According to my post labels, I have only written about potty training once. That can't be right, but I know I've been kind of slack on recording the details of the process, so here goes.
To start at present and go backwards, I guess Amelia is pretty much potty trained. Yesterday, she was in her carseat without a diaper, and she said, with alarm, "I'm peeing!"
"Okay!" I said. "Can you try to stop and you can get out and pee in your travel potty?"
Dean pulled the car over and I rushed out to get Amelia. Her underwear were a little wet and she peed all over her pants trying to squat behind the car (she refused to sit on the travel potty: "Pee on the dirt!") but her car seat was dry. Score! In retrospect I realize I should have just removed her pants but we were in a hurry.
Amelia has been using the potty at home now for quite some time. As long as she is not wearing a diaper, she will generally ask to go when she needs to go. There have been several pee-on-the-floor incidents when, I guess, she has been too busy to stop and go. After one of these times I try to remember to ask her if she has to go, but overall she has pretty much been in charge of asking for herself. We were still doing diapers for outings until one day a week or two ago when I just forgot to put a diaper on her and she asked to go to the potty while we were out. Close call but no accident. After that I figured I should try to take the whole affair outside of the house more often. This takes more work on my part than Amelia's in that I have to remember to get her to try to use the bathroom before we leave, and remember to ask her use it while we are out and there is a bathroom available. This is one of the things that makes diapers much easier than being potty trained. It can be hard enough to get Amelia out the door and from place to place while we are out without adding a trip to the bathroom into the mix. But overall things have gone pretty smoothly. So far she has not peed on the floor of a public place and I hope this continues to be the case.
This travel potty has been key to the process. It works in two ways, as a child-size potty seat to use on adult-size toilets and as its own little potty seat complete with absorbent plastic bags you can set up and use anywhere. We mostly use it as a travel potty seat since Amelia is afraid to sit on a big toilet, even if I hold her on it. We have used it with the plastic bags once or twice and Amelia thought that was great fun. I keep it in a plastic bag in the diaper bag along with some Lysol wipes for public toilets and cleaning it after use in public places.
Overall, if someone were to ask me for advice about the process, I would say these three things. First, read a lot about potty training. I checked out about ten books from the library on potty training and there are a LOT of different methods and ideas out there. For example, I decided against any sort of reward system like star charts or M&Ms but I know people who have used them with success. Reading a lot about the process helped me pick the methods that I thought would work best with us.
Second, if you can, take your time. One of the first things I read about potty training was from a book that defined potty training as a very long process that begins when your child first becomes aware of potties and what they are for and ends when she can consistently use the bathroom completely independently. Obviously that is going to take a LONG time--I imagine it will be a year or two before Amelia is totally out of diapers and doesn't need me to help her on the potty and pull up and down her pants and wash her hands and sit there and play "bath toy animals pee" for half an hour every time she goes. We have had the luxury of not being in any rush at all--no deadline for any sort of program that required potty training, no feeling in my mind (and I had to fight against this for awhile) that Amelia needed to be potty trained by any certain date. This allowed me to follow the advice of several friends with older kids not to make potty training a power struggle or push it too early, which can backfire. It also allowed us to kind of ebb and flow (no pun intended)--some days we used diapers, some days not so much. If Amelia ever asked for a diaper, I just put one on her, and there were definitely some days or weeks that she just didn't want to use the potty.
The third thing I would advise, and this is connected to the second, is not to make having your child being potty trained some kind of marker on how good or not good a parent you are. This sounds obvious, but it is surprising how tempting it can be to feel good and happy when your child uses the potty, and to feel bad and upset when she doesn't. I have tried (and still do) to let this be about Amelia and not about me, and to not be in a rush.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Friday, January 13, 2012
HIJK MNOP
Amelia's dropping of the letter "L" results in some funny moments. We have long enjoyed her versions of "Luli" (who might have picked a different grandmother name if she had known she was going to be Ew and now Udi), but here are a couple more. I will let you add the appropriate l's for yourself.
---
Amelia: Where are we going next?
Me: We have to stop by the liquor store.
Amelia: I want a aheepop!
Me: A what?
Amelia: A aheepop! A aheepop from the ickor store!
---
Me: (reading a book about sheep) Woolly sheep, shorn!
Amelia: What's that sheep saying?
Me: What do you think he's saying?
