Thoughts on a Thursday

Just some random thoughts today:

-I'm toying with the idea of potty training Alaina in the near future. Or attempting to potty train her, I should say. After my experience potty training her brother, I definitely learned that potty training isn't always something that you just "decide" to do. :-/ (He is potty trained now, of course. Just wanted to clarify. ;) All glory to God alone for that!) Anyway, Alaina won't be 2 1/2 until September, and that's when potty training really clicked for Aubrey, so in my head, that's kind of the magic age. But I started thinking that it might be best to go ahead and try now while it's still warm and we don't have to deal with tights and lots of layers. (Not that we have to deal with layers here in Mississippi in September.) We'll see. I dread the process. And I have mixed feeling about having no kids in diapers. I mostly don't like that idea. It's baby time FOR REAL when Alaina is no longer wearing diapers! ;)

-I started the Whole30 on Monday. A friend of mine is doing it too, which makes it more fun. It's nice to be able to commiserate with someone ;) Mostly, I've just been eating lots of salad for lunch and cooking meat and vegetables for dinner. It's not too bad. Except that I'm sick of salad already. I really am a big salad fan, but it's all about the dressing for me. I like creamy dressings like ranch, honey mustard, caesar, and comeback. I'm sick of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. I just need to put some more effort into my meals. Last weekend, I didn't have a lot of time to meal plan, so I basically just went to the grocery store and threw a bunch of salad stuff into my cart. I think planning is KEY to being successful when it comes to something like this. I was SO proud of myself today, though. As you may know, it's free tea day at McAlister's. And folks, sweet tea is my thing. That's probably the main thing that would hold me back from ever giving up sugar entirely. I love it that much. I gave up cokes like it was no big deal, but I can't part with my sweet tea. Anyway, today the kids and I went to McAlister's and I got my free UNsweet tea. :( I've gotta be honest, it wasn't very appealing at all. I'm hoping to develop a taste for it over the next month. I even sat and watched my kids eat lunch while sipping on my tea and listening to my stomach growl. When we got home, I ate... wait for it... a salad. ;)

-We've decided that we're definitely going to put Jude in the 3 year old class when he starts school in September (as opposed to the 4 year old class). Since he has a summer birthday, this is something that David and I have talked about since he was born. We knew that we might want to hold him back so that he would be a little older and hopefully more mature when he graduates from highschool and goes to college. We just weren't sure if we would start him "late" from the beginning or put him in the 4 year old class this year and let him repeat at some point. David and I were strongly leaning towards just starting him in the 3 year old class, so that he would stay with the same group of kids all the way through, but we wanted to get an opinion from the school. We had evaluations last week, and they thought that he would do great in the 3 year old class, so I was happy that we were all on the same page and the decision was made. I hope that there are some other kids in his class with late summer birthdays who are older. I would be a little sad if he's a full year older than almost everyone else in his class. Although, that's pretty much the case for Aubrey (her birthday is in September), and she's done great being one of the older ones in her class. Aubrey takes on the "leader" role in our family most of the time since she's the oldest child, so I'm thinking that it might actually be really good for Jude to be able to be in an environment where he is one of the older children. Anyway, it's tough making these parenting decisions! I'm excited that our next child has a MARCH birthday, so we won't have to have this discussion about her! ;)

-I am itching to decorate Jude's bedroom and our master bedroom. I'm basically just waiting for our old house to sell (we're trying not to spend a lot of unnecessary money so long as we have two houses). In a way, it's good that I've had to be patient and wait because it's given me more time to think about what I really want to do in those rooms. But, I'm ready to get started! Jude's room still has towels on the windows, so that tells you that we really haven't done anything in there! He has four windows in his room, so I want to make sure I REALLY like what I'm getting before we buy anything. But that's on the top of my list of things to do in his room. We also need curtains in our bedroom. We have plantation shutters in our windows, so we don't need anything for privacy, but it gets so bright in there in the mornings! (We have three windows in our room.) I really want white curtains, and I like the IKEA Ritva panels for the price. But I'm worried that they're going to be too sheer. I really wish that we had an IKEA close by so that I could just pop in and check them out for myself!

So, there you have it. Some Thursday randomness. :)