I truly believe my husband is one of the smartest people I’ve ever met.

But he does have one flaw.

He can’t count.

I’ve noticed it a number of times. Like when we took ballroom dancing classes for our wedding and he couldn’t count to four and move his feet accordingly. (I still feel bad about laughing at him for this. The dance instructor definitely thought I was a horribly insensitive person when I did it. And actually told me so.)

Now that our family is growing, the need for ballroom dancing has diminished considerably. But the counting is still a problem. Lately I’ve noticed the counting problem has transfered to counting the days of Hanukkah.

I thought there were eight. But every year in our house the amount changes, normally they get larger. So, before my husband went Hanukkah shopping this weekend, I told him, “Remember there are only eight days and our sisters and grandparents can cover some of them. So you only really need like, six days max”. You figure with two kids, that’s twelve presents.

Here is what he came home with…

The Hanukkah Loot

What will he do when we have four kids?!

I think my blogs over the past few weeks have hinted at how many hours my husband has been working lately. But I think it says it all when the doorbell rang this evening and I received these below. No, not from Adam…

Flowers from Adam's Boss, with an Apology for Keeping him at Work so Many Hours this Month

Ben has been showing a lot of interest in the potty lately. Possibly it’s Jack’s 4 year old potty mouth – every other word is poop or diaper or butt. It can be terribly embarrassing at times but I try not to discourage it too much because I realize it’s the start of a sense of humor.

Pooping with Prudence

Anyway, I’m on a tangent. This blog is about potty training, not potty mouth.

Jack was pushed into potty training kicking and screaming when he was 3 and 1/2 years old. Ben is not even 2 and 1/2. Already anytime you stick him on the potty he can produce a pee for you. But last weekend, he pooped on the potty! IN THE POTTY!

Seems anti-climactic now that I’m sitting here writing it but at the time it was a dancing, call your father at work, hugging, kissing and grinning widely kind of event.

Sunday afternoon we were treated to tickets to Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey‘s circus show at the 5/3rd Bank Skybox.

It was a very civilized way to see the circus. In fact, with kids as small as ours it was the only way to see it enjoyably. I can’t imagine trying to keep them in their seats for over 2 hours.

Cotton Candy!

I was surprised how long our 2 year old, Ben, was able to keep his attention focused on the show. Jack, our 4 year old, seemed to really enjoy the clowns with their slap-stick humor. I found the whole thing dazzling, but a bit like a metaphor for our modern times. There were so many acts going on at the same time it was hard to focus on one thing and as a result I ended up missing a lot.

After half time we got cotton candy AND the dessert cart came by. All the sugar had it’s effect and the boys were soon wrestling under our feet. But no worries – we were contained in a sky box!