Amelia: He's saying, what happened to my woo?
Me: (laughing)
Amelia: (looking at another page) And these itte sheeps have a itte bit of woo!
---
Amelia: I want some juice!
Me: (getting the juice) (and probably saying, "What's the polite way to ask?")
Amelia: Can I have some juice pease Mama? I want do do the id!
Me: The id?
Amelia: I want to put the id on by myself!
---
Oh, yes, we have a lot of id around here.
---
Amelia: Where are we going next?
Me: We have to stop by the liquor store.
Amelia: I want a aheepop!
Me: A what?
Amelia: A aheepop! A aheepop from the ickor store!
---
Me: (reading a book about sheep) Woolly sheep, shorn!
Amelia: What's that sheep saying?
Me: What do you think he's saying?
Amelia: He's saying, what happened to my woo?
Me: (laughing)
Amelia: (looking at another page) And these itte sheeps have a itte bit of woo!
---
Amelia: I want some juice!
Me: (getting the juice) (and probably saying, "What's the polite way to ask?")
Amelia: Can I have some juice pease Mama? I want do do the id!
Me: The id?
Amelia: I want to put the id on by myself!
---
Oh, yes, we have a lot of id around here.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
What We're Up To
All I can seem to compose for this blog lately is a collection of random moments, and this post will be no different. In no particular order, here's what's going on with us these days.
I finished my application for the PhD program and it is sent away. I am glad to be done with it, hoping very much to get in, but once I actually finished and submitted the application I became much less anxious about the outcome. I feel like I did my best with the time that I had and the rest is simply out of my power. I have enough self-confidence (Meg called it "maturity" and I appreciate that) to assume that if I don't get it, it's simply because my writing isn't a good fit for the program and that's that. At the same time I have fallen pretty deeply in love with the idea of going back to school so I know I will be disappointed if I don't get in. My backup plans for the rest of my life are fairly nebulous at this point. I would like to try becoming more involved with the Denver writing community and freelance writing. We shall see.
The not knowing is making January feel even more stagnant than it always does. We had a couple of nice days and they were wonderful. One of my friends said she felt like she was in love and I thought that was perfect. But then yesterday it snowed again. It was pretty falling but then I realized Suki was out in it. Long story short, she found somewhere to hide and spent her first night out of the house, ever. Dean found her on our kitchen windowsill this morning and we were very happy she came back.
Amelia continues to not nap. She loves her bed and the new train set she got for Christmas. She takes her trains in a basket to her bed and plays for her whole naptime. I leave her in there about and hour and a half and she is happy the whole time. It is not nearly as relaxing for me--knowing exactly how long of a break I have plus feeling like I have to keep ear out for her makes her "naptime" much less of a break. But there is not much I can do about it. If it were warmer I would like it much better because we could spend the whole afternoon at the park. As it goes now there is only so much time one mother can play the same game with a train set in one day, and I have reached that limit by noon.
The game is that she likes to pile up Matchbox cars on the train track bridge and then have me "chug" the trains up the hill to the pileup. Then I have to say, "Danger! Danger! There are cars on the track! Who is going to help move them?" And Amelia looks smug until she decides to move the cars. The the trains chug down the hill and we do it "Again, again." (If you are a certain grandmother, you will recognize this game as one you created--we can't wait till you are here to play it!)
Another game she likes, and this one I can blame on Dean, is to have some of her animals get her ice cream. They ask her what kind she likes and how many scoops, then they trot off to get it and she pretends to eat it. I think she would do this for HOURS if she had a willing audience. She likes to make up words for ice cream flavors. She also likes for the store to run out of a flavor and for the animals to act really surprised and tell her, "They're all out! Shoot!"
Amelia says "got-for" for forgot. "We got-for my coat!"
What else? I am trying to think of baby development things I need to record for posterity. on the toddler behavior front, we have had our share of run-ins with the terrible twos. Tantrums, whining and extreme bossiness are the main challenges. These are better or worse depending on the day or time of day. Two helpful books are The Happiest Toddler on the Block and Love and Logic for Early Years. The whole thing is so exhausting I can't even write about it. Another time. We visited a preschool for next year and I loved it. It is "yoga based" and the teachers were very kind and warm and the school is in an old house that feels, as you would expect, extremely homey. Amelia's night sleep is still excellent. When she doesn't nap she is a giant mess by late afternoon so her bedtime is close to 7. Her eating is still pretty good. She went thought an obsession with orange juice but the she got a stomach virus during which I could only convince her that she really couldn't have a snack by saying that her doctor said too much eating would hurt her tummy. Then it occurred to me I could say that about the juice. It has worked to break the habit. It's not that I am against orange juice but it was starting to feel like she drank so much she was not eating any real food.
