Adventures in Potty Training: Round 2

Day 1: What a difference 5 months makes! Today went surprisingly really well! Lexi is really starting to get it!! Woo hoo!! We had four successful pees in the potty, only one complete miss, and even a huge poop in the potty! 

I was really going back and forth about weather to start today or not. I had planned to start today for a few weeks now, but then yesterday Lexi came down with a cold. I didn't know if I should go ahead with it and risk her being in a horrible mood and not receptive because of being sick, or if I should push it off for another week. I really didn't want to delay it again, and Lexi woke up in a good mood this morning, so I said lets go for it. 

We started out sitting on the potty every half hour. She didn't want to sit at first, so I started rewarding trying with 1 m&m. She sat every time I told her to after that. The first pee of the day, Lexi told me she was leaking and I got her right on the potty right away. 90% went in the potty! Success! Reward of 2 m&ms. The second pee was after I told her to sit a few hours later. The third and fourth times she yelled "mommy I have to go potty!" I rushed her over and all the per went in. There was one attempt at poop then. She said she had to go and was really concentrating while sitting, but there was just a wipe of poop on her bum, none in the potty. Reward of 2 m&ms for trying. The fifth pee was a complete miss, and I'm still not sure why. She was sitting on the couch with the potty right next to her on the floor and I was about 10ft away in the kitchen door way. She said she had to go pee pee, so I rushed over to her, but she didn't move at all. She just sat on the couch and peed. All the other times she had tried to get herself to the potty when she felt she had to go. It was really disappointing. I explained that we don't pee on the couch. Pee belongs in the potty and that I was not happy that she had peed on the couch. We sat down for dinner after that and in the middle of eating she said she was going to go sit on her potty. I said ok. She went over, sat down, and pooped! It was an awesomely huge poop, too!! She had been holding that in all day! Lol She was very proud of herself for pooping on the potty, and I was, too!! Rewarded 5 m&ms (she asked for 10 haha, so that was the compromise).

We're running out of ink in the printer... if you couldn't tell...

Day 2: 5 complete pees in the potty, one mostly miss, one big poop in the potty. Rewards: 1 m&m for trying, 2 for pee in the potty, 5 for poop in the potty. It was a good day considering the major interruption... 

I wanted to go out for a run. It takes me about 40 mins to go 3.5 miles right now. Lexi had just peed in the potty and I had just fed Evan. KJ said he could hold down the fort, so I went out. About a mile down the road I passed a house. The people had just got home and let their dog out... And it came right for me. The dog attacked me. It ripped my clothes, broke skin on my back and left arm, and left bruises on my right hand and arm. It's a good thing it was cold that day because I was wearing a pretty thick hoodie, which definitely padded the bites. If it had been warmer and I was only wearing a long sleeve t, or just a t shirt... It could have been a lot worse. I called the police and the owners of the dog will be cited. The dog will be in quarantine for 10 days, in case of rabies. I'm on antibiotics to prevent and infection, and I had to get another T-dap shot.

I'm still really mad about the whole situation. A dog like that should have been tied up, period. This should have never happened. My back and arms are sore. I feel like I can't go running any more in my own neighborhood. I'm scared, and I'm mad about that. 

Anyways, back to potty training. KJ had to put a diaper on Lexi in order to put her in the car to come get me. Then I had to go to the urgent care to get checked out, and she had an accident at home with KJ. So what was supposed to be 40 mins turned out to be a three hour ordeal. But Lexi went pee and poop on the potty after dinner, so at least we ended the day on a good note.

Day 3: All five pees in the potty, one poop accident, and one poop on the potty. Same rewards as yesterday. Lexi did really well with getting herself to the potty on time. With the accident, a little bit came out and she realized she had to get to the potty, but it all came out before she got there. Same thing happened the second time, but got to the potty before she lost it all. 

