Our first attempt at dress up!
Wearing one of mama's old tutus
A trip outside makes any day better
She loves to pretend to fall down and say "Hep, hep"
Kisses!
Our first daffodils of the year
Playing peek a boo with daddy in the Christmas trees
(just a little walk from our house)
Playing the ukulele requires serious concentration
It's a bird, it's a "pane".....
She sure loves to be outside:)
First lawn mower ride of the year
Flowers for mommy
Her crib keeps getting smaller!
Potty training is scary! Let me just warn you right now. If a lot of talk about poop and pee is insulting or disgusting to you. You may want to skip this post. Poop and pee has been a major part of my life since March 7, when we started our potty training journey. So that's mostly what I'm going to talk about.
At around 17 months I started noticing some changes in Sierra's potty habits. For starters, she started to tell me when she would go poop. It's not that there was any question what she was doing when she would get in a squatting position, grunt loudly, and her little face would turn bright red. That was usually a dead giveaway, but she started adding a vocal "GRRRPOOOPUUUHHHH" to the twice daily deed. I noted this with slight amusement.
Around the same time I noticed that I was changing a lot less wet diapers a day. I started to panic thinking that she must be dehydrated and not drinking enough. So for a few days I pumped the poor child up with fluids until I realized that she was just learning to hold her pee. Instead of going little bits at a time all day, she would hold it and just go once in a while. When I realized this, that little mommy intuition voice in the back of my mind started saying, "She's ready, She's ready." I told that voice to shut up because I was scared of potty training. But it kept at me and so I decided that I wouldn't buy anymore diapers. I would just use up the last package I had. It was a costco package, so this gave me several weeks to prepare for the big moment. During that time we practiced sitting on the potty and talked a lot about pee pee and poo poo but continued using up our diapers. When I almost ran out, I had the urge to go and get some more because I was terrified of what we were about to do. After all, I've never potty trained a child before, and I really had no clue what I was doing. But, I listened to that mommy voice, put on my big girl panties, and bought Sierra some tiny pink training ones.
We started on the 7th of March. The first two days went horribly. I spent all day following her around saying pee pee on potty pee pee on potty. I wasn't determined to work on poo poo yet, we needed to get pee pee down first. She pretty much only had accidents the first two days. On day three I tried a different approach. One that included her going commando from the waste down. When she peed in her panties, it wasn't that much different that a diaper. When she went without panties on, a pee pee meant a jet propulsion stream from between the legs (I learned from the time that she was an infant that not only boys have this capability) and a large puddle on the floor. Hmmm, that was something for her to think about. She didn't really like standing in the pee and having it run down her legs. So on day 3, with this new approach we had 6 successes. Hooray. From there on out pee pee went quite well. I had to be diligent and follow her around and sit her on the potty a lot, but she did very well. The evil poo poo is another story.
Sierra was diagnosed with infantile dyschezia when she was very little. It's the ability to gain muscle control of your colon at a very young age. The normal time to gain that muscle control is around 18 months of age. This used to be the time when it was recommended that people potty train. But the average age that people generally potty train is now between 3 and 4. Anyway, Sierra has been able to control her um, functions, since she was very small, so I shouldn't have been so surprised to discover exactly how long she could hold her poo in if she wanted to. After two weeks of pretty much just hanging out at home in hopes to get her in a good pee pee routine, we started working on #2. Boy did we struggle. I tried everything to get her to go on the potty. Bribes of tiny Oreo's (which she had never had in her life), fruit loops (another thing she had never tasted), watching Mickey Mouse while on the pot, none of which would coax her to go. I could tell she needed to, but she walk around with her little cheeks all pinched and hold it in. We've had so many constipation problems with the poor child as it is, and this was not helping.
What amazed me was that she could find the perfect moment to let it all go in her pants. I literally followed her every step for weeks. She would get frustrated and say "Stay there." Like chill out mom, I need my space. But I don't believe in starting something and not finishing it. I feel like that sends very mixed signals and is confusing to a child. I was not harsh, but I was diligent. I could follow her around for hours, and then go to the bathroom myself for ONE minute, come out and her panties would be full. Or I would be cramming down my lunch and she would run in and say poo poo, which means mom time to clean out my britches. I was really getting frustrated and felt like I was swimming in poo. Luckily we have a lot of hardwood floors because a turd dropped on the run is much easier to clean up off of a laminate floor. Bahahahaha. Sorry that was quite crude, but oh so true.
After some bad days of Sierra being backed up because of holding it I decided I was just going to back off a bit and see what happened. She continued peeing on the potty fine. She'll go in a public restroom as long as we promise to "no flushy" while she is in the stall. As I backed off a little she still continued to go poo in her pants, but wasn't holding it so long. Then I bought some MnM's. Sweet little pieces of chocolate heaven to a child. I decided that we would practice sitting on the potty and every time that she would push and grunt she would get a MnM. We practiced this a couple of times for a day with no results. Then all of a sudden, the next morning, she said poo poo, I sat her on the potty and she went. I was so excited. She acted like it was no big deal but did request her MnM's when she was finished. Then that afternoon, she did the same thing. When she was done, she put her little hands on both of my cheeks and said "I proud you mommy" which of course made me cry. That's what I had said to her that morning when she went, but for some reason hearing those words, even only as a mimic of my own, was just what I needed to hear. We had stuck with it and we were both prevailing! This potty training story actually takes us well into her 20th month. It was after nearly 6 weeks of potty training that this momentous day happened. We still have accidents, but we are overall victorious!
