Bye-Bye Pull-Ups!

I've written frequently, fifteen posts to be specific, about potty training. Specifically I've written a ton about Little Miss and our potty training issues and challenges. Part of it is simply that Little Miss has a lot of personality.

Though Little Miss has been potty trained during the day since she was two and a half. Nighttime though has been a completely different issue. She simply hasn't stayed dry, as many tactics as we've tried. She's now well past her sixth birthday and still wearing Pull-Ups that are soaked through each morning. Honestly, she just doesn't care. And I decided that it's not a big deal. At some point, kids in school will let her know that it's just not ok to still be in Pull-Ups, and what child goes to college with Pull-Ups? Until that day, she stays in Pull-Ups because I've seen the consequences of leaving them off and done far too much laundry because of it.

Recently, I had a meeting to go to that I couldn't escape. It was an evening meeting, and my husband was coaching, so a sitter was on her way to my house. I had to get the wee ones into bed before she arrived and would have just enough time to do so. As I was finishing up with Mister Man, Little Miss ran up to me.

Mommy, I'm out of Pull-Ups! she exclaimed excitedly, expecting me to have them magically reappear in her drawer, I'm guessing.

Sweetie, I have to leave in five minutes. I can't do anything for you. I have a meeting tonight, and your sitter will be here in five minutes. Remember how we've talked about how you need to tell me when you're starting to get low on Pull-Ups (one of the problems with an older child in Pull-Ups is that said child independently gets them for herself) instead of when you're out? You're sort of stuck tonight, I explained as gently as I could while internally bemoaning the additional laundry I would have to do the next morning.

But Mommy, I have no Pull-Ups left, she repeatedly, perhaps thinking my answer would change.

Sorry, Peanut. You're going to have no choice tonight. I can't get Pull-Ups tonight because the stores will be closed by the time I get home. You must stay dry tonight. Got it?

Ok, Mommy, she smiled at me sweetly.

And amazingly, she was dry the next morning. For the first time, my waking her up at 10:30pm had an impact. I heaved a sigh of relief. She had no school that day, so after we dropped Mister Man at his school, I headed to Costco with her to run some errands.

Ok, Peanut, I explained as we walked into Costco, we can get Pull-Ups now so that you have them to wear tonight.

She looked at me like I'd grown a third head. Mommy, I'm done with Pull-Ups. I don't need them anymore, she snorted at me disdainfully.

I looked at her and shook my head. I suppose I'll take one night of potential laundry in the hopes that I won't have to buy another $30 pack of Pull-Ups. And you know what? She was right. She stayed dry. We continued to wake her up an hour or two after bedtime for several weeks afterwards to ensure that we could help her get into the habit. Though we had two nights where she didn't make it to the potty recently, she's now begun to wake herself up to go.

And I think we're finally done with Pull-Ups. And yes, this is the post that I've been putting off writing because I'm afraid to jinx myself. And if I have sheets to wash tomorrow, I know who to blame.

An Empty Toilet Paper Roll Is A Dangerous Thing

I have a post I've been wanting to write for awhile now. I've been mentally composing it and editing it, but I'm afraid to actually write it down for fear that I'll jinx myself. Silly me, I had planned to post it this week. But no, I have something much better to post about, lucky me. Because right now I'm doing midnight laundry. Again. Yes, it's the second time this week.

Why am I doing laundry this late (ok so it isn't really midnight, but it sure feels like it)? Trust me, it isn't from some misplaced compulsion to maintain a completely empty laundry basket. I haven't seen a fully empty laundry basket in a long time. And I already did laundry once today, so it's silly to do it again, right? Not so much, unfortunately. Laundry at this hour means I have to do laundry.

I was upstairs with Mister Man helping him find something after bedtime and we walked out of my bedroom where I saw the wee ones' bathroom door was closed and the light was on. I didn't think I'd left it like that a minute earlier, so I turned the knob and jokingly asked, "Who's in there now?"

That's when I saw Little Miss sitting on the floor with her pajamas in a pile in front of her. She wasn't fully awake, but she was working on it. As I stepped forward to see what the problem was, I felt something wet under my foot. My brain finally caught up to the rest of me, and I groaned. At least she'd made it into the bathroom and the tile floor, but the rug and her pjs (and socks she was wearing under her footie pjs for some reason) were soaked. I helped her into the shower and sighed.

Once she was back in bed, I picked up her dirty clothes and the now dirty bath towel and stuck them in the laundry. I shrugged and added the rest of the dirty laundry to fill the load before going back into her room to question her a little more. Slowly, slowly the story came out, as her personality is loathe to admit to anything she thinks might be doing something wrong, even when it isn't anything that's wrong or anything that's her fault.

There was a reason she had her accident in front of the door rather than anywhere else. She'd walked into the bathroom and seen that the toilet paper roll was empty. Her six year old assumption was that you can't go to the bathroom if there's no toilet paper. She knew where we keep the extra toilet paper, so she walked to that cabinet in front of the door and opened it. When she couldn't find any in there (the new giant pack was in the garage), she gave up.

Oh my poor peanut.

So let that be a warning to you. Always, always change the toilet paper. And yes, I'm talking to you. Trust me, you don't want to walk into what I did tonight. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some laundry to go change.

An Update From The Potty Training Wars

Last Wednesday evening, my husband was putting Little Miss to bed while I was working with Mister Man. I found out then that she was out of Pull-Ups. Ummm, what?

