher bowled for all of us!!!  He had SO much fun bowing three games.  He made it until about halfway through the second game before he decided he needed to change balls.  (He had a six pound green ball.)  We found a seven pound lavender ball and he would rotate between the two.  The last frame he decided we needed to get a new ball which was orange.  We thought one game would be enough for us to play, but Asher would have bowled all day if we would have let him.  He never really got bored.  There were some tears and yelling “No, Asher bowl more.  Not done bowling.” when it was time to leave.  He was still asking to go to the bowling alley when he went to bed tonight.

They gave him a six pound ball and a ramp so he could roll it down the ramp and the ball had enough behind it to make it down the lane and of course we had the bumpers up.

Bowling video

So there is a little bit of a back story to this post. When Mommy was little and visiting her father they would listen to the radio on scan ans see who could name the artist of the song the fastest. He was also a big Beatles fan so Uncle Jonathan and Mommy learned their songs quickly. At one point he jokingly said he raised two successful children because we could recognize a Beatles song in under 5 seconds. 
So a few months ago Asher and Mommy were driving and a Beatles song came on. She asked if he knew who it was and he did not so she explained the Beatles. The next night on our way home Mommy was flipping through the radio stations (by the way her car does not have scan and it really annoys her) and she hears him yell Beatles, Mommy, Beatles! He was correct, it was a Beatles song different from the one we heard the day before. Since then he hasn’t been as good as that night, but he still will recognize some Beatles songs playing. He will also request them from time to time. His other request songs are the bough, bough song (Eric Church’s Creepin’) and Fall Out Boy’s Light ‘Em Up.

Also, school and pottying went well today.

Asher had fun at school today. He went potty several times with no accidents!  (The only accident he had was in the evening when he had to poop.) Asher said school was good today. Miss Roseanne sent pictures:

When you ask him how his day was he did not tell us anything about those activities, but he said he “knocked Grace’s tower.”

After school he, Papa, and Gaga played in the snow at Papagug’s.

After Mommy talked to Miss Loretta on Thursday and got some suggestions, we decided to go full force with potty training. Her suggestions:
– No pull ups. They are expensive and send mixed signals.
– Be consistent.
– Set a timer for every 15 minutes and he must try each time.
– Potty time is not a choice.

This weekend he did pretty well. He had a couple accidents on Saturday but none on Sunday! He barely even peed overnight.  This morning he got up and told Daddy at breakfast he had to pee. He ran down the hall and peed on the potty!  He tried when we got to Papagug’s and then went on to play for a few minutes then he told Mommy Asher pee. Well, he did. We went straight to the potty and he peed two more times and pooped. Asher likes to partially stand up and look into the potty while pooping. This can lead to a very messy toilet and bottom, but it is so cute because he gets so excited and yells “ahyooook ahyooook (look, look) is poopy. Asher’s poopin. Yay Asher!” After that, Asher did REALLY well. He peed on the potty all day, no pee in his diaper during naptime, and he pooped again on the potty again in the evening. And he even used the big, big toilet in the basement at Papagug’s. So proud of him!!!

On another note, Asher’s always had dry patches of skin especially on his legs. We have been lotioning him with udder cream, mineral oil, and Burt’s Bees cocoa bean lotion.  None of them seem to be working very well. He now has a rash of some sort that is little red bumps almost everywhere and then there are bigger red spots as well. Mommy slathered him in Vaseline after his bath tonight. If that doesn’t help by morning he might need to go to the doctor to make sure it is not something that is contagious or needs medicine for.