In short, all is well. We are looking forward to spring.
I finished my application for the PhD program and it is sent away. I am glad to be done with it, hoping very much to get in, but once I actually finished and submitted the application I became much less anxious about the outcome. I feel like I did my best with the time that I had and the rest is simply out of my power. I have enough self-confidence (Meg called it "maturity" and I appreciate that) to assume that if I don't get it, it's simply because my writing isn't a good fit for the program and that's that. At the same time I have fallen pretty deeply in love with the idea of going back to school so I know I will be disappointed if I don't get in. My backup plans for the rest of my life are fairly nebulous at this point. I would like to try becoming more involved with the Denver writing community and freelance writing. We shall see.
The not knowing is making January feel even more stagnant than it always does. We had a couple of nice days and they were wonderful. One of my friends said she felt like she was in love and I thought that was perfect. But then yesterday it snowed again. It was pretty falling but then I realized Suki was out in it. Long story short, she found somewhere to hide and spent her first night out of the house, ever. Dean found her on our kitchen windowsill this morning and we were very happy she came back.
Amelia continues to not nap. She loves her bed and the new train set she got for Christmas. She takes her trains in a basket to her bed and plays for her whole naptime. I leave her in there about and hour and a half and she is happy the whole time. It is not nearly as relaxing for me--knowing exactly how long of a break I have plus feeling like I have to keep ear out for her makes her "naptime" much less of a break. But there is not much I can do about it. If it were warmer I would like it much better because we could spend the whole afternoon at the park. As it goes now there is only so much time one mother can play the same game with a train set in one day, and I have reached that limit by noon.
The game is that she likes to pile up Matchbox cars on the train track bridge and then have me "chug" the trains up the hill to the pileup. Then I have to say, "Danger! Danger! There are cars on the track! Who is going to help move them?" And Amelia looks smug until she decides to move the cars. The the trains chug down the hill and we do it "Again, again." (If you are a certain grandmother, you will recognize this game as one you created--we can't wait till you are here to play it!)
Another game she likes, and this one I can blame on Dean, is to have some of her animals get her ice cream. They ask her what kind she likes and how many scoops, then they trot off to get it and she pretends to eat it. I think she would do this for HOURS if she had a willing audience. She likes to make up words for ice cream flavors. She also likes for the store to run out of a flavor and for the animals to act really surprised and tell her, "They're all out! Shoot!"
Amelia says "got-for" for forgot. "We got-for my coat!"
What else? I am trying to think of baby development things I need to record for posterity. on the toddler behavior front, we have had our share of run-ins with the terrible twos. Tantrums, whining and extreme bossiness are the main challenges. These are better or worse depending on the day or time of day. Two helpful books are The Happiest Toddler on the Block and Love and Logic for Early Years. The whole thing is so exhausting I can't even write about it. Another time. We visited a preschool for next year and I loved it. It is "yoga based" and the teachers were very kind and warm and the school is in an old house that feels, as you would expect, extremely homey. Amelia's night sleep is still excellent. When she doesn't nap she is a giant mess by late afternoon so her bedtime is close to 7. Her eating is still pretty good. She went thought an obsession with orange juice but the she got a stomach virus during which I could only convince her that she really couldn't have a snack by saying that her doctor said too much eating would hurt her tummy. Then it occurred to me I could say that about the juice. It has worked to break the habit. It's not that I am against orange juice but it was starting to feel like she drank so much she was not eating any real food.
In short, all is well. We are looking forward to spring.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Stories and Songs
Amelia was painting and suddenly began to tell me the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. I grabbed the camera and tried to record it, but of course as soon as I started recording she changed the story a bit. Still, what I captured is pretty entertaining.
