Adventures in pottytraining

WARNING: The word "poop" will be featured quite prominently in this post. Just so you know.

We have been toying with the idea of pottytraining Sophia for a couple months now. And by "we" I mean me. Every time I would change a two-year old's poopy diaper I would think "It's SO time!" (Is there anything stinkier or more vomit inducing?) I even picked up a cute little frog potty at WalMart a little while back, just so we'd be ready.

Since introducing Sophia to the frog potty she would occasionally get on it for kicks, and even went #'s 1 and 2 on it, possibly accidentally. For a little while I tried just praising her, lots of clapping and cries of joy . . . "Good job, Sophia! What a big girl!" And that resulted in her going on the potty about twice in a month. Time to move on to bigger motivation.

Enter M&Ms.

About a week and a half ago, I decided it was time to get serious. I brought out the big girl underwear, just to show Sophia what she had to look forward to, and also started bribing her with M&Ms. And now the pottytraining adventures have really begun.

Sophia has a huge bladder, apparently, because back before pottytraining she could go from breakfast to naptime and not have a wet diaper. So when we started on the potty, she could go two or three times a day and stay dry. Except then she realized that she was not maximizing her M&M earning . . . and started going a tiny bit, eat an M&M. 10 minutes later, back on the potty for a tiny little pee. 10 minutes later, repeat. Mommy got tired of fastening the diaper back on very quickly, and now she is in pull-ups. Or just naked. Might have to bite the bullet and just put her in her underwear.

Speaking of naked pottytraining toddlers, did you know that it is necessary to take your shirt off to climb on the frog potty? Yup. Except then, "I'm cold." Off. On. Off. On. Repeat all day.

Sophia has learned the magic word, and "please" ain't it. It's actually the magic sentence, "I have to go potty." That sentence can make John and me leap to action, drop what we were doing, and jump to do her bidding. "Quick, get her to the potty!" "Move out of the way, we've got to get to the potty." "I don't care if you are getting ready for work, I'm nursing Jude and she has to pee!"

Somehow, getting Sophia to the pot before any pee leaks out of that little bladder has taken over our very existence. 'Cause the world will end if that happened? You'd think so if you were a fly on the wall in the Libby house!

And just in case you thought I had forgotten the poop? I haven't.

Sophia has this thing about going poop on the potty. She doesn't really like to do it. Therefore, pee is only worth one M&M, but she gets TWO for going poop on the potty.

Today Sophia came up to me while I was changing Jude's poopy diaper, and said "I need to go poop on the potty, Mama!"

Yay! Of course, she had already told me that four times today with no poop forthcoming, so I didn't take it too seriously and told her to go ahead. Down with the pants and pullup, and off she went to the potty in the kitchen. (We keep it downstairs during the day.) I put a diaper back on Jude, and snapped his clothes back on, settled him on the couch, and wandered into the kitchen.

BAHHHHHHH!!!! Disaster!

Sophia had been successful. I could see/smell that right away. Emphasis on the SEE.

The Snuggler has a habit that many young new pottytraining toddlers have, and that is to jump up off the potty every two seconds to see the results, then back on the potty she goes. Problem being that she must have jumped up just at the pivotal moment when the poop had yet to fall into the potty, and a substantial poop had landed right next to her potty, on the floor.

When I walked into the kitchen, she was rubbing at her hand, attempting to get poop off. It was not going well. There was also poop on her shirt, hand, sock, potty chair (on, not in), the floor of course, the high chair leg next to the potty chair, and her leg. It was one of those "DON'T MOVE!" and "Where do I start?!" moments.

Poor kid. She started crying . . . she may be only two, but she knew that poop should NOT be any of the million places that it was. I grabbed a facecloth out of the sink and started going to town, all the while simultaneously barking out instructions ("Don't move! Ok, stand up . . . no wait, sit down! Now stand up!") and trying to comfort her ("Yay, you went poopy, and it wasn't in your diaper! Now we just have to work on your aim . . . good job! Let's go get two treats!").

We did finally get it cleaned up, but I'll tell you, that facecloth is no more. Straight into the trash . . . it was on it's way out anyway, but that finished it for me. Can't clean mac 'n cheese off the Snuggler with the cloth that handled that disaster!

What's that, Sophia? You have to go pee?