So what else happened this month? Sierra had FOUR teeth break through in a 2.5 week period. That was fun. These teeth have been bothering her for months and they should be her last teeth besides her two year molars, and eventually her permanent teeth. We had many grumpy days, some sleepless nights, add that to potty training and you have a very grumpy..... Mommy. We were quite the pair! During this time we also went through a phase of refusing to eat much of anything besides lentil soup and fruit. Noodles, peanut butter sandwiches, beans and rice, all things she usually loves, were refused in a not so polite manner. Sometimes we could barely get her to eat two bites for a meal. I was terribly worried even though I've heard every mother I know say that their kids went through that stage. Sierra's just always been such a big eater - it was so unlike her. I'm sure the teething/sore mouth attributed to this immensely.
Sierra also started jumping this month. To be honest, it can hardly be called a jump because she barely makes it off of the floor. But she is quite proud of herself and it is adorable to watch. She also knows all of her colors now. It was just the basics at first but she's added black, brown, purple, pretty much any color. She's also added diamond and square to her known shapes.
Some of her favorite phrases are "Self!" Which of course means she wants to do it by herself. I think I would be rich if I had a penny for every time I hear this in a day. I also frequently hear, "Oh Dear." "Sic It" which translates to fix it. "I got it!" "PU that was close" which means phew that was close:) She bumped her head recently and dramatically said "Oh Man!" which made me giggle and so she said it for every situation for the next several hours.
She is a VERY polite little girl and says please, thank you, and your welcome without any prompting. In fact sometimes you get a thankyouyourwelcome all in one. She also says "I sorry" all of the time. Ever since she was an infant and would have her tummy aches I would rock her and say I'm Sorry over and over because there was really nothing else I could do. So now every time she gets hurt she says "I Sorry." She also says she's sorry if she bumps into me (or the table, chair, potty, tub, floor, etc) and that is usually followed by a mass of kisses on whatever item she ran into. She also says "Hmmmm" and sticks her bottom lip out and puts a finger to her lips to contemplate the situation. She's pretty stinking amazing:) It's funny how frustrated you can be with your child, and they say or do such a simple thing that sweeps you off of your feet.
I know this has been a long post, but a huge reason that I do this every month is to keep some of you updated that don't get to see Sierra frequently, but I also do this as a scrap book of sorts for Sierra when she gets older, and for me to look back on and get all sentimental like most mommies do.
At around 17 months I started noticing some changes in Sierra's potty habits. For starters, she started to tell me when she would go poop. It's not that there was any question what she was doing when she would get in a squatting position, grunt loudly, and her little face would turn bright red. That was usually a dead giveaway, but she started adding a vocal "GRRRPOOOPUUUHHHH" to the twice daily deed. I noted this with slight amusement.
Around the same time I noticed that I was changing a lot less wet diapers a day. I started to panic thinking that she must be dehydrated and not drinking enough. So for a few days I pumped the poor child up with fluids until I realized that she was just learning to hold her pee. Instead of going little bits at a time all day, she would hold it and just go once in a while. When I realized this, that little mommy intuition voice in the back of my mind started saying, "She's ready, She's ready." I told that voice to shut up because I was scared of potty training. But it kept at me and so I decided that I wouldn't buy anymore diapers. I would just use up the last package I had. It was a costco package, so this gave me several weeks to prepare for the big moment. During that time we practiced sitting on the potty and talked a lot about pee pee and poo poo but continued using up our diapers. When I almost ran out, I had the urge to go and get some more because I was terrified of what we were about to do. After all, I've never potty trained a child before, and I really had no clue what I was doing. But, I listened to that mommy voice, put on my big girl panties, and bought Sierra some tiny pink training ones.
We started on the 7th of March. The first two days went horribly. I spent all day following her around saying pee pee on potty pee pee on potty. I wasn't determined to work on poo poo yet, we needed to get pee pee down first. She pretty much only had accidents the first two days. On day three I tried a different approach. One that included her going commando from the waste down. When she peed in her panties, it wasn't that much different that a diaper. When she went without panties on, a pee pee meant a jet propulsion stream from between the legs (I learned from the time that she was an infant that not only boys have this capability) and a large puddle on the floor. Hmmm, that was something for her to think about. She didn't really like standing in the pee and having it run down her legs. So on day 3, with this new approach we had 6 successes. Hooray. From there on out pee pee went quite well. I had to be diligent and follow her around and sit her on the potty a lot, but she did very well. The evil poo poo is another story.