I had to go out to see what the house number was where the dog was at, because they Health Department wanted to know. So I waited until Lexi had just peed, put her in pants, and ventured out. She was only in pants for about 15 mins, but she stayed dry! Definitely a step in the right direction! All in all it was a good day!

Day 4: Four pees in pants, six pees in the potty, one 50/50, one poop in pants, and one poop on the potty. Rewards, 2 m&ms for pee, 5 for poop. 

Well, we started off the day trying pants and it was a big old fail. It's like she treating them like diapers. She's not saying she has to go. She's not making any effort to get to the potty. Very frustrating! But, I had her go naked again for the second half of the day and she did great again. So, it's the pants that are giving us the hang up. 

It was a nice day to day (45 degrees! Heat wave!), so I waited until Lexi had just peed and put her in pants to take her outside to play. We were out for about a half hour playing and having a good time, then I notice that her pants are wet again :/ I asked her if she had gone pee pee or had an accident and she said no... I asked if her legs felt wet or cold and she said no... Ugh

I don't really know where to go from here. How do I get her to wear pants and still pee in the potty? 

Day 5: Four pees in the potty, one complete miss, two 50/50, one poop in pants, one poop in the potty. Same rewards as yesterday. 

I asked a group of my mommy friends how they added pants in while PTing and they had some good suggestions. First, we have to just forge ahead with pants. There will be accidents, but Lexi will eventually get it. Expect an adjustment time. Second, the legging pants I was putting her in might have been the problem. They might be too snug and feel too much like a diaper. So, they suggested using jeans or khakis instead. I never buy her jeans because they don't fit well over our cloth diapers. Since they don't stretch we'd have to size up, and then length becomes an issue. But sizing up on shorts works because length doesn't matter, and I don't like her to wear shorty shorts anyways. Anyways, I got her shorts out of storage and I saw a definite improvement. She still had some accidents, but she was actually recognizing that she had to go and made an effort to get to the potty. We're still working on pulling pants up and down. She can do it, but isn't very quick yet. We are making progress. 

Day 6: Four pees in the potty, one pee in pants, and one poop in the potty.

Progress! Lexi made it the whole day in the same pair of shorts until the end of the day when she had an accident. We switched on and off today between shorts and a skirt. The skirt is really easy for her to pull up and down and she still has that naked feeling, so she remembers to go to the potty. 

Every time she has an accident I just keep repeating myself, "pee pee goes in the potty, not in your pants". I show her the wet pants and ask her what happened? She says she had an accident. I ask where pee pee belongs? And she says in the potty. I say right, pee pee belongs in the potty, not in your pants. 

Day 7: Three pees in the potty, one poop in the potty 

Today we went to story time. It was the first time we've ventured out all week! I put her in a pull up, just in case, but I told Lexi we were still going to use the potty and pee doesn't belong in her pants. (We've been doing pull ups at night and calling them her "fancy nighttime underwear". We will tackle night training down the road.) She stayed dry the whole time! She really doesn't pee a lot in the mornings, so that definitely helped. I still don't have long jeans for her to wear and it's way too cold to wear shorts out, so that's why I did the pull up under her legging pants. One of our neighbors has some 3T jeans she said I could have, so I'm hoping to get those tomorrow. Then this weekend and next week we can work on doing outings while commando in jeans. I hope it works! 

Well, in one week of PTing we've gone from diapers full time, to 80% of pee and poop in the potty! Very exciting!! It's really true what they say, you have to wait until your kid is ready. Looking back now, I can see how Lexi just wasn't ready yet, even though I really wanted her to be. This time was soooo much easier than last time. We made so much progress just in that first day because things were actually clicking this time. She was ready this time. Lexi is on her way to being potty trained!! Yay!!! 

Lots of Love 

KJsbabe

Newborn Pictures!

We had newborn pictures taken when Evan was three weeks old. We just got them back!

