Random observations and milestones

Oh, hi. Expect me to fall off the face of the blogosphere a lot for a while. I have plenty I want to blog about, but I'm not comfortable putting some of it on the blog, and time to blog is scarce these days anyway. I imagine it will become even more scarce when I return to work soon - I'm having a hard time keeping up with two kids+life in general already, so I'm really not sure how I'm going to handle everything plus work 40+ hours a week. Guess we'll see how that all goes ...

But now for some random and slightly delayed observations and news of note:

* After 2.5 years, we put the high chair away. I pretty much love everything about the high chair we've had - the Fisher Price Space Saver - and the tray was a convenient way to keep Elle's mess fairly contained. (She's seen at left at a much younger age, probably when she was making much bigger messes than she does today, but she's still not the neatest eater ...) With all of the other transitioning going on, I figured, on the eve of her birthday, that it might as well go away for the next six months or so.

So I dusted off the booster seat we bought last year for our trip to Ohio, and boom! We have more room because the chair isn't sticking out so far anymore, which makes me wish we had made the switch sooner. She loves eating with a placemat and her limbs not being trapped by the high chair tray (read: she keeps swinging her legs over the side and putting her feet on the table, both things that drive me insane).

* After three years plus four days, Elle got her first haircut! Tim has been begging me to cut it short for months, and I've refused - it's so much easier to style with a little bit of length, and with the heat and Elle's hereditary predisposition to sweating (sorry, Elle Belle!), it's good to have a ponytail as an option in Florida. But I had to admit that she woke up with an out of control rat's nest after every night and nap, and the ends were getting crazy dry and tangled.

A nasty nest of tangled hair.

I called my hair person and asked if she would mind giving Elle a trim - she's not big on cutting kids' hair, but she said it was no problem for us and said she'd love to do it. I would have trimmed it myself except I was worried that I would somehow kill the awesome natural waves/curls. Wendy trimmed just a little bit of Elle's hair, and it looks and feels a million times better. The length and curls are still there, and it definitely still tangles, but it feels so healthy and is definitely easier to tame now.

Post-haircut: Healthy and evened out.

* Although we could have hit her three year birthday with the claim that she was totally and completely potty trained, we wanted to wait before pulling the trigger on night-time underwear. For about a week or two before Wesley was born, Elle woke up dry. (She'd always spent the night in Pull Ups.) I worried that she'd regress once he arrived, so we didn't push her to sleep in underwear. But after he arrived and she continued to stay dry - and go 12-14 hours without needing to pee, AND increased her liquid intake before bed (she started asking for water every night before bed about two months ago) - we asked her a few days after her birthday if she thought sleeping in underwear might be a good idea.

She seemed to be disinterested in the whole idea but agreed and said she'd have no accidents at night and would call for us if she had to go to the bathroom. (The other awesome thing right now is that she has never gotten out of bed without permission - like, no reading books in the middle of the night or wandering around in the mornings ... she seems to think the bed is an island that she can't get off of unless we're there with her, and THAT'S AWESOME. I'll take it for as long as it lasts.) She's been in underwear at night for the last few weeks. She's only had two accidents, and one was when she was sick, so I don't think she really knew what was going on.

* Elle's been pretty funny about getting used to having Wesley around. She usually tunes out his crying unless a) really bad and/or b) interfering with what she's trying to do (watch TV, read, etc.) The other day she told me "I think he wants milk!" and asked me to stop him from being upset. She's also still very intrigued by his diapers (she always wants to see them and if they're poopy she goes "Oh, YUCK"). She's helped Tim give Wesley bottles, and she also has told me that Wesley needed to switch sides while breastfeeding. My favorite, though, is her fascination with the breast pump. I usually pump in the morning, and she tells me it sounds like "Fart. Fart. Fart. Fart." So she asks me if I'm farting yet. I've tried to explain what it is, but she's not quite interested in the "what" and understands enough of the "how" (milk comes out, goes in to a bottle, goes to Wesley). She had gotten in to trouble while eating, so she was trying to suck up to me as I got her down from the table. She said, "I yuv your milk, Mommy. It's so white, just like my shirt." Seriously, the kid looks for compliments everywhere if she thinks she's in the doghouse.

Potty trained.

As of Jan. 24, Elle has been daytime potty trained. (Cue the parade! Sound the horns!) I could have written about it sooner, but a) I'm not a very timely blogger in general these days, and b) I didn't want to jinx it.

When we changed daycare providers in December, the new provider, L, said that she'd work with us on potty training Elle whenever we wanted. We traveled to Ohio for Thanksgiving, and I knew I didn't want to worry about doing it before then, and L said that it would probably be best to wait until after the chaos of the holidays.

A few days in to the new year, though, Tim brought it up to me. In typical Tim-fashion, it went something like "So when are we going to be done changing Elle's diapers, anyway?" I mentioned the potty training to L the next day and asked how she suggested we go about it. I'd read about the three-day boot camp, discussed gradual methods with friends, did some research of my own and still really had no idea what the best approach for Elle would be. L has potty-trained more children than I, so I trusted her and figured that if she had a recommended method we'd just sign up for that (unless it was completely off-the-wall, which I didn't anticipate). The suggestion was simple: Get the thick cotton underwear (two pairs if we were worried about staining clothes and furniture) and plastic pants. Have Elle wear them all the time, except maybe naptime and at night. Be consistent, and don't give in.