It was 6:30 at night and time for her bed. No one had bothered to mention the dearth of Pull-Ups until that point. Costco had a sale on Pull-Ups starting the next day. Thursday mornings are sheet changing days in my house.

I decided to try one more time to see if she was ready to stay dry overnight, knowing that I had a plastic mat under her sheets just in case. I explained to her what we were doing, and she repeated after me, "Body. Hey! Body! Listen up. I'm going without a Pull-Up tonight. You need to wake me up if you have to go p0tty. Got it? You'd better!" We were as set as we were going to be.

I woke her up for a p0tty run when I went to bed, and she went.

The next morning, her bed was wet. I commiserated with her a bit and asked what happened. Did you wake up all wet this morning?

No.

Ummmm you got wet after you woke up?

Yes. I woke up this morning, and I had to go p0tty and I forgot I wasn't wearing a Pull-Up anymore.

Screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeech.

Ummm what? Wait, you mean to tell me that you stayed dry all night long, only to wake up in the morning and wet your bed simply because you were too lazy to walk down the hall to the bathroom? Are you kidding me?

There are no more Pull-Ups.

Or there weren't. After our little discussion, she was dry on Thursday night. And on Friday night. And on Saturday night. Since then, she's wet her bed once or more a night every night, even with both my husband and I waking her in the middle of the night. So yeah, when I went to Costco today, I bought more Pull-Ups.

Score:
Little Miss 6
Mommy 0

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I'm Not An Alcoholic

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***

I may have just drunk a good portion of a bottle of wine by myself, but I am not an alcoholic. Let me explain how I got to this situation in the first place.

1) I am on day three of being a single parent, and I forget how hard it is when you don't have any support at home. Sure, it's nice that when I put things a certain way they stay that way, but when I need a break, I no longer have one. No, my husband didn't leave me - he's in Vegas with a friend for five days. Yes, I'm that nice a wife.

2) I agreed to watch a friend's two children for five hours a day three Sundays in a row. While her kids are fine and mine like them, having four kids in the house while trying to avoid crying and other drama can be somewhat traumatic. Today was our third week of the three...

3) ... so I decided to take all four children by myself (see #1) to the Kohl's Children's Museum today. On their 25th anniversary celebration. A free day. To say it was crowded was a bit of an understatement. I will admit that the day went far better than I thought it would as I started out, but my grasp on sanity has obviously left me - proof being the idea in the first place.

4) I have certain rules in my car - like no throwing of any objects by anyone - that I tend to be fairly strict about. I pulled my car to the side of the road to reiterate that one on the way home after four overtired children couldn't quite manage to listen to reason while the car was moving. Once I mentioned that things like throwing items in my car (and punching each other) were the kinds of behaviors that I would need to tell my friend when she asked how her children behaved and explained to my wee one that they would be cleaning out the car entirely and all books were being removed from it once we got home, all was fine.

5) Once I got home, I was proactive and did a load of laundry. After glancing inside, I saw that Little Miss's pj bottoms from the night before were in there, so I decided to do darks. (Quick backstory - with our overnight p0tty training issues and my husband out of town, I decided to put Little Miss in Pull-Ups outside her pjs. She'd still have to stay dry, but hopefully the sheets wouldn't need to be washed twice a night. Friday night she was dry all night. Last night, not so much.) What with it being summer and my husband being out of town, we had slightly fewer darks than normal, so I took a look through my closet to see if I could toss anything extra in. Bad idea mixing Mommy's nice clothes with the wee ones' wear.

6) Once the wee ones were in bed, the washer finished at exactly the right time. As I started pulling clothes out, I noticed that there were little white things in my load of darks. Ugh, I thought, Little Miss put one of her dirty Kleenexes in her pocket and forgot to take it off. (She'd had a little runny nose for a couple days.) As I continued to pull items from the washer, I realized that no... this was in fact a Pull-Up explosion. Although I'd asked her this morning when I saw her in different bottoms what she'd done with the bottoms and Pull-Up (and ensured that she put the bottoms in the washer instead of her dirty hamper), she had "accidentally" put the Pull-Up in the washer, and I hadn't seen it when I'd peeked inside.

7) I took the entire load downstairs and outside and proceeded to spend the next thirty-five minutes shaking out each individual piece of clothing to get as much of the nasty Pull-Up goop off the clothes as possible. Interestingly, stretchy fake type materials, silky things, and velveteen don't hold onto the goobers nearly as well as regular cotton items.

8) After that thirty-five minute period, I looked like a snowman with bad dandruff. Although I had remembered to close my mouth and nose and turn my head while shaking, I was covered in the Pull-Up goobers. On the plus side, having gone through an hour long wash cycle, at least they weren't quite so urine-soaked as they had been previously. And yes, I've since taken a shower.

9) I then spent the next twenty minutes cleaning the Pull-Up goop from the washing machine itself. You'd think a Pull-Up explosion would essentially disintegrate, but no, it adheres to any and all surfaces of the washing machine, in addition to the clothing. It was not easy to get the stuck on goop off the metal in the washing machine. Every time I thought I had it all, I found more. In the end, I practically needed to crawl inside my slightly urine-smelling washing machine (whee!) to get it all removed.

10) After putting the shaken clothes back into the washing machine for a double rinse cycle (in hot water with vinegar), I still found some of the little white goobers attached to the clothes - not nearly as many, but some. Oddly enough, I almost didn't care after having drunk my little bit of wine.