Friday, December 16, 2011
A Pilgrimage, An Offering
Amelia and I made a trek to The Children's Hospital on Wednesday to drop off some toys as a Christmas donation. Instead of exchanging gifts, our (very generous and wonderful) playgroup donated gifts for the hospital at a little playgroup holiday party Amelia and I hosted on Tuesday. We ended up with four big bags of toys, books, art supplies, DVDs and even a mini-DVD player to donate. While we were there, I also wanted to buy some Wagon Blend coffee to give as gifts this year.
I was a little worried about returning to Children's. If you don't know the story of our experience there, you can read about it here (scroll down to "Hospital Story Part 1 to start from the beginning). I woke up at 4:30 in the morning on Wednesday reliving a lot of the experience; then I wondered why I had it on my mind--funny. I was thinking it was kind of crazy to voluntarily return to the hospital. But I wanted to make an offering, however small, to the hospital for Christmas, in honor of all the great care Amelia received while she was there.
Amelia on her last day in the hospital
Amelia and I loaded up and left for Aurora around noon. She happily ate a special treat--a Wendy's Kids meal--on the way. The girl loves her hamburgers. When we arrived, we parked and walked into the lobby.
It's hard to describe how I felt. I did of course remember being in that lobby was a worried parent, and I could see the worry (and exhaustion) in several other parents' faces as soon as I walked in. But mainly I felt like what I was--a visitor. Amelia and I found the room where there were collecting donations, then found a little red wagon to take back out to the car and return with the rest of the gifts. Amelia enjoyed the wagon ride, the sticker she got, and the little toys they have in the lobby. After we dropped off the toys, we took the elevator to the 9th floor with a basket of chocolates and candy for the wonderful nurses who took care of Amelia. As I had expected, we didn't get to see any of them, but we left it in the hands of a kind hospital worker who promised to find the right people. On the way off the elevator, Amelia got her fingers caught and smooshed in the opening door. As she cried (mostly with rage) and I comforted her, it really hit me how much of a visitor to the hospital I really was. My perfectly healthy and stubborn child, who tried again to touch the elevator doors the very next time we got on the elevator, is just that--wonderfully, blessedly, healthy. And the primary emotion I felt throughout our pilgrimage to the hospital was gratitude. I feel so incredibly lucky that my and Dean's experience with a very sick child was so short. I am infinitely grateful for Amelia's health and infinitely grateful for Amelia.
Our happy, healthy 2-year-old
There is something that happened while we were in the hospital that I have not mentioned to many people, and never to anyone in full. It's a very small moment but also a very big one. While we where there, they were doing one of those radio fundraisers for the hospital. The lobby was often full of DJs and music and parents and patients telling their stories on the air. Once when I was leaving the hospital for some reason, a mother was with talking to the DJ. She was telling the story of her child's illness. It was an illness her child did not recover from, and she was describing the moment the doctor's told her that there was nothing more they could do for the child. I can't tell the whole story because I pretty much ran from the lobby in tears, but what I remember, what was hard to comprehend at the time and honestly, still is, is that she was speaking about how grateful she was--for all that the doctors and nurses did do for her child, for the time she had left with her child, and for the person her child still was. I am sorry to be writing about this stuff--it's brutal. But I will always remember that mother's voice, and her gratitude.
One of the scariest things to me about parenthood--and life--is that we don't know what's going to happen next. For now, I have a beautiful, healthy, vibrant, fun-loving daughter. Having her is the most challenging, the most interesting, the most wonder-full thing I have ever experienced. This Christmas season, I offer a heart filled with love and gratitude to all of the other wonderful people my life, to the friends and family and neighbors who make my rich life even better. I love you all, and I hope your holiday season and new year are as filled with blessings as my own life has been so far.
Merry Christmas from all of us
I was a little worried about returning to Children's. If you don't know the story of our experience there, you can read about it here (scroll down to "Hospital Story Part 1 to start from the beginning). I woke up at 4:30 in the morning on Wednesday reliving a lot of the experience; then I wondered why I had it on my mind--funny. I was thinking it was kind of crazy to voluntarily return to the hospital. But I wanted to make an offering, however small, to the hospital for Christmas, in honor of all the great care Amelia received while she was there.
Amelia on her last day in the hospital
Amelia and I loaded up and left for Aurora around noon. She happily ate a special treat--a Wendy's Kids meal--on the way. The girl loves her hamburgers. When we arrived, we parked and walked into the lobby.