All pictures taken by the talented Carrie Harris Photography

















Lots of Love,
KJsbabe

Adventures In Potty Training - Round 1

I'm doing the "Oh Crap" potty training method with Lexi

Day 1 10/13

It's the end of day one and I'm exhausted. Lexi peed 10 times today. One was a complete miss because she ran away from me, two were completely in the potty because I made her sit, and seven were caught mid stream and most of it got in the potty. She likes to help me dump her pee in the big potty and flush. Then we wave and say "bye bye pee pee!". She didn't like the couple times I told her to sit on the potty. She got mad and said "no I not sit on the potty at all!" She is a crotch grabber. 8 out of 10 times she peed today she grabbed herself and then peed any where from a couple seconds to a few minuets later. She did good at nap time, no peeing. I put her to bed without a diaper. She peed about an hour before bed, but didn't right before. She was willing to sit on the potty (improvement from earlier in the day) and sat for about 10 mins and didn't pee. I'm going to try to have her go around 10:30... If I can stay up for another hour. I'm seriously so tired. No poop today.

I couldn't find a potty chart that I liked, so I made one up myself with her favorite characters. She gets a sticker every time she gets some pee in the potty, sits on the potty, or helps her toys "go to the potty"

Day 2 10/14

Last night Lexi peed somewhere between 12 and 3. I tried to have her go at 12 and she didn't. I checked her at 3 and she was wet (changed just her pants, not the sheets). She had almost dried by 7 when she got up for the day, so she only peed the one time. I'm going to have her try at 1 tonight. 

I wish I saw some definitive progress today, but it was pretty much the same if not worse than yesterday. We started off the day with a 99% miss. I waited and waited for her to pee, finally I had to pee myself. So we went up stairs, I peed, then sat her on the big potty with her Ariel seat. She sat for a minuet and then said "I want off!! I all done!" So I let her off. She ran into mine and KJ's bedroom and peed yelling "I leaking mommy!" I ran and tried to get her back to the potty, but all that really happened was we just spread the pee everywhere. She did poop on the potty this morning, one tiny nugget. She was really proud of making poo poo in the potty. She finally did really poop in the afternoon, but it ended up on the floor. She had just peed, we flushed it, and then I thought I would have a couple minuets to start some laundry (bed sheets from last night). When I came back up stairs she ran to me and said "mommy! My big poo poo fell on the floor!" I was huge, poor girl! Lol I had her help me clean it up and flush it. While I was finishing up she pooped again. "Mommy, I have another tiny poo poo!" Well, at least she's getting used to not pooping in a diaper. 

She peed eight times today, two complete misses, two completely in the potty, and four mid streams. She was willing to sit on the potty when I told her to, which is an improvement from yesterday. I know was over prompting her, though. She kept faking me out by itching herself. I need to get better about reading her signs. I tried to take her outside to play because it was beautiful out today. She had peed not long before, so I put pants on her (commando), and we went out. Not five minuets later she peed her pants. One step forward, one steep back. I'm feeling discouraged. I don't know if we're ever going to get out of "block one".

Day 3 10/15

Day three did not go well. In fact momma's pregnancy hormones took over and I cried most of the day. Not good. I posted on a mommy's group I'm in. A lot of the moms have already gone though PT or are training now. It went a little something like this: 

Day 3 of potty training (ocpt) and I'm so, so discouraged. I feel like we've made zero progress. I've done nothing but stare at her, play with her, and follow her around the house with the potty for the past 3 days and I'm still only catching pees mid stream. I've missed a couple completely. She never gives the same signal twice. One time she'll grab herself, the next she'll run away from me, the next she'll look down as she starts to pee. I truly suck at this. I feel so bad because it's not her, it's me. She's willing to sit on the potty when I tell her and she's excited when she gets some in the potty. I'm a mess, though. I actually cried twice today when I didn't catch her in time she 90% of the pee went on the floor. I'm sure that's sending her the worst message ever, "peeing on the potty makes mommy cry". I just can't keep it together. :(

The general consensus is that she's just not ready. I really thought she was because she's been showing a lot of the readiness signs. But most everyone said that it shouldn't be this hard. She should be catching on more by now. If she's not getting it, she's just not getting. She's still on the young side and there are a lot of changes on the horizon. If I'm getting stressed out to the point of tears I'm not going to be an effective teacher. 

