Potty Training - Preparing

This topic will be covered over a few posts. I think it makes the most sense that way. This one is about everything I did to prepare for the "BIG DAY".

Special Notes: In these posts I'm focusing on Emily's training, she was 2 years and 7 months old when we started and within 4 days she was 100% potty trained including naps and nighttime! Abby began her potty training today and I will do a whole series of posts about that at a later time.

I searched a ton online about potty training and read a bunch of blogs. The one that made the most sense to me was this one. She said she trained all 4 of her kiddos this way in 1 day each! The key was putting the child on the potty every 15 minutes. To be honest I tried this 2 different times with Emily but I wasn't really into it...I kind of half-*** it. But this time would be different!! I'll go more into my actual method in a later post.

Before the BIG DAY, Grandma and I took the girls out shopping. We went to a few different stores to find Emily her new potty. (The previous 2 times I had used the insert that goes on the big potty, but my OB made a great point, Emily can't get on the big potty by herself and who wants their little legs dangling all over when on the potty?!)  Emily first wanted the loud, flashing light potty that she could make go on with the flushing on the fake handle. I knew that would be a mistake...she would do that all day long and not be doing her business.

Instead she decided on this pink, princess one.



I like this one, when she goes it plays music...so no guessing!

The other item on my list was training pants. Emily picked out some real underwear (Toy Story, Princesses, and Pixar Characters) and I grabbed a few sets of training pants that provided some extra padding.

And lastly, the rewards. I decided to provide a bag of goodies (toys, stickers, coloring books, books, etc). Pretty much things found in the $1 section of Target and a couple higher price items for the times she first went #2. The smaller rewards went into the bags and the "larger" items were kept out of sight...I tied them with pretty ribbon to really jazz them up.

Whew....we were ready to go home and get ready for the BIG DAY.

Later that night after the girls went to bed I set up the bathroom for them. Providing labels on the goody bags and their potties!

Seeing that Emily and I would be spending LOTS of time in the bathroom I also found some adorable bins at Target and filled them with books both reading and coloring, flash cards and crayons.

Next post....Day 1 of Potty Training.

Princesses from Ma-ma

Emily has become very interested in Princesses from Disney. Which I love...nothing beats a good princess movie! This week, starting this weekend Emily fell ill and she quickly recovered for the most part on Sunday but these past few days she has still has been a little off. So we've remained home for the most part, just making small trips to the post office so I can mail out orders.

So Ma-Ma (Grandma) has really been helping us out. She's brought over juices, popsicles, food and goodies for Emily. Yesterday she bought Cinderella movie (my favorite Disney movie) and a matching Barbie doll. Emily was asleep when she dropped them off but when she work she fell instantly in love.

The first photo is about a second after she came out of the box...Emily hugged and kissed the doll. Then she danced with her, I wish I had that on camera but I jsut stopped to enjoy. I told her it was a gift from Ma-Ma and she kept running around saying Thank You Ma-Ma..I asked her if we should call her and she said yes...but when we called she ran away from the phone.

Then she cozied up with the doll and some pillows, she tucked her in and said "night night".

Later on it was time for dinner and Emily made sure to feed Cinderella too!

And to finish the night we all got cozy, and watched the first part of the actual movie!

Aww...so sweet! Thanks Ma-Ma!!!

-Amy

Growing Up Before My Eyes

It seems like the majority of my posts in the past week or so have been focused on A. But a lot has been going on with this little girl. I've been mentioning how she is changing more and more every day. Well today is just one more example! A learned to pull herself up and stand!!!

She has a thing about shoes...she loves to chew on them (gross, I know). So I keep everyone's shoes in a container in our room. Well that plan is shot and I have to come up with something else because A can stand and grab all the shoes she wants!

I can't get over how much she has changed in the last few weeks. It's like everything has 'clicked' with her and she is just sailing away with it all.

 

But today wasn't all about just A. E had her last gymnastic class of the session, and she was the only one that came to class! Talk about on happy girl. She had the run of the place and took FULL advantage. It was all about her and she jumped, climbed, crawled, hung, swung and everything else she could come up with. The teacher, A and I had so much fun watching E. 

Our girls are such an incredible blessing! Days like today just prove it more and more.

