Oh, January.
Besides Makadie's 3rd birthday (separate post), the biggest thing to happen was that about a week and a half before her birthday, Makadie decided she wanted to use the toilet instead of diapers. As excited as I was for this to happen, I was also a little bit terrified since I hadn't done this whole potty training thing before. I didn't know how to do it and everyone has their own ideas for what is best, so I went to facebook for a little bit of guidance and compiled the responses to decide how I wanted to handle it.
Here's what we had: princess potty that makes noise when you pee or poop (check), Minnie Mouse toilet seat that goes on top of regular toilet seat (check), Barbie underwear (check), lots of towels (check). So I decided to just confine us all to the house for the next 5 days or so, which wasn't too hard considering it was freezing cold outside. Basically I decided to have her be naked from the waist down so she would know for sure when she was peeing. We'd camp out in the front room with the TV, snacks and lots to drink for about 3 days. (We put underwear on her after a couple days and she definitely didn't like the feeling of wet underwear.) Then I moved the toilet into the bathroom so she had to go farther to get to her potty. We gave her a warm fuzzy each time she was successful and an "it's okay, we'll try again" when she missed. We ventured out of the house at the end of 5 days and went on one short errand, slowing increasing the time we were gone. I think the things that helped the most during the process was 1) watching the Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood episode about going to the potty (she still sings the little song sometimes when she has to go), 2) not pushing her until she was ready, 3) reminding her there were bathrooms at the places we went so she knew she could go there too and 4) lots of positive reinforcement in the form of compliments, warm fuzzies, treats and so on.
Soaking up any sun she can
At one point during our week of stay at home potty training, I asked Makadie if she needed to go potty. She told me she couldn't and then showed me why...
Looking back on it now, I don't remember too much. What I do remember is that potty training is much, MUCH harder than I thought it would be. It's really more of an ongoing process for a month or two. Granted, we had success most of the time, but it's the times when you have 5 failures in a row that makes you want to cry and scream and wonder why you even encouraged your kid to use the potty in the first place. But after all that, it's definitely better in the long run.
During the winter, Covey spent a lot of time working on the basement. We had started framing back in June 2014 and Covey spent pretty much all of his free time working on it during the summer and into the fall and winter. He had some help here and there, but most of it he did himself. At the beginning of January, we started looking at carpet and flooring and hoped to get it installed that month, but we were a little behind schedule and it didn't happen.
Towards the end of the month, we had some more weirdly warm weather. Trey was actually sitting out on the back porch in a short sleeve shirt because it was so warm! It was nice to be able to get out of the house and play in the yard.
Trey turned 10 months in January. He started climbing on, under and around things. He also started sitting on his knees and sitting up on his knees to get the things he wanted, and began pulling himself up on anything that would hold still long enough, including his sister.
Mostly, there was just a lot of randomness as we tried to keep ourselves from going stir crazy!
Learning how to cook a tortilla to make a quesadilla
Trey can hold his own pretty well when Kadie tries to tackle him. I'm just waiting for the day he gets bigger than her...
Posing in a birthday outfit from grandma...on top of her potty
First haircut with the clippers. He hated it.
You know those days when you accidentally dress yourself and your kids in matching clothes? Yeah, me neither...
Besides Makadie's 3rd birthday (separate post), the biggest thing to happen was that about a week and a half before her birthday, Makadie decided she wanted to use the toilet instead of diapers. As excited as I was for this to happen, I was also a little bit terrified since I hadn't done this whole potty training thing before. I didn't know how to do it and everyone has their own ideas for what is best, so I went to facebook for a little bit of guidance and compiled the responses to decide how I wanted to handle it.
Here's what we had: princess potty that makes noise when you pee or poop (check), Minnie Mouse toilet seat that goes on top of regular toilet seat (check), Barbie underwear (check), lots of towels (check). So I decided to just confine us all to the house for the next 5 days or so, which wasn't too hard considering it was freezing cold outside. Basically I decided to have her be naked from the waist down so she would know for sure when she was peeing. We'd camp out in the front room with the TV, snacks and lots to drink for about 3 days. (We put underwear on her after a couple days and she definitely didn't like the feeling of wet underwear.) Then I moved the toilet into the bathroom so she had to go farther to get to her potty. We gave her a warm fuzzy each time she was successful and an "it's okay, we'll try again" when she missed. We ventured out of the house at the end of 5 days and went on one short errand, slowing increasing the time we were gone. I think the things that helped the most during the process was 1) watching the Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood episode about going to the potty (she still sings the little song sometimes when she has to go), 2) not pushing her until she was ready, 3) reminding her there were bathrooms at the places we went so she knew she could go there too and 4) lots of positive reinforcement in the form of compliments, warm fuzzies, treats and so on.
Looking back on it now, I don't remember too much. What I do remember is that potty training is much, MUCH harder than I thought it would be. It's really more of an ongoing process for a month or two. Granted, we had success most of the time, but it's the times when you have 5 failures in a row that makes you want to cry and scream and wonder why you even encouraged your kid to use the potty in the first place. But after all that, it's definitely better in the long run.
During the winter, Covey spent a lot of time working on the basement. We had started framing back in June 2014 and Covey spent pretty much all of his free time working on it during the summer and into the fall and winter. He had some help here and there, but most of it he did himself. At the beginning of January, we started looking at carpet and flooring and hoped to get it installed that month, but we were a little behind schedule and it didn't happen.
Towards the end of the month, we had some more weirdly warm weather. Trey was actually sitting out on the back porch in a short sleeve shirt because it was so warm! It was nice to be able to get out of the house and play in the yard.
Trey turned 10 months in January. He started climbing on, under and around things. He also started sitting on his knees and sitting up on his knees to get the things he wanted, and began pulling himself up on anything that would hold still long enough, including his sister.
Mostly, there was just a lot of randomness as we tried to keep ourselves from going stir crazy!
You know those days when you accidentally dress yourself and your kids in matching clothes? Yeah, me neither...
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