On the plus side, the wee ones were so exhausted from the activities of the day that they fell straight asleep once they tumbled into bed.

Two Steps Forward; One Step Back

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***

I wrote earlier this week about our excitement at being released from Vision Therapy. Mister Man hit a huge milestone and accomplished so much. That was the good news of the week - and our two steps forward.

And then there's the two steps back. Remeber when I discussed last week about how we're working on moving Little Miss away from Pull-Ups at night? Yeah, it's not going so well.

The first couple nights, my husband and I woke up Little Miss a few times to have her go p0tty at night. She stayed dry, but then we started having solid accidents during the day. Three of them, in fact. That had the washing machine cranked up enough.

After the third night, Little Miss hasn't stayed dry yet - we're hoping cutting off all liquids after dinner helps, but the jury is still out on that one. Even when she's awakened only a couple hours after falling asleep, we still discover her lying soaking wet and sound asleep. And yes, this is my light sleeper who wakes up if I so much as walk past her room too loudly.

The washing machine is now drawing overtime wages, and we're dipping into the "wow, I didn't realize we still owned these" sheets. Last night, I arrrived home from softball and could see the light in Mister Man's room as I pulled into the driveway. That is never a good sign. I could hear him sobbing as I walked into the house and quickly ran upstairs.

Yep, he'd had his own accident in bed, something he hasn't done in years and only - maybe - twice before in his life. And apparently somewhere along the way his mattress cover ripped (according to my husband) and was thrown away. (Side note: yes, we have a cleaning lady who strips our beds and remakes them, so I wasn't aware of this.) Being an IKEA mattress with a thick cover, the cover is removable and washable.

My husband's response? Well, the cover is hard to remove, so he'd left it on for the previous half hour plus of cleanup. We now need a new mattress tomorrow for Mister Man. And it had better come with a protective cover! Instead Mister Man was put back to bed with a towel cover the very wet spot and no sheets, comforter or anything. Since I could see the towel already getting wet, I made a few alterations to the arrangement, including providing Mister Man with a comforter.

Needless to say, I'm in somewhat of a crabby mood after this. Of course, part of that is remnants from the night before.

The wee ones sleep through the night. They sleep in their own beds. They always have, and they just don't know there's an alternative. Shortly after 9pm, Little Miss woke up sobbing hysterically, but couldn't tell me what was wrong. After I comforted her, I came back downstairs. Three minutes later I was back upstairs with more sobbing. And no good resolution. This time I didn't make it down the stairs before her hysteria had me running back into her room.

She didn't want me to leave. She couldn't stop crying - and even today - she couldn't tell me why. Every time she was settled to go back to sleep, she's start up again as I walked out the room. After forty-five minutes of this, she finally asked me to stay and sleep with her. Uhhh, no. She asked to sleep in my bed. Again, no (hello not-staying-dry-girl, not in my bed!).

At this point, I sighed and asked if she wanted to sleep with Mister Man (obviously I had no idea there wasn't a mattress cover on his bed). She agreed, and I placed her next to her thankfully very heavy sleeping brother.

An hour later, she was sobbing again. In his room. Once I made to the bedroom, I determined that she was done with his room. She wanted to be back in her own room (thankfully, she was still dry!). So I picked her up and gently deposited her back in her own room.

That was the last I heard of her that night, but ohhh did it mess with my own sleep. We've never had that experience before, and I have my fingers and toes crossed that we don't experience that particular regression again.

Two steps forward, and one step back. As thrilled as I am that Mister Man graduated from one therapy, I need some more news like that on a regular basis and less backsliding like we've had since then.

Anyone have a glass of wine they can spare?

And The Potty Training Experiment Continues...

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***

Little Miss turns five in a mere two weeks. I'm not quite sure how that happened, but I know she's thrilled about it (for the record, she's asking for a snorkel and a Star Wars toy for her birthday).

I have other priorities than her birthday, however. Little Miss is still in Pull-Ups.

P0tty training my little girl has not been easy. With Mister Man, we told him how it worked, we told him what he needed to do, and twenty-four hours later, he was in underwe@r 24 hours a day. There are some benefits to having a perfectionist personality.

Little Miss was not so simple. When my parents took the wee ones to Florida a couple years ago while I was at a wedding, my mom put Little Miss in underwe@r and started pushing the issue. She wasn't ready, and I wasn't thrilled.

What I discovered eventually is that Little Miss is perfectly capable of staying dry and using the bathroom, but that she simply doesn't care enough to do so. She's perfectly fine continuing whatever she's doing and using her diaper. And getting wet or dirty? She doesn't care.

We eventually convinced her that she couldn't do swim lessons unless she was out of diapers, and that motivation was the solution for her. Except during naps. And bedtime. And periodic oopses, always of the messy kind.

I finally took away naptime Pull-Ups when I realized that she could indeed stay dry during naptime if she chose but that if she had the Pull-Up, she'd use it. Bedtime - not so much.

We (read: my husband) accidentally put her to bed one night in her underwe@r, and she woke up at 2am saying she had to go potty. Ah-ha! We were golden, or so I naively thought. The next night, sheets were changed somewhere in the o-dark-hundred hours.

Needless to say, we quickly gave up on that idea. And now she's almost five. Less than a month from it, and she's my light sleeper. This is definitely something she's capable of, so I decided to have a conversation with her about it.

Little Miss, you know you can't have sleepvers with your friends if you wear Pull-Ups at night.

I got a blank look.