This last part reminded me a lot of cry-it-out sleep training. And like with sleep training, the first two or three days were the worst. I wanted to give in, say "Well, we'll just try again later." To be honest, the first week was not good. I am not a patient person, and I was frustrated by Elle's lack of interest and cooperation in going to the bathroom on the potty. She had successfully gone on the potty several times between 12-18 months but then hadn't had much interest/success since then, and we hadn't pushed it. But now I was making a big production of "Let's go sit on the potty!" every 30 minutes, and she was fighting and fussing the whole way. And then what would happen is she would pee her pants about 5 minutes after we had just spent 15 minutes on the potty. For that first week, I felt like I lived in the bathroom and in a constant state of frustration. In the evenings and on the weekends, I tried to keep us close to home so we could keep the focus on potty training. I worried we might be chained to the bathroom for the next 16 years.

After the first few days, Elle apparently decided she hated the feeling of peeing her pants. So she stopped peeing. She would hold it until nap time, when she'd be in a diaper, and then hold it again until bedtime. I started to worry that she would give herself a UTI. Then L stopped putting her in underwear for nap time. Suddenly, Elle had to face peeing her pants or peeing in the potty or try to hold it all day. She reluctantly started to choose the potty, and we started to have reports of success at daycare. The success slowly started to carry over at home, but they seemed to be more accidental than purposeful, and Elle still wasn't as excited as we were. She was still having accidents, but she was also earning stickers for her sticker charts, both at home and at daycare. We'd considered offering her candy as a reward, but it didn't seem to have much of an appeal. I told her when the chart was full we'd get her a special treat. She chose a donut and brought it up repeatedly.

I remember the date of the last big accident exactly, though, because on the evening of Jan. 23, we headed to the mall to buy Elle shoes. We needed new shoes because she kept getting pee on the other ones at daycare, so L had suggested we get a backup pair. We tried to get her to pee before dinner and before we left for the mall, but she wouldn't go. I figured she was so good at holding it that she'd probably decided to just wait until bedtime. While I wasn't happy about this, I wasn't going to let it chain us to the house, and I needed her feet to see what shoes fit best, so we headed out for the quick trip. She acted frantic a few times toward the end of the purchase, and we figured that meant she had to go, but she didn't want to go potty at the mall.

We got home, and I went with her straight to the bathroom. As I pulled her pants and underwear down, she peed. Everywhere. I think I scared her, because I was startled and was simultaneously trying to get her to stop so she could finish on the potty and trying to decide if I should get her pants back up or seat her on the potty. It was a hectic moment, and I was frustrated that she hadn't been able to hold it for another 15 seconds before she actually sat on the seat. I figured this was a major step backward and resigned myself to yet another week of spending a lot of time frustrated in the bathroom. I wondered yet again if she just wasn't ready and if we should wait a few months.

When I told her I wanted to take a photo of her
with her potty chart to put on the blog, she said
"What's Elle Belle going to say on the bog?" :)

Something must have clicked with her, though. It had been 10 days since we started intensely keeping her in underwear, and all of a sudden, she started going to the bathroom regularly again, and this time, she went in the potty. She would tell us when she needed to go instead of needing to be constantly prompted. She would be just as excited as we were when she went in the potty. She would (and still does) acknowledge how proud it made us, saying "Mommy and Daddy be so happy that I peed in the potty!"

A few nights later, she pooped in the potty for the first time. We jumped up and down all around the condo. We called Tim and left him one of the funniest, weirdest voice mails ever. We called Grams (my mom) and Elle blurted out "Grams, I pooped on the potty!" It was quite the day. And quickly, the potty chart filled with stickers over the next few days.

For the first few days of potty-trainedness, I feared we had swung to the other side of the spectrum - Elle wanted to go to the bathroom all. the. time. She would eek out a drop or two of pee, we'd flush, wash hands, and then 10-15 minutes later she'd tell me she had to go potty again. Luckily, this stage only lasted a few days, too, and now we're in a much better groove.

She's getting more comfortable going to the bathroom in public places, although she definitely prefers that we use a portable potty seat that L gave us ... if she has to go on a big potty with no seat, she freaks out a little bit. Her first venture to a public bathroom was at church, and we went back to our seats during the pastor's sermon. I'm pretty sure the back half of the church heard an excited "Daddy! I peed in the potty!" as Tim tried to look excited for Elle though mortified at the outburst :)

She also doesn't like bathrooms with loud flushes or hand dryers. But she's making progress, and it's been much easier to venture out of the house with a potty trained toddler than I feared. I try to be mindful of when she last went to the bathroom, so if we're out running a lot of errands I might ask if she has to go to the bathroom. Usually, though, *I'm* the one that has to go to the bathroom (thank you, pregnancy). Sometimes she goes when I go, sometimes she doesn't.

I always thought we'd know when Elle was ready for potty training. She's smart and an excellent communicator, so I thought once she caught on to "big girls don't wear diapers" and saw some of her toddler buddies using the potty, she'd be interested and it would be obvious that we should start hardcore potty training. After we started the process, though, I realized that Elle would probably have been happy to stay in diapers for a long, long time. It's convenient - you don't have to stop playing to go potty. You don't have to worry about pulling pants up and down or washing your hands. She had it made. I think she needed a push on this one, and luckily, with consistency and a few days of stubborness on everyone's part, it worked out well.

We're still in Pull Ups at night (using one cloth diaper a night doesn't warrant enough laundry to make CDing logical right now), and we have some issues with pooping in the potty (she avoids it at all costs and often poops at night now, which she hardly ever did before ... probably a post for a different day). But I'm so proud of how well she's done and so happy that overall, it went well and was a fairly quick process. It's like a totally different world now, not having to worry about diaper changing stations or cloth diaper laundry or packing enough disposable diapers for daycare. Sure, we have to consider an extra just-in-case outfit or the travel potty seat as well as make a pit stop in the bathroom before we leave the house, but overall, not big adjustments.