It's hard to describe how I felt. I did of course remember being in that lobby was a worried parent, and I could see the worry (and exhaustion) in several other parents' faces as soon as I walked in. But mainly I felt like what I was--a visitor. Amelia and I found the room where there were collecting donations, then found a little red wagon to take back out to the car and return with the rest of the gifts. Amelia enjoyed the wagon ride, the sticker she got, and the little toys they have in the lobby. After we dropped off the toys, we took the elevator to the 9th floor with a basket of chocolates and candy for the wonderful nurses who took care of Amelia. As I had expected, we didn't get to see any of them, but we left it in the hands of a kind hospital worker who promised to find the right people. On the way off the elevator, Amelia got her fingers caught and smooshed in the opening door. As she cried (mostly with rage) and I comforted her, it really hit me how much of a visitor to the hospital I really was. My perfectly healthy and stubborn child, who tried again to touch the elevator doors the very next time we got on the elevator, is just that--wonderfully, blessedly, healthy. And the primary emotion I felt throughout our pilgrimage to the hospital was gratitude. I feel so incredibly lucky that my and Dean's experience with a very sick child was so short. I am infinitely grateful for Amelia's health and infinitely grateful for Amelia.
Our happy, healthy 2-year-old
There is something that happened while we were in the hospital that I have not mentioned to many people, and never to anyone in full. It's a very small moment but also a very big one. While we where there, they were doing one of those radio fundraisers for the hospital. The lobby was often full of DJs and music and parents and patients telling their stories on the air. Once when I was leaving the hospital for some reason, a mother was with talking to the DJ. She was telling the story of her child's illness. It was an illness her child did not recover from, and she was describing the moment the doctor's told her that there was nothing more they could do for the child. I can't tell the whole story because I pretty much ran from the lobby in tears, but what I remember, what was hard to comprehend at the time and honestly, still is, is that she was speaking about how grateful she was--for all that the doctors and nurses did do for her child, for the time she had left with her child, and for the person her child still was. I am sorry to be writing about this stuff--it's brutal. But I will always remember that mother's voice, and her gratitude.
One of the scariest things to me about parenthood--and life--is that we don't know what's going to happen next. For now, I have a beautiful, healthy, vibrant, fun-loving daughter. Having her is the most challenging, the most interesting, the most wonder-full thing I have ever experienced. This Christmas season, I offer a heart filled with love and gratitude to all of the other wonderful people my life, to the friends and family and neighbors who make my rich life even better. I love you all, and I hope your holiday season and new year are as filled with blessings as my own life has been so far.
Merry Christmas from all of us
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Some Pictures
Amelia's new bed!
Her duvet cover has little vegetables on it, and she got this stuffed broccoli pillow toy to match.
The Artist
The artist made a mess. (We made our own clay from flour and salt. We may never do it again.)
The artist, who did not nap AGAIN today, is very tired.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
4 Fun Facts About Amelia
4. She has moved to a big girl bed! It's a twin mattress on the floor (with a bed rain to hold her in plus a baby gate at her doorway). I was very nervous about the change, but it's gone well, even seamlessly. We decided to make the switch because she was getting very angry about being put down for naps and sort of thrusting her upper body over the crib rail. It didn't seem like a good idea to let that continue. From the first night on, she has been sleeping like a baby.
3. She seems to be dropping her nap. I don't think it's because of the bed, but she does love the new bed, so she spends I'd say 3 out of 4 nap times playing in there. It's interesting because as far as I know she stays in the bed the whole "naptime," even when she's awake. If she doesn't fall asleep I leave her in her room to play for an hour or so. When she does fall asleep, it is often for a very long nap.
2. She did not fall asleep today, so the pictures of the new bed, which I had planned as the number one "fact" spot, will have to wait. Instead I will say
1. Dropping her nap? Really??? Heaven help me.
3. She seems to be dropping her nap. I don't think it's because of the bed, but she does love the new bed, so she spends I'd say 3 out of 4 nap times playing in there. It's interesting because as far as I know she stays in the bed the whole "naptime," even when she's awake. If she doesn't fall asleep I leave her in her room to play for an hour or so. When she does fall asleep, it is often for a very long nap.
2. She did not fall asleep today, so the pictures of the new bed, which I had planned as the number one "fact" spot, will have to wait. Instead I will say
1. Dropping her nap? Really??? Heaven help me.
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