Peanut, wouldn't it be nice to be able to wear underwe@r all the time and not have to take off your princesses?

She shrugged. Oh yeah... Pull-Ups have fun characters on them now, too.

Little Miss, you know that Mister Man stopped wearing Pull-Ups when he was 3 1/2. How old are you now?

Four and three-quarters.

Hmmm, was Mister Man younger than you when he wore underwe@r at night? Hoping, desperately and obnoxiously hoping that a little competition and sibling rivalry might kick her "anything you can do, I can do better" personality into gear

Three and a half is younger than I am now.

Right, so don't you think it's time for you to stop using Pull-Ups?

But I don't want to!

Well, why on earth not?

Mommy, when I'm sleeping, I'm too lazy to get up to go p0tty. Ummm, are you kidding me? You're four and copping to being lazy? Ohhhhh no.

Just so you know, when you turn five, you will no longer be able to wear Pull-Ups. That is one of your birthday presents, and if we run out of Pull-Ups before then... I'm not buying any more.

Insert whining.

And then we realized on Sunday night at about 7pm that Pull-Ups were all gone. None. Zero. And so we began The Great Underwe@r Experiment.

After soliciting suggestions on Twitter (ahhh how I love Twitter), I grabbed all our spare towels to place under Little Miss while she was sleeping to make changes much easier in case of issues. My husband and I woke her up three times to go p0tty over the course of the night, and ... she stayed dry.

The next night, we had the same routine, and she was dry. Tuesday, she had a solid accident in her underwe@r because she was too busy playing to go p0tty. *sigh* It had been almost a year. Tuesday night, we had the same routine and same outcome. And yesterday? Another accident of the messy variety - while we were out of the house, of course.

This is not an even trade.

Last night, my husband suggested we cut down on the number of times we wake her up. I reluctantly agreed, and she got a mere once a night midnight p0tty call. Amazingly, she was dry this morning yet. That gives me hope, and fingers crossed we aren't trading again today.

So far as I can tell, she has yet to wake up to go on her own. That doesn't bode well for my sleep. I'm ok for now, but once my husband goes back to school at the end of August, I no longer have anyone in the house awake in the middle of the night.

Someone tell me that I'm not setting myself up for massive piles of laundry!

Where Else Do I Look?

Last night, I had just climbed into bed and was picking up my magazine, when the bedroom door was pushed open. I looked over to say goodnight to my husband when I realized it wasn't my husband.

It was Mister Man.

With his pants around his ankles.

Shuffling into my room. And saying not a word to me.

He shuffled over to my dresser and started tugging on the handle to my sock drawer.

Uhhhh, Mister Man, whatcha doing?

I have to go potty, he whined.

Yikes!

You can't imagine (ok, maybe you can) how quickly I hopped out of bed and steered him into the bathroom, opening the toilet for him just in time. And I do mean just in time.

He doesn't remember it this morning, and now I'm a little paranoid about where else he may have ummm wandered in the night. I'm almost afraid to check though.

Breaking The Bank!

We're still struggling just a little bit with Little Miss and potty training. For the most part she's got it, and we don't have streaking issues anymore. However, she also firmly believes that every time she goes poop in the potty and not in her pants, she gets an animal back.

For those of you who've missed the earlier saga, Little Miss could care less about having soiled pants. She's just too busy doing other things. I eventually found that the only way to motivate her -- or at least the only way I could motivate her! -- was to take away two of her precious stuffed animals each time she had streaks. She earns back one when using the potty correctly (thus a streak and a subsequent poop don't quite cancel each other out, and yes she is that sneaky).

Since we tend to use the earning and removal of animals as our general discipline system -- and it's back to working normally again, thankfully -- we tend to always have a supply of animals on hand. Gotta love having a daughter filled with ummmm personality.

Mister Man sees what we do, and he's really supportive of his little sister. He claps and cheers and tells her how proud of her he is. In some ways, he really tries to be a third parent, which we don't encourage but is part of his personality.

My mom called yesterday and told me that Little Miss announced to her -- after doing two large poops in Grandma's potty -- that she got an animal back and that Mister Man was going to give her money, too! My mom wanted to see if I was aware of this.

Well, yeah. I was. Mister Man has recently decided that since we give her animals back, he was going to give her something of his. The only thing he could come up with (and no, he wasn't going to give away his precious Thomas trains) was money from his piggy bank.

Each individual poop earns a coin, regardless of denomination. He runs up to his room as fast as he can, hands me the piggy bank to open, and hands over the coins to Little Miss who then needs me to lift her up to put them into her piggy bank. It's all quite sweet. Or so I thought.

My mom brought up a really good point. Mister Man really hates messes. And smells. And really, he's paying Little Miss to not poop in her pants. And apparently, she can be bought. I hadn't thought of it in quite so crude of terms, but ... I think my mom is right.

Then again, the wee ones' piggy banks are the divided banks with the momma pig and three baby pigs. One for spending, one for saving, one for investing, and one for giving. Each time Mister Man opens the piggy bank, he makes sure that he takes coins only from the giving portion of the bank.

So really, it's all for charity. And charity is good, right? Right?

What Now?

I wish I could figure out what's going on in Little Miss's head.

In fact, I need to figure it out, and I need to figure it out quick. Preschool starts for us on Tuesday next week. That gives me fewer than six days to figure it out.

Oh yeah... you want to know what I'm talking about, don't you?