I hate to just up and put her back in diapers, though. We've been focusing so much on potty things and I don't want to confuse her. I also really hate to give up after all the work we've done in the last three days. I think we're going to try pull ups for a while and just take it one dat at a time. 

Day 4 10/16

Well today was much less stressful. We still worked on potty things, but it was much less pressure. Lexi and I even ventured out of the house in a pull up! First time we've been out of the house since Sunday! No real improvements today. I tried putting her in underwear and pants to play in the back yard and told her to keep Elsa clean and dry (Frozen undies), just to see what happened. She pooped, and now she keeps saying "I pooped on Elsa". I guess I won't do that again. I don't want her to get into the habit of going in her undies. 

Day 7 10/20

Well, I guess I didn't realize pull ups would be so much like diapers. When Lexi wears them she treats them just like a diaper. She still tells me when she starts peeing, which I guess is a good sign, but they aren't really helping us a long by any means. I put her back in a regular pocket diaper today and she wasn't phased at all.  *sigh* I guess attempt #1 is over. I'm bummed. I might try again in a month, or just wait until after baby boy is here.

Lots of Love,
KJsbabe

Lexi-Pie - My Little Toddler

I'm going to start doing quarterly updates on Lexi. Since she's getting older she's not hitting a new milestone every month like when she was a baby. We're in toddler land now! 

Summer obsession: bubbles... seriously, this kid wants to blow bubbles for freaking hours...

 

Helping unload the dishwasher
 

So, since Lexi turned two in June she has been a busy little girl (not a big girl because as she says, "I still little"). We've been going to the park a lot to jog and play. Social situations have actually taken a huge step back this summer. She had been doing pretty well, still shy, but she was ok with being around and playing with other kids. But then we had a couple play ground incidents where some random little kid ran up to Lexi and screamed in her face for no reason. It happened once with KJ and once with me. I seriously hate other kids sometimes. When it happened with me it scared her so badly the poor girl just clung to me for dear life and balled her eyes out. Since then she's literally been terrified when she sees another kid at the play ground. I think she expects every kid to be scary now like those two little a-holes were. I've talked to her so many times about how it's ok to be nervous, but that most kids are really nice. And that I know she got scared, but mommy and daddy were there and she always safe with us. I feel so bad for her and I really don't know what to do. I know avoiding social situations is not going to make it better, but it's always such a disaster when we go out and try to play. She's fine with adults and older kids, but with kids her age or size she just looses it. It make me sad. :(

A new love: parades! She loves, loves parades and asks to go to one at least once a week!

Running beside the stroller because she wants to "run like mommy does" :D Love that!!

For her birthday Lexi got the movie Frozen... We are officially Frozen obsessed! She seriously can't get enough of this movie. She "sings" all the songs and acts out different parts. She loves to knock on the door and does the whole "do you want to build a snowman" bit. It's freaking adorable!! I got her a set of plush Anna and Elsa dolls and she's in love with them. They sleep with her every night. When we play she's always Anna and I'm Elsa.

Looking at herself in the mirror with her Anna doll

For Lexi's Halloween costume, I asked her a bunch of times what she wanted to dress up as. I didn't want her to say one thing, I make her costume, and then have her decide she wanted to be something else. So first she wanted to be Daniel, then Katerina, then she finally settled on Anna. I really like how her costume turned out! I spent about $13 on the material and trim, so less than it would have been to buy one, and this way when every other girl is dressed up like Anna or Elsa she'll look a little different. :) 

First French braids!

She's really gotten into playing dress up in the past couple weeks. She has a Tinkerbelle shirt and I got her a green tutu to wear with it, so she says she looks like Tink. She also loves her Ariel shirts. I found one at a yard sale that she calls her sparkle Ariel shirt and asks to wear it just about every day. That was $2 well spent! 

