Adorable adj. 1. very attractive or delightful; charming.

OR

Tonight, we put Mary to bed (in her big girl bed), said goodnight, closed the door halfway and went to the living room. We were enjoying listening to her babbling on the baby monitor. 30 min later, Doug goes to check on her and she had turned on her lamp on the night stand and grabbed a book and was reading in bed. Can she really be 23 months old? Adorable.

The big girl bed

Mary has been playing in the twin bed that's in her room for quite a while now. She loves to crawl on and get under the covers, she snuggles in to read books and many times, I have tried to get her to go to bed and she doesn't want to get in the crib. We figured she's ready to transition. Today was the day. I decided I wanted the bed moved away from the windows, so we ended up putting it where her crib was and we'll move other furniture around later. Nap time was the trial run. Seemed ok at first. She was really excited, but once we left the room, she started crying, then crawling OUT of bed, and playing, and running up and down the halls. She opened dresser drawers and pulled out clothes, she crawled into bed with me and jumped and wiggled until I had to kick her out. Doug even put her back in her crib as a last resort, but she screamed bloody murder for what felt like hours. I thought for sure she'd exhaust herself, but she exhausted us more. Finally, I took her and crawled in bed with her and she fell asleep. Finally!!! After 1 1/2 hours!!!! It's almost time to wake her up, since I want her to be tired for tonight. Hopefully, bedtime will be easier.

the mess

Finally!

Aww, now she's cute.

The first casualty...the floor lamp

Day 2 of attempting potty training. Again only an hour and a half of pure naked time was attained due to the high energy level needed by me. I never realized how hard it is to watch your kid every single second. I'm so used to going into the kitchen for something or doing laundry, etc and letting her be on her own for a few minutes. Dangerous, when she's running around bare bottomed with so many possible targets to pee or poop on. I think in that 1 1/2 hours she went to the potty 8 times. 2 successful pees! Yea! Ok, the second one was semi-successful. I turned my back for a split second and hear "tinkle, tinkle, splatter" and realized she was peeing on the floor lamp. What, is she a dog? Anyway, I grabbed her and high tailed it to the bathroom. If it was the Olympics, I bet I would have won gold for that 50 yard dash. We made it in time for her to complete the job. Yea!!!! One of the big lessons I learned from that crazy article was that you should never say "it's okay" when they have an accident. Instead, say "pee/poop goes in the potty." I really had to struggle not to say "it's ok", but I did it. We cleaned up the mess and I kept telling her it was an accident, but big girls pee in the potty.

Here's another cute story...Mary kept saying "poop,poop" so we would go and try, but nothing. Finally I said "push, push"...then I turned into the crazy mommy cheerleader and said "push it out, push it out, waaaaay out". She immediately stood up and pushed her potty out of the bathroom into the hallway. Oh well, I guess that's a lesson for another day...

Yes, she's trying to poop and she took Doug's Critical Thinking book in with her. I guess she needed some good reading material.

And so it begins...

I read an article on line about potty training your kid in 3 days. The process seemed a bit grueling, not to mention daunting. It sounded kind of like one of those magic diets where you cut out a major food group completely and then slowly re-incorporate back into your life but only after your body has gone into complete shock. The food group in this process is the diaper and the complete shock is that she goes without one for 3 days (except for naps and bedtime). You're supposed to have her run around in your house naked from the waist down and then toss her on the potty as soon as you start to see a little trickle of something on your floor or heaven forbid, something more solid. The idea is that they learn pretty quickly that they don't want to be wet and they can feel it more if there isn't a pamper soaking it all up. One of the biggest drawbacks, besides baby excrement all over my floors and carpet, is that on day #1, we have to stay in the house ALL day. Yikes! Mary and I would both go stir crazy. So, I guess you can tell, I'm not all gung-ho on this method of training and think I'll just figure it out as I go. I would like Mary out of diapers for at least a little while before baby #2 comes along, but I have plenty of time. Oh, and if you haven't heard, the next one is due Christmas Eve! Back to the story...so this morning, I was feeling a little brave. Mary came to me and told me she needed to "poop". I felt her diaper and she hadn't gone yet, so I rushed her to the potty. No luck, but she really has fun sitting on it. I think that's a big positive. I decided to try the whole naked from the waist down thing. Pretty funny seeing her running around with just a shirt, but then I stopped laughing when she started sitting down on things. Yikes, the articles didn't say what to do about stuff like that. It just seems wrong for her to be riding on her tricycle commando. Thank goodness she didn't get on the couch (she must have heard the panic in my voice). And thank goodness everything she sat on was easily wiped down with a disinfecting cloth. The end result was a toddler that enjoyed a bit of diaper freedom for an hour and a half, a mother that helped her child on the potty twice and made it seem like the best thing in the world, and a house that escaped any baby accidents. Yea! Sorry, lady who wrote the article, but I couldn't do any longer. We were already stir crazy and I felt I was testing my luck with the couch, and the rug, and the chair, and the cat (don't ask).

WARNING

Those with weak stomachs do not read any further...

So this morning, only about 10 minutes after I changed her, Mary came to me and said "poop, poop." I said, "did you poop?" She nodded her head yes. I felt her diaper and it felt flat to me. I said "honey, you didn't poop." She proceeded to pull her changing mat out from under the side table and smoothed it out on the floor. I told her to go get a baby doll and she could "change her diaper." That got her mind off it.

Jump ahead a few minutes. Mary's been getting over a cold and hasn't been eating. It's always a struggle to get something "breakfasty" in her, so I went for the no fail bacon this morning. She loves bacon. She can easily eat 2 strips. So there I am, frying up bacon in the kitchen. She wants me to hold her, so I pick her up. Once it was ready, I tore up a couple of pieces for her and set it on a plate with some waffle. I'm licking my fingers (yeah, I love bacon that much too. Can't waste the fat on a napkin) and I realize that my left ring finger stinks. What is that smell? I immediately washed it, since it smelled that bad. We proceeded to eat breakfast. I cleaned my plate and Mary only picked at hers. I went to pull her out of her chair and realized her pajama bottoms were wet. What's that? There's that smell again. Suddenly it dawned on me. The light bulb over my dim little head finally dinged on. Ewwwww, she DID poop. Yep, there it was. Diarrhea with leakage. Gag! I licked my finger!!!!!!!! Double gag!

So the lesson for the day...whenever Mary tells me she pooped, I need to check her. She probably did.

Things I learned this week

Potty training is NOT training the kid to sit IN the potty.

Diaper rash does NOT spread to the nose.

Nor the legs...

Parenthood is 100% fun. Who couldn't love this face?

Exercise!

Mary loves helping Daddy stretch and get ready for his run. She always tries to mimic what he's doing. I was able to grab the camera in time for an action video of the push-ups. Pretty funny.