The Story of Spot

See Spot:

Out damn Spot!

Out I say!

Now Spot has gone away!

Spray, scrub, repeat.

Who says kids aren’t neat?

The end. 

A Little Potty Training Update

Daniel made it clear to me after the first 3 days that he was going to be potty resistant so I put him back in diapers and will give him another go at it in another 6 months or so.  He still goes and sits next to his sister on his potty (in his diaper) to get an M&M reward.  He goes running to admire her productions and tells me about them as though they were his.  He’s just not quite ready to actually do anything on the potty.

Gloria, on the other hand, seems to be taking to it well.  She hangs out at home in just a dress so that she has the air on her bum and no pants to worry with.  She goes whenever the urge strikes her, or whenever an M&M sounds good at the moment.  Several times over the past few days I’ve heard, “Mommy, you gotta flush my pee pee so I can make some more.”  For the most part, she’s the one deciding when to go.  I do suggest that she go in certain instances (before leaving the house, right after she wakes up) but I do NOT make it a requirement.  Most of the time she tries anyway, but she’ll tell me if she’s not interested. 

I load her up in the car every morning and set her in her car seat on a towel to take Thomas to school.  She stays as she is in the house (nothing on the bum) for the short car ride.  If we go out anywhere she’d actually have to get out of the car, she goes in loose pants and nothing underneath.  I think she’s only had 3 pee accidents since the first day of potty training and these were all while she was wearing pants.

We’ve been up to church to set up and copy bulletins in loose pants with no incident.  We even managed to make it all the way through Sunday school in loose pants with no issue.  Granted, she did have a little accident in the first pair of pants before we left the house, but she did stop herself and managed to finish in the little potty. 

Speaking of potties, the princess will only go in her own, so it goes with her wherever she goes.  Once she used Daniel’s potty because her potty was in the same room with her sleeping aunt and uncle and she didn’t want to make her cousin cry by waking her up.

She’s doing pretty well with number two as well.  She had one accident with that on the floor in the kitchen while no one was looking.  She was very vocal about it and shooed her little brother and her aunt’s dog away from it until her mother managed to clean it up.  She even redeemed herself that same night by sitting on the potty before bed and producing something a grown man would be proud of!

The thing that has surprised me the most about this experience is that Gloria has woken up twice with a dry diaper and announced that she wanted to use the potty.  She has yet to have a nap accident.

I think I’m just lucky.

Potty Training Boot Camp: Day 3

Gloria had a wildly successful day.  She had no accidents at all and took her nap without a diaper.  She still protested a bit at the first morning removal of her diaper, but it gets to be less each day.  She even pooped in it again!

Daniel, on the other hand, has pretty much told me that he does not want to go on the potty.  He is ok being without a diaper and will go hang out on the potty with his sister, but does not want to actually use it.  He is going through a stubborn streak right now, so it does not really surprise me.  At least he is learning his lower case “m” from all of the M&M’s that have been doled out in honor of his sister’s accomplishments.

I think Gloria might make it through church this Sunday!  Daniel will be in diapers unless he suddenly changes his tune.

For those of you interested, here is a link to the basic “method” that I am using.  Don’t let the title fool you though.  Potty training isn’t a 3 day thing, but the initial learning process is.  I think of it like learning to walk.  Babies take a few steps here and there before they start to seriously toddle around and once they are toddling, they then still have plenty of spills as they learn how to really use their legs. 

And, yes, they will be going around without pants on at home for a good month.  The more success they have with a bare bottom translates into less accidents with pants.  I would rather look at their behinds than clean up mess anyway!

And now, for a couple of “action” shots! 

Notice the strategically placed dress and book.  No, I’m not worried about the book as Daniel just doesn’t want to go on the potty quite yet.

Yes, that is chocolate on Gloria’s face!

Potty Training Boot Camp: Day 2

Day 2 started out in much the same way that day one began.  Gloria protested at the lack of bum coverage but got over it much more quickly this time. 

This time, however, we had to leave the house long enough to drop off Thomas and our carpool friend at school.  It’s about a 30 minute round trip including the waiting.  I suggested to Gloria that she go potty right before we left.  She refused.  I let it go.  She asked to sit on a towel in the car and I happily obliged.  Right after Thomas got out, she unhappily announced, “Mommy!  I made pee pee on my towel."  It was her only accident of the day!  In case anyone is wondering, the restraints in the car seat protected her modesty and no one knew she was hanging out in a dress with nothing under it.

Since Daniel sprinkles I put him in a diaper for the car ride. 

Once we got home, I made up some blue Kool Aid and waited for the fun to begin. ( It turns out that the orange yesterday was lacking in sugar.  Yuck!)  This time, Daniel didn’t sprinkle.  He power washed!  I pretty much heard it before I saw it every time.  He was fascinated with watching the stream come out.  One time he was standing next to an air vent and that’s right where it went.  Thankfully there is no strange smell when the air comes on!