Well, Little Miss is potty trained. I swear she is. Or was. Or whatever. And when she starts preschool on Tuesday, she must be potty trained, or they'll send her home. And then they'll kick her out if she doesn't get potty trained until she is potty trained. And I just can't have that.

She knows that she needs to be potty trained to go. In fact, that was a big motivator to get potty trained. She really wants to go to preschool and be like Mister Man. And she really wants to continue swim lessons. And I won't do swim lessons if she isn't potty trained because that's just too much yuck to clean up after 30 minutes in the pool.

In May, my mom started her potty training while they were in Florida, and she did pretty well. When she got home, we worked on it some more, and she did well and got it and had very few accidents of any type. She was still in diapers at night but even during naptime, she was in underwear.

Then she started wetting nearly every naptime, and we got tired of doing sheets on a daily basis. Into nappy-time Pull-Ups she went. And she is still in them. I'm totally fine with this part of it, as I know it's hard to stay dry when sleeping, and frequently she is dry.

Then we started getting streaks. And not the running through the house naked kind of streaks. I'd be sort of ok with that, too. Nope, these are the kind that you find in underwear. Just a little streak and a little pebble.

So onto the potty she'd go, and ... nothing. An hour later, I'd smell something, and we'd have another streak. And yep, nothing on the potty. And an hour later, repeat.

Seriously, I had to go out and buy her more underwear twice because I couldn't keep up with the laundry. Eventually, she'd poop in the potty, but it appeared to be completely not related to her streaks. And it sometimes wasn't until a day later.

My husband has had it and wants her back in diapers, but we can't do that -- one because it's not recommended to go back and forth, two because she'll be totally fine for days on end and three because she needs to be potty trained when she goes to preschool in a short five and a half days.

And yesterday, my mom watched the wee ones in the afternoon while I met with the principal at Mister Man's preschool. In the two hours she had them, Little Miss had two accidents. Two of the pee pee kind. And she didn't tell my mom when she did, she just kept on playing. In fact, I don't know that she noticed them.

When we got home, not forty minutes later, she'd peed in her pants again. She had gone to the bathroom before we left my mom's, so I don't get it. And again, we discovered the accident only because my husband was about to take her out on an errand.

What is going on with her, and more importantly what is she thinking?

Is this a game of wills with her?

Does she not feel when she has pee or poop coming (which would explain why she stops the poop, but not until it's started to come out)? In which case, what do we do about this? But she was fine for awhile, so something was working, right?

Am I doing something wrong?

I wish I could figure it out easily. But right now I'm stumped aside from reminding her that she needs to be potty trained to go to preschool, congratulating her when she does use the potty, and cleaning up after her. What else do I do? What am I missing?

What Was I Thinking?

Every family has their potty tricks. Some of them are designed, and some occur by accident (no pun intended -- really). Ours are strictly accidental.

When Mister Man was potty training, we didn't use candy or toys or physical bribes to get him to go or once he went. No, silly me, the first time he went on the potty, I sang to him. And no, I didn't use a normal song, I made up a song. Doesn't everyone?

(As a side note, we have songs for brushing our teeth, washing our hands, combing our hair and so on. And they're all ones that I "made up" using existing tunes. Fortunately, the only one I still have to sing every time is the tooth brushing song, and they think it's funny when I "mess up" the words, so we get some extra brushing in.)

So he goes on the potty for the first time, and I start to sing. And he thinks it's the greatest song ever. And so I sing it every time he goes. And of course Daddy has to learn and sing the song, too. And the first time he poops on the potty, I change the words to the song to reflect that. And I soooo regret it. Especially since Mister Man remembers us doing that and insisted we do the same for Little Miss. Except that Mommy somehow conveniently forgot the words, so only Daddy has to do it. And only for poops.

When we were visiting at a friend's house when Mister Man was new to the potty, he had to go while there. And he went poops. My friend volunteered to accompany me on his guitar. (This is the same friend who sans girlfriend at the time came to Mister Man's first birthday party and was the entertainment, spending forty-five minutes singing kids songs on his guitar -- gotta love him!) I tried to demur, but he wouldn't have it.

Halfway through the song, he gave me a look and stopped playing, demanding to know if I actually had words for the entire song. Ummm yeah. I wasn't smart enough to stop at the end of the first verse.

Ten points to the first person who can name the original song.

Ohhh, someone pee peed / poo-pooed on the potty, all the live long day
Someone pee peed / poo-pooed on the potty, just to pass the time away
Can you see the pee pee/poo poo streaming, turning the potty yellow/brown?
Can't you hear the pee pee / poo poo splashing, go-o pee pee/poo poo, go!

Pee pee/poo poo won't you go, pee pee / poo poo won't you go, pee pee won't you go in the potty?
Pee pee/poo poo won't you go, pee pee / poo poo won't you go, pee pee won't you go in the potty?

Someone went pee pee on the potty, someone went pee pee I know-oh-oh-oh, someone went pee pee on the potty for the first/second/third/etc time today!

And he's going pee pee on the potty, pee pee on the potty, pee pee on the potty -- for the first time today.

Remind me that while song is wonderful and all, my talents do not lie in songwriting. Good blackmail, however, for once they start dating, I think.

My Big Little Girl!

With Little Miss officially potty trained (knock on wood, cross my fingers, spin in a circle), it's time to finally rearrange her furniture and decorate her room like a big girl.