The Tinkerbelle outfit


My little tree hugger in her sparkle Ariel shirt. This shirt gets a lot of wear!

Lexi continues to love books. I've read some to her so many times that she has them memorized. She'll sit and "read" them to herself now and recite them pretty close to word for word! I love that she loves to read. I'm really trying to nurture that love so it continues when she gets into school. (Not this year, probably next fall we'll start her in preschool a couple days a week)

Lexi got this doll house for her 1st birthday, but only really started playing with it recently. She loves it now!

Other things, she learned how to pick her nose shortly after her birthday. So, now I'm constantly saying "don't pick your nose" and "get your finger out of your nose". She's a little parrot and repeats pretty much everything I say. Her favorite phrase right now is "don't worry, I promise". She also imitates Daniel Tiger a lot. She pretends to be mad and grrr, or wants to "twirl like Katareina does", or wants to rub noses and say "ugga mugga". She's working on dressing and undressing herself. She can take her jacket and shoes off, sort of pull her pants up, and put her shirt on and off. 

We're heading towards potty training. Lexi is starting to show a lot of the readiness signs, so I think it's time we get more serious about it. Right now we talk a lot about using the potty and practice when she asks to. We have a couple potty books. Princess of the Potty is a good one. It explains step by step how to use the potty, which some of the other books just kind of glaze over it, which isn't terribly helpful. She has yet to actually pee on the potty and doesn't always want to sit on it when I suggest it. So, I'm reading up about it and trying to come up with a game plan. The more I think about it the more I think it will be easier to PT before baby boy comes and deal with possible regression, than to wait and PT after he gets here.

Singing "The Elsa song" (Let it Go) on her "stage" with her "microphone" (the top of my turkey baster lol)


Lexi has been asking for weeks to go to the zoo (thanks DT!) so we all went to the Pittsburgh Zoo on mine and KJ's anniversary. The carousel was the highlight of the trip!


A very tired momma and a happy Lexi :)
 

Lexi is bigger than a 3 month old rhinoceros! 
 

Lots of Love,
KJsbabe

My 2 Year Old!

Well, Lexi has been officially two years old for a couple weeks now! We had a nice quiet day at home for her birthday. We did presents and cake and watched a little Daniel Tiger. We actually went to another little girls birthday party for a few hours in the afternoon (Don't get me started on that!! Lol), but she had a great day and that's what was most important. 

Lexi's birthday trikey!

Playing with her jewelry box

Lexi got the movie Frozen for her birthday and we've pretty much watched it every day since! She loves it and is totally obsessed! She calls the abominable snowman in it "big tiger", because clearly anything that says "roar" is a tiger :)  She likes to act out parts of the movie. She'll tell me "go to sleep mommy" so then she can shake me and say "Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!" like Anna does to Elsa in the beginning. She also likes to stand at the back door and knock, then she'll say words from the "Do you want to build a snowman" song. She'll say "build snowman?" And then turn around, throw her arms up in the air and say "why?!" It's really cute! 

Just chillaxin' on the couch

Trying on mommy's shoes

We've been doing some different activities this summer. Our local movie theater has been showing free kids movies, a different none every week. So every Thursday morning Lexi and I go to the movies and share a box of gummies. We've seen two the the Alvin and the Chipmunks sequels, which she loved. She still talks about seeing "the chipmunk movie" and how the "green chipmunk got scared!". We saw Turbo, which was a cute movie, but Lexi wasn't super into it. We've also seen two Ice Age sequels and she liked those. She still talks about how "the baby dinosaur cry!" and "the big dinosaur says ROAR!" and "baby catch a snowflake!". It's a fun time and she's done better sitting through a whole movie than I thought she would. I like that it's all kids and parents at the showings, so if she whimpers now and then it's not as big of a deal. I also love that it's completely free for both of us!! I pick up a 99 cent box of gummies at Walmart before hand, pack her sippy (no drink for me or else I'll have to pee 9 times!), and we have a great morning. 