Tinkle, tinkle in the pot.
Boy, my kids can pee a lot.
In the potty Gloria went.
Daniel just peed in the vent!
Tinkle, tinkle in the pot.
Boy, my kids can pee a lot.

Somehow I managed to catch him in the midst of a bowel movement, not once, but twice, and got him on the potty in time for him to finish.  We made a big deal about that and had a flushing ceremony.  He seemed a good bit unhappy during the process but proud of himself afterwards and talked about it a good bit.  I didn’t manage to get him to actually wet on the potty this time.  He did go and sit down next to Gloria every time she sat on her potty without prompting, so that is some progress on his part.

Tinkle, tinkle in the pot.
Show me how much pee you’ve got.
Potty training is such fun!
I can’t wait until we’re done!
Tinkle, tinkle in the pot.
Show me how much pee you’ve got.

Gloria on the other hand would periodically go sit on her potty.  I didn’t keep close track, but I am thinking that she actually produced about one time out of five. 

When Thomas came home and finished his homework, he went into the living room to play his video games and the princess begged to go in there with him.  Since she has been doing so well, I told her that she could go in there only after she went on her potty.  She promptly sat, got a thoughtful look on her face, and did just what I asked her to do.  So I put a towel down for her, at her request, and let her sit next to Thomas.

A few minutes later she came to the kitchen and asked to be let back in and pretty much went straight to the potty, sat down, and announced that she was pooping.  Based on her general attitude about it prior to this, I really figured she would save it and go in her night time diaper.  Upon seeing Daniel’s earlier achievement Gloria gasped , “I NEVER poop on the potty!”  She proved me wrong!  So now Gloria has achieved both pooping and peeing in her potty! 

Now this song is stuck in my head!  I started making up lyrics to “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and decided to google it and see what popped up.  I found it in my search.  Let me stress that it is NOT me or my children, but they sure have enjoyed watching it.  Even Thomas gets a big kick out of it.

We may make it out of the house this week!

Potty Training Boot Camp: Day 1

With Thomas at his father’s, the grocery shopping done, and Michael in the basement for back-up, Gloria and Daniel braved the first day of bare bottomed, kitchen confined, potty training boot camp.

We got off to a bit of a rough start as Gloria was NOT happy about going in just a shirt and leg warmers.  There were serious tears and fussing and wailing about the fact that she had no diaper on.  During breakfast, she sat on a towel in her booster seat an bemoaned the fact that her beloved diapers were upstairs and her bum was uncovered.  Daniel, on the other hand, seemed thrilled to be able to visit his little friend so easily.

After breakfast, I didn’t hear another complaint from Gloria as she was too busy racing trains around the train table to notice her wardrobe was lacking.  Michael had brought the train into the middle of the kitchen and built a simple, toddler friendly  track around the edges.  The suspension bridges, tunnels, and drawbridges are sitting in the playroom pouting about how they were replaced with boring old straight tracks.

Daniel did a great job of setting the example by sprinkling on the floor every 2 minutes so that I could put him on the potty and explain that he could get some M&M’s if he put pee pee in the potty.  He wasn’t interested in it and protested a bit, but it helped get Gloria in the right frame of mind as she would come sit on the potty next to him.  My personal favorite sprinkle was the one where he stood at the gate and peed on the carpet.  The whole point of spending the day in the kitchen was to avoid this!

I made up some watered down Kool Aid to give them extra ammunition for practice and spent a good deal of time putting Daniel on the potty and cleaning up his sprinkles.  Pretty soon, it was obvious to me that he had a full bladder but wasn’t sure how to do it in the potty.  A time or two he would go over and look at the potty and then walk away and sprinkle a bit.  We tried hanging out on the potties and reading for a while to no avail.  I gave up on that and had them play some more and the sprinkling started again.  So back to the potty Daniel went.  I sat him on on it and tickled him until I thought for sure he would leak.  On a whim I pressed on his tummy a little bit.  Naturally this helped him to produce and we were able to celebrate and hand out M&M’s! 

After the initial breakthrough, Gloria went over of her own accord and produced on a grand scale.  After her first success, she would periodically go sit in the hopes that there would be more and thus more M&M’s.  Several times before lunch she went on her own.  Daniel on the other hand, just watered our tile.  Not that I was really expecting him to get it at this age.

After lunch Gloria went another time without prompting!  Then it was nap time and somehow I managed to convince her to sleep in panties and loose pants instead of a diaper and she woke up dry!  Michael was getting ready to make a run to Sam’s Club and the little princess wanted to go.  Now this was NOT in keeping with my plans and philosophy, but I gave her the chance by telling her she had to actually pee before she went.  Surprise!  Surprise!  She did!  Michael kept calling me to ask about things on my list while they were out.  Each time the phone rang I was sure he would be calling to tell me they were changing clothes or something, but apparently he really needed help with my list. 

When she got back, there were groceries to put away, dinner to make, and a big brother to welcome home.  In all that no one thought to take her pants off and she had her first and only accident of the day .    After that it was back to bare bum and sitting on towels!  (And peeing in the potty!)

We shall see how day 2 goes!