The first thing my mom and I did was hang up the cute little hooks that I got at Target ohhh about three years ago now. Little Miss immediately decided to hang her pjs on the hooks. As long as she hangs them up again in the morning, I'm all good with that theory.

You'll also see a shelf above the tall dresser. At about 19 months, she suddenly decided she was done with her crib and wanted a big girl bed. She didn't try to climb out or any of the usual suspects, but she refused to get in that crib. My husband and my dad put up this shelf last year when we put Little Miss's big girl furniture in her room. If you look carefully, you can see that there's a large screw hole in the wall to the right of the shelf support from where they realized they needed to hang it on a stud. And if you look really carefully, you can also see that the shelf itself is not level on the supports. Not that this drives me nuts whenever I look at it or anything.



The next step was to change Little Miss's dresser from a changing table into a big girl dresser. We attached the mirror -- after explaining to Little Miss that a hammer is not a toy and ensuring she moved away from the mirror leaning on the side of the bed. It's so grown up now!

We also attached the other set of hooks next to her vanity table. (Costco, summer 2007 -- her birthday present from me last year. Note that the ladybugs and flowers on the vanity sort of match her comforter.) These hooks were intended to hang some of her play necklaces like her flower. Nope, she was having none of it. You'll note that there are more pjs hung on these hooks. And no, those aren't her only pjs. I'm not sure how, but I swear she has almost 15 pairs of pjs between summer and winter styles.

Now that I sort of know how the rest of her room is going to be arranged, I can finally hang up her baby pictures. This was a present from my MOH when Little Miss was born.

Actually, it's so cute that I need a close up, too. She was so tiny! It's funny, but she looks nothing like these pictures now, does she? This was taken when she was about 6 weeks old by a great photographer (this image is Little Miss at about 10 months -- still doesn't look like her; the next photo is also her at 6 weeks). In the bottom middle picture, that's my arm btw, for any of you sick-minded people.

Then we put up the rest of her shelves that belong over her bed. If I may, I'd like to point out that they are totally level. They are mounted into studs. They are evenly spaced (from this angle, they look more to the right than they are). And they sort of break up the room, in a good way.

My challenge now is ... how else do I decorate her room? Her shelves don't really have anything "good" on them, except for the three piggies piggy bank and picture of her and Mister Man. I'm so not into the little girl things, so any ideas are appreciated!

Our Streak Is Over

Just a little giggle at my husband’s expense. Since he told the story in front of friends we had for dinner tonight, I figure I can share it with the rest of the world.

First, I shouldn’t have been so proud of Little Miss being potty trained. She’d been perfect all week. Until Friday, anyway. For some reason, she’ll keep dry now, but she gets umm streaks about four times a day, although she insists she doesn’t have to poop. Twice yesterday, there was actually some poop in her underwear, which my husband didn’t appreciate. Today, she did again when my friends were over.

Since I was working on getting dinner on the table, he was in charge of getting her on the potty after nap and was the one to discover her issue. I didn’t hear what he said, but she came out of the bathroom quite upset. A bit later, I was helping her climb into the dining room chair (cleverly covered in a huge towel to prevent rice from being ground into my nice chairs), and I smelled something and checked.

The first thing I noticed was that she was in a Pull-Up instead of her underwear. My husband hasn’t read many of the parenting books, and he definitely missed the you can’t go back part. That explains her being upset the last time she came out of the bathroom. Rather than make an issue of it, I simply passed her off to my husband again, as I still had dinner work to do.

She came out of the bathroom bawling. I picked her up and asked her what was wrong and she couldn’t tell me, but I finally figured out that she had been lectured on how to use a potty and had been quite shamed. I had mixed feelings about this, but quieted her enough to eat dinner – given how exhausted she was yesterday when this was such an issue and today was more tiredness, I didn’t have the heart to pick on her.

When we put her to bed after dinner, she came out about twenty minutes later as I was helping to whip the cream for dessert (my friend’s daughter was the “baker” for the evening but still needs supervision!). I took no notice until my husband came downstairs about twenty minutes later.

Little Miss had decided she had to go potty, so my husband took her into the bathroom and placed her on the potty. She peed, and the following conversation commenced.

Husband: Are you done now?
Little Miss: No, I don’t think so.
Husband: Are you sure?
Little Miss: I think I have to make poops.
Husband: Oh that will make Daddy really happy!
My husband walked out of the bathroom to check on Mister Man and left her be for a bit. When he cam back, he heard a “ploop” as he described it.
Little Miss: (brushing her wisps of hair out of her eyes so that she can be sure to look my husband clear in the eyes) Are you happy now?

Oh, are we in trouble. The good news is that she does feel more confident about it now, so fingers crossed tomorrow is a better day!

I Have An Inkling About a Tinkling

On Monday when Mister Man and I had the stomach flu, my mom very generously showed up uninvited to take Little Miss with her to help prevent Little Miss from getting sick.

When she showed up, she had three pairs of Disney Princess underwear. Not surprisingly, Little Miss immediately chose a pair, took off her bloomers and Pull-Ups, and put on a pair of the underwear. Five minutes later, the bloomers came off and another pair was put on. Since she was headed to my parents’ house and I was feeling pretty wretched, I wasn’t about to fight it.

When I called Tuesday morning to check to see how Little Miss had done overnight and how she was feeling, I discovered that they were headed to Swedish Days in Geneva with my aunt and uncle. And my mom was brave enough to try to keep Little Miss in underwear (really, once she goes into underwear, there’s no going back). I stifled my laughter but reminded myself that it was her car, not mine.