Playing with playdough... an obsession lately!

A day at the beach

KJ and I took Lexi to Idlewild Park (south east of Pittsburgh) a couple weeks ago. It was her first amusement park. She did ok, but it wasn't a fantastic day. It was a two hour drive down that stretched into 2.5-3 hours because we had our first experience puking in the car. Fun fun!! She was watching Tangled on KJs tablet and I think she got car sick. So we had to stop and find a Walmart to get extra wipes, carpet cleaner to clean the car seat, paper towels, and an extra out fit. I had one back up outfit with us, but I was worried she would get sick again and then I'd have nothing to put her it. Luckily, that was the only throw up incident! 

Hand car with mommy

So we finally got to the park and it was 90 freaking degrees already. Omg it was a hot day! The big draw to the park for us was that they are remodeling part of it in order to put in a Daniel Tigers Neighborhood section. It previously was Mister Rodger's Neighborhood of Make-believe and now they are updating it for a new generation. But anyways, Lexi got to meet DT again, and of course, loved him. That and seeing trolly was the high light of the trip. KJ tried to take her on a couple rides, but she got scared. I couldn't go on a lot of them with her, so it was kind of hard. I was able to take her on the carousel, though, and she really liked that. She got to ride on a black pony, which she still talks about. 

We ventured into the water park, which wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Lexi actually did really well with the crowed kid's area and the water in general. She had a good time, but I honestly really did not. I hate those gross, over crowded changing rooms. And it was so insanely hot. And then I had to juggle Lexi, getting us both dressed, and our bag. Ugh. I hate water parks. 

All in all Lexi had a decent time, but I am not looking forward to taking a toddler to an amusement park again any time soon! As she gets older I think it will get better, but for now it's a huge pain in the butt. (Haha and I say this as we are tentatively planning a Disney trip for summer '16 when Lexi will be 4 and LO will be 18m! Oh fun times!!)

Samores by the "fire place"

Sol that's a recap on life with a 2 year old at the moment!

Lots of Love, 

KJsbabe

A Daniel Tiger Birthday Party

We had Lexi's 2nd birthday party yesterday, the weekend before her actual birthday. It went pretty well! Lexi had a great time, and that's the most important thing. We did a Daniel Tiger theme, of corse! Last year I tried to make all the decorations and invitations myself. They turned out well, but we're really time consuming. So this year, I still make them myself, but took a short cut... Printables!!! Best thing ever! I found a great invite on Etsy that came with a bunch of other personalized printables, like the banner. PBS also had a lot of free printables and activity ideas on their web site. And Pintrest, of corse, had some great DIY decorations. Printables saved me so much time and they looked great! I'm really happy with how they turned out.

For kid favors I did sand buckets, bubbles, play dough, sidewalk chalk, gummies, and chocolate covered "tiger tail" pretzels. I makes a bunch of the pretzels for adult favors, too. 

One of the Pintrest ideas I really liked were different activity stations. With two year olds I wasn't even going to attempt an organized game. So I set up different play areas so the kids could just run and play and do what they wanted. I labeled our play set as the "Clock Factory Park" and the sand box as "Jungle Beach" to keep in the DT theme. Then we had Lexi's play house, bubble mower, water table, and car out to play with, too. My SIL got her a play grill for her birthday, so KJ put that together for the kids to play with, also. I think everyone had fun! 

Lexi is finally starting to come out of her shell a bit. She's not so shy around new people any more and she's starting to interact pretty well with other kids. She's still a watcher, but she's interacting a lot more. We had a couple little kids at her party and think she really enjoyed playing with them. 

All in all it was a great party! It was kind of nice doing it early and not on her actual birthday. I was running around like a crazy person most of the morning and wasn't really able to spend a lot of time with Lexi, so it was nice to get the crazy put of the way and we'll be able to spend her birthday focusing on her. 

Lots of Love,

KJsbabe