Two Bits?

So I have been pestering Melissa for about 2 months now, saying that we should get Daniel’s hair cut.  So finally today she decided it was time to get everyone’s hair cut (except hers).

So Daniel went first:

In the chair…

The preparation:

The Cut (shock the mommy)

Just keep that candy coming:

I have her right where I want her:

That was easy!

Gloria was supposed to go first, but bumped her head on something while we were waiting so we thought we would give her a break and let Daniel go first.  She didn’t want to go second either though, so Thomas went next:

He, of course, was just fine with having his hair cut, but he did request to keep his sideburns (like Indiana Jones).  I didn’t get a picture, but I think his haircut now looks like Spock.

Gloria didn’t want to go after Thomas either so I got my hair cut.  Nothing interesting there, except that for having no hair on top, she sure got a lot of hair off of my head somewhere.

And finally Gloria:

Can you smile? (Daniel did!)  I recommend click on this picture to see the full size version.  That way you can see Daniel smiling in the background:

Oh you were talking to me?:

Look in the mirror:

But the only way this was possible…

She had to sit in daddy’s lap:

Thank you Miss Amanda for being so patient with us:

And just so you know, haircuts cost a lot more than two bits and you don’t even get a shave with it.

Random stuff from my phone

Here is a picture from my phone: (I couldn’t figure out how to get it to publish more than one picture per post from my phone.)

Paint, Paint, Paint the House

LAST week, while I was feverishly sewing, Aunt Mindy came to visit and paint the family room and our bedroom/bathroom including trim.  It was really nice having her here for pretty much a week.  She came in on the Thursday before Memorial Day, went home Saturday evening, came back Monday morning and then left again Thursday. 

She was amazingly laid back about it and worked around our family schedule very well.  And she was VERY patient with me hemming and hawing over what color to choose.  The first color that I had chosen (and purchased) for the family room looked mint green when it got on the wall.  Mindy had spent about an hour “cutting in” (doing brushwork up close to the trim) before I managed to look at it.  Mindy reminded me that I had originally chosen a darker color but was nervous about putting it on the wall.  She went back to Home Depot for me to have them darken what we had.  Unfortunately, the darker color uses a different base, so adding color to the paint we had just made it darker and more yellow and, well, just as bad but in a different way.  She encouraged me to go get my first choice while she watched the kids.  She didn’t seem the least bit unhappy that she had just spent so much time painting a color I had chosen and then rejected.  Thankfully, that was the ONLY time I changed my mind about it.

She even took Thomas under her wing and taught him better roller technique than I have.  He was in charge of painting everything from the middle of the wall down, and Mindy took care of everything above that.

I’m not sure how well you can tell from the picture, but the walls went from dark beige to leaf green in the family room.  The bedroom/bathroom is similar but a little darker and more sage looking.  The color matches well with the quilt Mom made and is called “restful.”  I didn’t have to change my mind on that one though!  I chose well from the beginning. 

By now the family room is pretty much reassembled and much tidier than it was before.  We are still missing the picture over the mantle, but I’m sure it won’t take but a few minutes to re-hang it once we think about it when we have the time to do so.

The bedroom is slowly but surely getting back into shape.  We’ve been sleeping with the bed in the center of the room like an island with all of our furniture surrounding it.  It just goes to show how big our bedroom is that we could still get in and out of bed and walk around our island of furniture.   Every day Michael puts one more piece of furniture back where it belongs.  Every morning Gloria comes in and tells us, “Put bed a wall.”  I think that the bed is the last thing that still needs to be moved at this point, but Gloria has been nagging her daddy about it.  She must be practicing for when she gets married.

Mindy is gone now.  I miss having her around.  She’s really a neat person and I wish I had more time to just visit with her and talk.  If you ever need your house painted, I highly recommend hiring her.  She prices fairly and does good work.  She’ll even travel to do it.  Now if only I could pick out a good color for the hall…

After she spent all that time sewing…

Daniel spent some time destroying the playroom and then:

He took a nap. 

Today’s Project: Bib Pants and Scaling the Stairs

  So the laundry’s not done and the floor still needs mopping, but I made DANIEL something today.  Gloria always gets cute little dresses and the like while I cringe at the thought of all the pieces to make a boy’s outfit.  I pulled out my Kwik Sew: Sewing For Toddlers book and got seriously busy with some fabric I had on hand.  It wasn’t quite as difficult as I had feared.  I may even attempt button holes tomorrow.

You’ll have to look past the giant diaper pins I used to secure it to him.  I felt the need to check the size on him before I went to the trouble of buttons or snaps.

First a sweet picture.

This one shows the outfit pretty well.

This one shows it even better, but Daniel doesn’t look too thrilled about modeling it. 

This one is not so much about the outfit though.

This next one made me remember another picture I once took.

The one on the left is Daniel.  The one on the right is Gloria!

Then Daniel decided to scale the stairs for the first time.  All of them!

A quick break at the top and then he was off again!

My babies are just growing up so fast!  I’d better cut out that pattern in the next size up.