Apparently, Little Miss went potty before she left my parents’ house. She went potty when she got to my aunt and uncle’s house. And she announced she had to go potty while at Swedish Days. Like most festivals, the only choice was Port-A-Potties.

Personally, I’ve trained myself to have the bladder of a camel to avoid most public bathrooms, and I can proudly say that I’ve never used a Port-A-Potty. Ever. The whole concept so grosses me out, I can’t even explain it. I can only pray that the wee ones will develop similar self-control.

When Little Miss got inside, she announced in quite the indignant voice, “Grandma, someone forgot to flush!” We’re all still cracking up over that one.

But she stayed dry. All day yesterday, and she was dry when she got back to our house last night. This morning, she chose Elmo underwear, and she stayed dry through all the errands she ran with Daddy, including announcing about five minutes after they finished eating lunch and were back in the car (Daddy has yet to learn to require that all children use potties before getting into the car). Fortunately, he was near a Dominick’s, and she quite proudly used the potty there.

She stayed dry during naptime. She stayed dry all afternoon and evening. And now she’s been back at my parents’ house (they do childcare on Thursdays) and has been dry again. She was so proud to choose her Ariel underwear this morning. Before she put them on though, she opened up her diaper drawer so that she could look at her old diapers and say good-bye to them – totally her idea and ohhhh-so-cute!

I’m crossing my fingers, knocking on wood, spinning counter-clockwise three times and whatever else I need to do to avoid jinxing this. BUT. I think Little Miss will be allowed to go to preschool next year (there was a question for awhile). Yay, Big Girl!

To Pee Or Not To Pee...

Little Miss is quite the independent little cuss. Mister Man, in many ways, was so easy. His personality wants to please others and be a good and helpful child. When he was a baby, he wasn’t colicky and he wasn’t a crier. In general, he has a sunny disposition and goes along with what those in authority tell him.

I don’t want to paint Little Miss as a bad child in anyway, but her personality is very different. She does want to be a helper and is very good about helping me do laundry and putting her dishes in the right spot in the dishwasher after meals. But she wants to do things for herself, and she is loathe to accept help no matter how difficult the task.

Good luck putting her to bed if you try lifting her into the bed versus letting her climb in by herself. Don’t even think about helping her feed herself or put pants on or buckle her carseat or anything that she gets into her mind she can do. And woe is the person who makes that mistake.

I will say that I’ve put my foot down on something that has already been done. If something has already been done, she may not undo it to redo it herself. She does accept this now – but only from me.

With this in mind, I thought about how to potty train my little angel. I knew that I would have to make potty training her idea. There would have to be something that she wanted rather than something I was wanting her to do.

I talked about how Mister Man gets to go to swimming lessons because he is potty trained. I discussed how other children in her preschool class use the potty. We chatted about how next year’s preschool won’t let her go to school unless she’s potty trained. I showed her the big girl underwear that Grandma had bought her. We went to Costco and drove by the Pull-Ups aisle where she decided she wanted to get princess Pull-Ups. I also told her that once she’s potty trained, she won’t have ouchies on her bottom anymore – the poor girl gets diaper rash in the blink on an eye, and it’s so hard to get rid of.

When she was in Florida, after I’d bought the Pull-Ups but before we’d started using them, she started using the potty. My mom started keeping her just in Lil’ Swimmers, which I thought was quite brave, and she kept them mostly dry.

When she got back, I told her that she could start wearing Pull-Ups if she kept her diaper dry for two consecutive days. She did it, and we moved into Pull-Ups. She did a great job, and I told her that she would get to wear big girl underwear when she kept her Pull-Ups dry for four days.

She did great. She told me when she had to go potty, and if she mentioned that she was keeping her Pull-up dry, I knew that meant that she needed to get to the potty soon. And it was fully dry and clean. Monday was good, with one small accident at daycare. Tuesday was dry all day long – including telling me when she had to go when we were in the library. Wednesday was pretty good until someone at daycare put her into a diaper instead of a Pull-up and it was soaking wet when I got her home. Thursday my parents watch her, and she had accidents of the wet and dry variety multiple times.

Uh-oh. By the time I got her back on Friday, she was no longer keeping herself dry, so we moved back to diapers since she obviously wasn’t ready. Now, she understands that she can’t wear Pull-ups until she keeps her diaper dry for two days. But she only goes on the potty sometimes. If we go out to eat, she’ll go two or three times during the meal. But tonight she did that, and when we got home she had poop in her diaper. I changed her, and immediately there was more poop. Argh!

With Mister Man, he did great until he had six accidents in one day – pressure on himself, I’m convinced – and we moved him to diapers and didn’t mention the word potty for a month. He was trained within two days when we brought it up again.

With Little Miss, it isn’t about the pressure though. It’s almost like she doesn’t care, and I’m not sure where I go from here. If she doesn’t want to be potty trained yet, that’s fine and I won’t push her, but she talks about wanting to be potty trained. And then she won’t tell me when she has to go. And come September, she must be potty trained to go to preschool although I know that’s three months away.

In the meantime, I’m stumped. Do I quit trying for right now and buy more size 3 diapers (yes, she’s only 26 pounds although she’s really tall so anything bigger leaks because she’s not round enough)? Do I put her in dresses and underwear once summer finally arrives and keep her outside until she figures it out? Do I put her in Pull-ups and grit my teeth? Help!