-A

Looking Good

One of my first posts was about E's struggles with her gymnastics class. I was torn...not sure if I should continue on with the class or to stop. Well we continued on and things began to improve. I stopped rushing out the door, in a hurry to get there with time to spare. Instead I leave the house when we are ready and we are typically there on time or a few minutes late. I also changed MY attitude. E is going to be herself and I'm decided to smile and just enjoy it, basically I stopped caring what the other Mom's thought of me or their stares.

It's WORKING! Since these small changes E has been a joy to take to class. For the most part she follows direction, the class, and our activities. It's been a real eye opener for me, to see how my attitude impacts her. All that rushing around and nervousness on my part directly impacts her and her actions and behavior.

Obviously my plan isn't to teach her to be late to all her activities or not to care. But I think we have a happy medium and we can all enjoy our day!

On top of this we are doing really good with potty training. E is for the most part making it all day long to the potty. Today she had one miss but that was the first in a few days. She is just amazing me with how smart she is and how quickly she is catching on!

Today was a very fun day. Gymnastics was fun and then we came home for naps and lunch. After that we had fun with books, flash cards and cutting/gluing paper. The girls had so much fun and so did I!

-A

Potty Training Week 1 - Complete

Talk about Highs and Lows! This past week has been just that. We are one full week into potty training E. Some days are great others...well lets just say we go thru lots of cleaning supplies and underwear!

All-in-all E seems to really enjoy her big girl undies. It's seems to have unleashed some sort of extra creativity in her. E has always been a girly girl, super into showing off her dresses and shoes. But all of a sudden she accessories, and is trying everything in a million different ways. It's hard to describe but easy to show in pictures.

This is just one of about a few dozen that I haven't taken pictures of. It's just not always possible to capture all of E's quirky-ness on camera.

Right now E is still adjusting to the potty. She goes on every 30 minutes or so and sometimes she goes...other times she wets her pants. Either way she is not afraid of the potty or sitting on it. She even pulls up or puts on new undies, flushes, washes her hands, turns off the light, and closes the bathroom door every time she sits down...100% on her own! So no doubt she 'gets' it. I just need to get my timing better.

Any suggestions?

And I am still using the cloth diapers for A and its awesome, so worth it!

-A

Case of the Mundays?

This should give you a little giggle!

E is potty training, and this has seemed to spark some extra creativity in her wardrobe choices.

 The above is E in her car seat on her way home from buying big girl underwear. She must be excited she ripped open the package and put them on while we drove home.

I'll be posting later today another 'Make it Monday'.

Have a great one!!
-A

Trying it Tuesdays

I want my girls to look back and have memories of simple things. Things that we did together that they really enjoyed. Right now E is into animated movies (Pixar and those of that nature), rest assured that I don't plop her in front of a tv all day long...but my car has a DVD player and she loves to watch movies as we run errands. This love of movies has made its way into our home and for the last week or so E and I snuggle up about 45 minutes before her bedtime and watch a movie...or part of one.

I love this new tradition with E. It's my time (or time with Dad and I) with E...A is fast asleep and E can have 100% of our attention. While grocery shopping today I came across Tiny but Mighty Popcorn, it's the make-on-a-stovetop-pot kind and thought this could be something really cool to do with E (who recently fell in love with popcorn too). I was nervous that I would burn it and our place smell of burned popcorn, but it was quick, simple and AMAZING!!!

Here it is in the process....

I had to try and keep it healthy...after all I'm feeding it to my 2 year old right before bed! I used 2 T olive oil and 1/3 cup of the kernels. I also saw that I can use coconut oil, which I am going to do next time I think it would give it an even better flavor.

Within about 2 or 3 minutes it went from the above to the below! E loved watched the corn POP...it was the highlight of my day to see her watch in true amazement.

 I didn't deny E of the good stuff I did make sure to add some butter (the real stuff...yum!) and a bit of salt. I'm going to visit our local farmers market this weekend and see if the spice guys have a good seasoning to add as well.

The 1/3 cup of un-popped kernels made 2 of the shown containers...and E and I ate about 2/3 of it!!! I doubt we will continue to eat this much but we did indulge since it was our first night. How did it taste?! Honestly I would take it over movie theater popcorn....and the price online is so much cheaper (about 1/2 what the grocery store charged!).

Seeing that this was such a huge hit with E, I think it is needed to invest in a 'popcorn' bowl. I really see this tradition to be one that sticks!
-A