Underpants!

Guess who's been wearing underpants since Friday? This little girl has finally potty trained! The turning point came a week ago when in desperation I asked for the thousandth time, "Why won't you poop in the toilet?" Up to this point I'd always gotten such inane answers as, "I don't want to," "Because I like pooping in my diaper," or "I don't know." But on that day I got, "Because my potty seat hurts my legs." Finally, an answer I can work with! When I asked why she won't use Benjamin's former potty seat which is much softer than hers, she replied, "Benjamin's potty seat is soccer and I don't like soccer." She refused to sit on the soft seat because she objected to the soccer ball print. For someone who sits in her own excrement all day, she's quite particular. In any case, this was finally getting somewhere. That very night I ordered a pink princess potty seat which many users had commented was "very soft" and 48 hours later (even with no shipping costs!), we had the key to potty training success. From the moment it arrived, she was willing to start using the toilet and within 24 hours, she was out of diapers for good. Thank you Amazon.

We have had a couple accidents, but only minor ones. Like on our walk on Saturday, for example. I wanted to revel in the arrival of spring and so I took the kids for a walk in the woods to look for the first signs of spring growth in the forest. Neglected to consider that someone potty training might not be excited about the idea of squatting in the woods. Thus the angry face in the picture. We changed pants, though, and still had a fun time on the playground afterwards while Christian slept in the stroller. That why he's crying in the picture. Really should have taken a picture at the beginning of our walk.



Despite this, though, she's even stopped watching tv and has come in from outside to use the toilet. Those are clear signs, in my opinion, that we are home free. So I took her to the store today and let her pick out a set of underpants. (She was wearing Gerber training pants these last few days.) Of course, no surprise, she picked the Disney Princess ones. She looks so incredibly cute running around in her little panties. What a wonderful thing to be back down to only one kid in diapers!

Baby Frustrations

We think Christian might be teething because he was super cranky today. Wouldn't sleep, wouldn't eat very much, and cried A LOT. At one point Benjamin turned to me and said, "I just want to kick him in the head."

"I'm getting to that point too," I admitted. "The problem is, it wouldn't make him stop crying."

"Yeah, it would just make him cry more. I wish Christian were dead."

"Don't say horrible things like that." I scolded. "He can't talk. This is his only way of communicating. He can't help it. This is one reason why I'm not such a big fan of babies."

"Me neither," Benjamin commiserated, "But I am a big fan of chocolate!"

Ah, a child after my own heart.

The Water Obsession Resumes

Oh I love that Spring is coming! It felt so wonderful today. Low 50s but felt like mid Summer. It was wonderful. As we left gymnastics today, I couldn't bare to return home despite the craft I'd planned for today. We ended up taking an impromptu trip to the playground to celebrate the first warm, sunny day and the first trip to the park in months without coats and boots. Of course, without fail, my kids are drawn to the puddles and before long, this was the result:




So it begins again. I guess the water obsession hasn't abated. Luckily, as always, I had a change of clothes with me. I know these kids too well. (Although Bella had the foresight to take off most of her clothes before going down in it.) They just can't resist. And judging by how intently Christian was watching them, I'm guessing he'll be joining them soon.

With Spring comes the need for new clothes too. Thanks to the generosity of friends, I've not bought clothes for Bella yet. Nearly 3 years and she's been fully taken care of. However, we've now hit a point where she needed some new shoes and so I took her shopping. I've known for a long time how different Bella and I are, but shoe shopping with her hit it home. I was looking for a shoe she could wear to church with any dress and so I'd pick up something cute and sensible, like this:


Princess Bella would frown, shake her head, and pick up something like this:


or perhaps this:


Again and again we exchanged shoe suggestions. Bella's love of all things glitzy and bedazzled knows no bounds. Alas, in the end, the one with the money made the final decision. Luckily she's also very fickle and by the time we'd bought my pair, she'd forgotten about hers and actually ended up liking my choice so much she wore them to bed. I think, when she's a teenager, to save myself unnecessary stress, I'm just going to find a comfy spot with a book and have her come to me when she's found what she wants to buy.