Sometimes, I Don't Hate People

Sometimes you don’t know if people are listening when you’re talking or not. Generally, it doesn’t matter, but every once in awhile people really surprise you by doing something completely unexpected and nice that just makes your day.

Before preschool starts and ends, all the moms at Little Miss’ preschool line up outside the classroom and wait for the doors to be open. Not surprisingly, we generally end up chatting while waiting.

A month or so ago, the topic of potty training had come up. Given that Little Miss’ birthday isn’t until August 1, she’s the second youngest in the class (one boy friend of hers is August 26), and many have started to be or have been potty trained.

We were discussing the various tactics we’ve used and our frustrations and challenges and successes. At some point in the conversation, I mentioned that Little Miss was convinced that she was going to be able to wear Mister Man’s old underwear when she potty trained – and that she’d have Thomas underwear when she used the potty.

This seemed to be ingrained in her mind somehow that potty training equals Thomas underwear. Apparently she was listening a year plus ago when we were potty training Mister Man. Usually, I’d be fine if there was some hand-me-down item of clothing or toy or whatever that’s not completely gender appropriate that she wanted. I’m not really hung up on the “boy” vs “girl” things.

However, while I’m not expert, I’ve noticed that boy underwear is designed differently from girl underwear. In looking at the design of boy underwear, I can’t see how it would be comfortable for a girl to wear, so I have told Little Miss that she can’t wear his underwear. And just like I can find absolutely no girl Thomas clothes (anyone who can sew or is looking for a business opportunity, start making Thomas clothes for girls – I know I’m not the only frustrated mom!), there is no girl Thomas underwear out there.

The conversation was pretty much left at that. Today, I went to pick up Little Miss from preschool, and one of the moms told me that she had something for me. I wasn’t expecting anything, but I thought maybe she hadn’t paid for the yearbooks that the other room mom and I had made and was giving me the money.

Nope, this mom totally rocks. She was in a store and saw some Thomas iron on transfers and immediately thought of Little Miss and her underwear dilemma. Now, all I have to do is buy some solid color underwear and make my own Thomas underwear with the transfers! How sweet is that mom?

That, and the preschool teachers totally rock, too. I got a huge Gerber daisy planter with other grasses, etc from them today as a thank you for being (such a great) room mom this year. Any bets as to how long before I kill it -- not that I want to?

(And yes, that is my massive cat Meow wanting to know when I'm coming inside. His brother Roar apparently had given up at that point. And yes, that's my laptop on the front porch. I was entering gift card sales during Mister Man's piano lesson when I took the picture.)

We're Making Progress...

Today, right before nap, Little Miss announced that she had to go potty. I pretty much figured it was a stalling tactic, as we’d been having fun playing prior to that point. She’s getting good at trying those, but I generally don’t let her get away with them. Buuut since we are trying to potty train her, I can count on it being a false alarm.

So into the bathroom we went.

Little Miss: Mommy, I have a dry diaper.
Me: I’m sure you do, Sweetie.
Little Miss: I don’t have any pee-pee in it at all.
Me: Well, let’s check. And there really wasn’t any!
Little Miss: Now I have pee-pee hands. I have to wash them with water and soap and make bubbles so the pee-pee hands go away.
Me: You’ve got it, Peanut.
Little Miss: Now I get to do a sticker book page. And if I keep my diaper dry more, then I get to wear big girl underwear. And then if I do pee-pee and poo-poo in the potty, I get to wear Cars pull-ups. (Yes, they’re leftover from Mister Man’s potty training experience.)
Me: Well, actually, you can wear pull-ups if you keep your diaper dry and tell me when you have to go potty for a whole day. Then if you keep it dry for four days, you get to wear big girl underwear. Pull-ups come before underwear, Sweet Pea.

And after naptime, I walk into Little Miss’ room to get here…

Little Miss: I have a dry diaper again, and I want to go potty.

Off we went again. Unfortunately, this time, there was a tiny bit of urine in the diaper, so it doesn’t count for a dry diaper sticker book page. But she still went a pretty good amount, so yay Little Miss!

Tonight before bed, she again wanted to go potty. She definitely didn’t have a dry diaper that time, which isn’t a surprise since she’d been playing with the children of some friends of ours since right after nap all the way until then. But she tried to go anyway. Not much came out. Then....

Little Miss: I have to make poops!

And she did! She actually knew. And she sat on the potty long enough to complete her mission. You’ll all be grateful that it didn’t even cross my mind to take a picture. Yay!

We have four months until we start at St. Marks where using the potty is not an option. I’m definitely not panicking yet, but I keep remembering that Mister Man didn’t potty train until almost 3 ½ (although thankfully we had zero accidents once he did). I definitely don’t want to push it on Little Miss because I don’t want it to be a power struggle or something where she isn’t ready and we have accidents constantly. I’m hoping that introducing the concept early enough will give her long enough to get comfortable and potty train easily.

We’re allowing her to do one dress up of stickers from the Usborne books I bought her a month or so ago. Plus, she knows that once she potty trains, I’ll let her start taking swimming lessons like Mister Man. And obviously, she knows that she needs to use the potty when she goes to St. Marks. Interestingly, while she will use the potty at her daycare, she refuses to do so at her current preschool. I wonder if she knows that she doesn’t have to and therefore doesn’t chose to.

In any case, we’re making progress! Anyone have other suggestions? (And yes, once it’s warmer, we’ll be spending our time outdoors in dresses a LOT!)