Ramblings: Potty Training

I may have mentioned in the past how much I was dreading potty training.  

Well I can't officially declare Ellie potty trained, but we're fantastically close!  

We tried the "Kool-Aid Method", which is what my mother-in-law did with her kids.  

Basically you let them have a big cup of Kool-Aid and you hang out in the bathroom, read books, until they go potty.  It's more of a get-them-acquainted-with-the-potty-chair system, than a long-term plan.  I tried it when Ellie was interested in the potty, but wasn't quite aware of when she had to go.  I figured a little Kool-Aid couldn't hurt, but I was secretly hoping it wouldn't work.  I wasn't super excited about the idea of filling Ellie with sugar water.  

Well, it turns out Ellie doesn't like Kool-Aid.  

She seemed into it at first, but after about four sips, she was done and asked for water.  

I was okay with that, less sugar means a better bedtime for me!

When Ellie got really into the idea of sitting on the potty, I made her a Potty Chart.  I just bought a poster board, a bunch of stickers, and made a grid.  This kid is obsessed with stickers, so I thought it would work as a reward.  

At the beginning our system was:

• Sit on the potty = 1 sticker (even if she didn't do anything)*
• Pee on the potty = 2 stickers
• Poop on the potty = 3 stickers**

I was hopeful that by the time we filled up the chart she would be potty trained, 

but I wasn't counting on it.  

Well, the chart is full and we're so close!  

I am really glad we didn't have to resort to candy.  

Although I would have done it, if it came down to it.  

Now I have to dig out some of Ellie's old clothes 

because without a diaper she's back to 12 month size pants...

*Once she got accustomed to sitting on the potty, she no longer received a sticker unless she actually went to the bathroom.

**She still has yet to poop on the potty.

Ramblings: Hilarious Misbehaving

So last night bedtime was difficult.  

I'm not sure what it was, but Ellie was just not interested in staying in bed.  I was trying really hard to stick with our "silently walk her back to bed" routine, but I was losing patience.  Nick was working late, so I was fighting this bedtime battle on my own.  

I needed a mommy break, so I put the baby gate up.  She could still open her door, but she couldn't leave her room.  I explained to her that big girls stay in bed at bedtime.  Until she learned to be a big girl and stay in bed, the baby gate was going to have to stay up.

 (For the record, I took it down after she fell asleep.)

When Nick got home at 11:00pm, Ellie was still awake.

  Still.  

I was doing my best to ignore her constant requests for 

a snack, or a drink, or a different book, or a new toy.  She had eaten a good dinner, she had a drink before bed (at 8:30pm).  She was fine, just trying her hardest to stay awake.  

She also has a new tactic where she says she pooped and she needs a new diaper.  This is usually not true, but every now and then she has in fact pooped.  

Around 11:45pm she kept saying, 

"Need diaper.  Need diaper.  Need diaper."  

Unrelenting.  I figured if she is this insistent it must be true, so I went to check.  

Remember, it's dark.  She's standing in the doorway.  I go to pick her up and put her in bed.  

She's naked.

She's not dirty, or wet, or anything, just naked.  

I was so confused, I turn the lamp on and look around. 

She has stripped, thrown her clothes and diaper over the gate and into the hallway.  It took everything I had to not laugh at that moment.  I held it in, got her dressed and told her to go to sleep (which she finally did about ten minutes later!).  Then I go back to the den to tell Nick what happened.  

I have never laughed so hard in my life.

Ramblings: A New Goal

Some day I'm going to figure out how to contribute to this blog on a regular basis.  I opened the Etsy shop and somewhere between my toddler and my messing craft room, lost all motivation to make anything for it.

I have this problem when there is something looming on the horizon I am constantly distracted by it.  It could be something as little as a playdate in a few days or as big as planning Ellie's birthday party.  Back in May, I had no idea what we were going to do in June because I was so consumed with Ellie's party.  Well, in two weeks I start graduate school.  I feel frozen in time.

In my head I'm making lists and figuring out the timing of my classes and dropping Ellie off at her Nana's and what am I going to wear because none of my clothes fit or look nice enough.  But my house is a mess and I'm so distracted from what's going to happen in two weeks that I've completely neglected all my knitting and sewing projects.

On top of this, I feel like a bad parent.  I usually have some small level of parental guilt hanging around, but this week is very specific.  When Ellie was little, for the whole first year of her life I kept a journal.  I wrote in it nearly every day.  I also managed to completely fill out her two baby books.  Pictures, journaling, the whole deal.  Well, since her first birthday, I haven't written a word in a journal.  I hate it because she has said and done so many adorable, hilarious, amazing things, and I didn't write any of them down.  It's not like I can go back and try to remember them all, and that makes me sad.  I think I might start making a habit of writing them all on here.  Maybe this will become my new Ellie journal.  I'm not sure, though, because I loved having the hand written copy.  My mom always made a big deal about having things with a person's handwriting.  When that person is gone, having something in their handwriting can be really special, it shows a lot about who they were.  My grandma made lists, my mom kept journals for all her daycare kids, I have handwritten recipes and notes in really old photo albums.

Starting school is going to be a big change in itself, but I want to make a goal to write more about Ellie, whether it's on here or in her own journal.  And maybe with everything that will be happening, I'll feel like I have more to write about.  Staying home can get monotonous, and maybe I ran out of things to say and inspiration to craft.  These next two years are going to be stressful (but hopefully fun too!) and maybe writing will help keep things in perspective.

(Yes, this was just me rambling.  I didn't really have a point, nothing special to take away from this.  Just thinking while Ellie naps.)

Ramblings: Toddlers

We are trying to potty train.  I hate potty training.  I want her to be potty trained, but I don't want to do it.  Is there just a seminar you can send them to for a couple days and they come back potty trained?  I feel like there's millions to be made in something like that, but I still don't want to do it.

We converted her crib to a toddler bed.  Here is what her pediatrician (the father of a daughter the same age as Ellie) told me when I asked about this particular transition:

                 "Keep her in that crib until she climbs out."

Seemed like great advice, right?  Well, a couple weeks ago she was scaled the outside of her crib to try to get the toy she had just thrown into her crib.  We thought we were really lucky because she had yet to try to leave her room.  We would put her to bed, she would get out of bed and go lay down by her nightlight to read her books.  Usually she fell asleep by the nightlight and we'd have to move her later.  Nick and I were discussing our success with this transition, knowing it would be short lived, and the very next day she opened the door to her room at 6:15am to wake us up.  I will never brag about my parenting skills again.

The Terrible Twos are a real thing, at least for girls.  Until Ellie was born, I only had nephews.  Boys are different.  They seem to have a Terrible Threes phase.  I have also noticed that toddlers are like mini-teenagers, which makes me wonder if teenagers are just giant toddlers.  I mean, I've met a good share of adults who clearly never developed beyond the Terrible Twos.  If this is the case, if Ellie's Terrible Twos are any indication of her teenage years, I'm going to just start drinking now.  Seriously, it's like the worst case of PMS.  Ever.

I had this wonderful weight loss goal for this summer.  I had a whole routine figured out.  I would work out during her nap time and possibly also after she went to bed.  I would take her on walks in the jogging stroller around the neighborhood and on the greenway.  Instead, by the time I put her to bed, I'm mentally and emotionally spent.  You would think getting on the elliptical would help that (it probably would, I should probably do it), but all I want to do is sit in front of the TV and let my brain turn to mush.

I do want to lose the weight, I just don't feel motivated anymore.  I just want to be skinny again.  Can someone please arrange that for me? (I'm going to go eat a cookie now)