Sierra was diagnosed with infantile dyschezia when she was very little. It's the ability to gain muscle control of your colon at a very young age. The normal time to gain that muscle control is around 18 months of age. This used to be the time when it was recommended that people potty train. But the average age that people generally potty train is now between 3 and 4. Anyway, Sierra has been able to control her um, functions, since she was very small, so I shouldn't have been so surprised to discover exactly how long she could hold her poo in if she wanted to. After two weeks of pretty much just hanging out at home in hopes to get her in a good pee pee routine, we started working on #2. Boy did we struggle. I tried everything to get her to go on the potty. Bribes of tiny Oreo's (which she had never had in her life), fruit loops (another thing she had never tasted), watching Mickey Mouse while on the pot, none of which would coax her to go. I could tell she needed to, but she walk around with her little cheeks all pinched and hold it in. We've had so many constipation problems with the poor child as it is, and this was not helping.
What amazed me was that she could find the perfect moment to let it all go in her pants. I literally followed her every step for weeks. She would get frustrated and say "Stay there." Like chill out mom, I need my space. But I don't believe in starting something and not finishing it. I feel like that sends very mixed signals and is confusing to a child. I was not harsh, but I was diligent. I could follow her around for hours, and then go to the bathroom myself for ONE minute, come out and her panties would be full. Or I would be cramming down my lunch and she would run in and say poo poo, which means mom time to clean out my britches. I was really getting frustrated and felt like I was swimming in poo. Luckily we have a lot of hardwood floors because a turd dropped on the run is much easier to clean up off of a laminate floor. Bahahahaha. Sorry that was quite crude, but oh so true.
After some bad days of Sierra being backed up because of holding it I decided I was just going to back off a bit and see what happened. She continued peeing on the potty fine. She'll go in a public restroom as long as we promise to "no flushy" while she is in the stall. As I backed off a little she still continued to go poo in her pants, but wasn't holding it so long. Then I bought some MnM's. Sweet little pieces of chocolate heaven to a child. I decided that we would practice sitting on the potty and every time that she would push and grunt she would get a MnM. We practiced this a couple of times for a day with no results. Then all of a sudden, the next morning, she said poo poo, I sat her on the potty and she went. I was so excited. She acted like it was no big deal but did request her MnM's when she was finished. Then that afternoon, she did the same thing. When she was done, she put her little hands on both of my cheeks and said "I proud you mommy" which of course made me cry. That's what I had said to her that morning when she went, but for some reason hearing those words, even only as a mimic of my own, was just what I needed to hear. We had stuck with it and we were both prevailing! This potty training story actually takes us well into her 20th month. It was after nearly 6 weeks of potty training that this momentous day happened. We still have accidents, but we are overall victorious!
So what else happened this month? Sierra had FOUR teeth break through in a 2.5 week period. That was fun. These teeth have been bothering her for months and they should be her last teeth besides her two year molars, and eventually her permanent teeth. We had many grumpy days, some sleepless nights, add that to potty training and you have a very grumpy..... Mommy. We were quite the pair! During this time we also went through a phase of refusing to eat much of anything besides lentil soup and fruit. Noodles, peanut butter sandwiches, beans and rice, all things she usually loves, were refused in a not so polite manner. Sometimes we could barely get her to eat two bites for a meal. I was terribly worried even though I've heard every mother I know say that their kids went through that stage. Sierra's just always been such a big eater - it was so unlike her. I'm sure the teething/sore mouth attributed to this immensely.
Sierra also started jumping this month. To be honest, it can hardly be called a jump because she barely makes it off of the floor. But she is quite proud of herself and it is adorable to watch. She also knows all of her colors now. It was just the basics at first but she's added black, brown, purple, pretty much any color. She's also added diamond and square to her known shapes.
Some of her favorite phrases are "Self!" Which of course means she wants to do it by herself. I think I would be rich if I had a penny for every time I hear this in a day. I also frequently hear, "Oh Dear." "Sic It" which translates to fix it. "I got it!" "PU that was close" which means phew that was close:) She bumped her head recently and dramatically said "Oh Man!" which made me giggle and so she said it for every situation for the next several hours.
She is a VERY polite little girl and says please, thank you, and your welcome without any prompting. In fact sometimes you get a thankyouyourwelcome all in one. She also says "I sorry" all of the time. Ever since she was an infant and would have her tummy aches I would rock her and say I'm Sorry over and over because there was really nothing else I could do. So now every time she gets hurt she says "I Sorry." She also says she's sorry if she bumps into me (or the table, chair, potty, tub, floor, etc) and that is usually followed by a mass of kisses on whatever item she ran into. She also says "Hmmmm" and sticks her bottom lip out and puts a finger to her lips to contemplate the situation. She's pretty stinking amazing:) It's funny how frustrated you can be with your child, and they say or do such a simple thing that sweeps you off of your feet.
I know this has been a long post, but a huge reason that I do this every month is to keep some of you updated that don't get to see Sierra frequently, but I also do this as a scrap book of sorts for Sierra when she gets older, and for me to look back on and get all sentimental like most mommies do.
She sure does say "I sorry" a lot!! It almost makes me cry, because I know how many times she was screaming in pain, while you rocked her, saying" I'm so sorry." She's probably the most polite little girl ever!
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