Let's Play Ball

My kids have come up with some fun things to do these past couple days. Today Bella said, "Let's play ball!" I was shocked that she would suggest this since she's usually not a fan of ball games. But I wanted to encourage this in her and agreed. I quickly realized I misunderstood when she started prancing around the room in her dress-up outfit. Ball didn't mean base ball or soccer. She meant ball as they do in fairy tales - a grand ball, ie. a dance. I was somewhat disappointed, but this still seemed fun, so we pulled out the cd player, put on a primary songs cd and danced. She assigned me to be the queen, Benjamin the knight, and she was the princess. It was so much fun to be silly together. I danced with both the knight and the princess, with them taking turns coming over and asking, "May I cut in?" I insisted that royalty must be proper. :) Then when I got tired, I "became faint" and they had to call in the doctor to help me. After he did, they allowed me to rest as they performed various dances for me. Kids this age are so fun. No inhibitions. Just pure joy. It was a wonderful dance filled afternoon.



Some other things they've wanted to do was make soft pretzels. So we did that and they didn't turn out too bad. While they were baking, Bella decided to finger paint on the counter top with the egg wash. Not so happy about that but luckily she didn't eat it.


Another day Benjamin wanted to take his toys for a swim in the sink, so he got a big bowl and his animals and dolls and set them swimming, with a sponge boat to float on. They both had a blast with this and of course, got soaked head to toe. I think this was inspired by one of his favorite books, The Tub People by Pam Conrad. Very cute book.


I also wanted to see how much the kids understood about money. In Kindergarten Benjamin will be learning a lot about counting money and so I decided to play bank. I got out some pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters, as well as 1, 5, 10, and 20 dollar bills. Then we took turns being customer, banker, or security guard. The customer came into the bank, filled out a withdrawal slip (just a blank piece of paper with one line on where they'd write the amount), then took it to the banker who gave them that amount of money. Then the customer would steal from the banker, get run down and killed by the security guard (Benjamin's favorite part) and the money would be returned. I was impressed with them. Benjamin needed help counting out the money, but he knew what each coin was worth and that you can, for example, give 5 pennies or 1 nickel, etc. Even Bella did a great job. When she was customer, she wrote three circles on the paper, brought it to Benjamin, the banker, and said, "I'd like to have 79 cents please." It was so cute.

So we've had fun trying to survive what is hopefully the last of cold winter days.

Progress?

I hate to blog about things too early because I tend to jinx myself, but we're making slow and steady progress around here and I have to share the joy. Bella has been the queen of stubborn regarding potty training. Besides the brief novelty of the new toilet, nothing has been able to get her interested. Sticker charts and bribery be damned. She couldn't care less. So we've started with small steps, just like we did with Benjamin. She can poop in her diaper, but she has to be in the bathroom. If nothing else, it gets her in the habit of going to the right location. She's been faithfully doing this for a few weeks now. However, if I don't come in there quickly after she's done, she starts causing trouble. I've cleaned up sunscreen, zit cream, and hydrocortisone cream from all surfaces in my bathroom at various times. Nothing like seeing your expensive zit cream smeared all over the shower curtain. So when she went in there yesterday, I quickly followed her in and asked (as I do every day), "Would you like to poop in the potty?" Usually I always get a "no" to this, but yesterday I got a "yes." And she did!! It was fabulous. A quick flush and done. So wonderful. Needless to say, today was back to old ways, but there was, for a brief moment, a glimmer of hope and I will cling to that. She may potty train after all! :)


Other note of progress - Christian slept through the night!!! And there was much rejoicing in the land. It was not without tears, mind you, but it happened! 7pm to 7am! He had started to seem uninterested in eating at night, but was still waking up. We decided it was time to put an end to the insanity. The first night he cried for 2 hours but finally went back to sleep. The second night it was 1 hour. The third night it was 30 minutes. Then success!! It is glorious. Finally I'm beginning to feel like a normal human being again. Of course, now I won't be able to blame any of my memory lapses or idiot-moments on sleep deprivation. ;)