GTG, see you next time!!!

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And now I'm back to tell you about the next drawing, coming up December 1st. All of my followers will have a chance to win a jar of homemade non-high fructose corn syrup strawberry jam. You just have to become a follower and you will automatically be entered in the drawing, yum!

Drumroll, please!

Today is the big day, the day all nine of my followers have been waiting for . . . the drawing for a pint of my home canned peach salsa! In order that it might be truly random, each follower was assigned a number, and then the winning number was selected by a random number assignment website.

Joanna Spotts, you have won a pint of peach salsa! Thanks for being a follower, and I will get you your salsa asap!

Happy November everyone, may the snow melt and not return until it is truly winter. And maybe not even then.

Kitchen curtains

The only rooms in our house that we haven't painted are the kitchen and bathroom. I think both rooms intimidate me because there is so much that I would like to do to them both that we just can't afford . . . so I avoid doing anything.

But then last week I was at the Fabric Warehouse just down the road, and found the most fabulous Waverly stripe fabric . . . on sale for $4.98 a yard! I had been thinking about doing curtains for the kitchen (the ones up now came with the house and aren't really my thing), and finding that fabric made up my mind for me. Our kitchen has always seemed kind of monotone and boring to me, so I wanted to brighten it up a bit and add some color. Also get rid of the valance and get just a little bit more natural light in there. Voila!

Before:

After:

And of course, don't forget . . . November 1st I will be doing a drawing for a pint of my peach salsa! Just become a follower of my blog and you will automatically be entered to win! (Hmm, sounds kind of car salesman-y, but someone really will win.)

In the middle of the night . . .

"In the middle of the night,

I go walking in my sleep . . ."

~Billy Joel, River of Dreams

I don't really remember a time that I didn't have to wear glasses. I do remember hearing the occasional "Four eyes!" . . . I also remember the time my glasses broke and I had to wear duct taped glasses until my new pair came in. This was way prior to today's glasses in an hour or less, and it was a rough couple weeks of third grade. Not cool, Mom!

I remember getting my 9th grade pictures taken . . . when I brought them home my mom asked why I wasn't wearing my glasses and said that I should be proud of how I looked. I got contacts in 10th grade, and was in the bathroom when another girl came in and said "Wow, you're pretty without your glasses!" She was right . . . come on people, who can look attractive with 90's style huge thick plastic glasses on?!

Of course it doesn't help that my prescription is literally 20/1100. Yes, what someone with 20/20 vision can see from 1100 feet, I have to be 20 feet from to see without "visual aid." Doesn't bode well for poor little Sophia and Jude! When your prescription is that bad, it brings new meaning to the words "Coke bottle," with or without compressed lenses.

Being practically blind (ok, exaggeration) has it's advantages, though. I've learned to function in a haze when I don't have my glasses on. Pre-contacts I danced the lead role in Coppelia sans glasses en pointe (Swanhilda could NOT wear glasses!). And now middle of the night duties? Piece of cake!

When your newborn gets you up five or six times a night, you just do what you need to do by rote. First time up you've only just fallen to sleep in the first place, so you have that disoriented-after-nap feeling going on. Second time up you've gotten a couple of hours and feel the best you are going to feel that night. Third and on?

You know how the beauty magazines say that you shouldn't squint or rub your eyes because you will get crow's feet?

Yeah. Right. How about you try to take care of an infant in the middle of the night, and you tell me if you start squinting. Forget just at night, every time the kid cries you'll be conditioned to squint and grab a clean diaper while unfastening your nursing bra. Potentially embarrassing in the middle of WalMart.

By the time you get up for the fourth, fifth, and sixth time at night? Then you aren't squinting, but it's because you don't bother opening your eyes anymore. And that is when my terrible vision comes in handy. Since I can't see without my glasses, it isn't much different than having my eyes closed.

So now they start crying, you swing your legs out of bed and head to the crib, hands outstretched zombie-like. You reach the crib, and grope around for the kid. Pick the baby up, rotate around till you feel the chair behind your legs, plop down very unladylikely.

Pop the kid on one side, feed. Time for the diaper change.

Unsnap the pjs, pull off the old diaper. Slide the new one under (of course this is all happening on your lap to make it that much harder) and then you have more groping going on, this time to make sure you fasten everything right. And now for the hard part.

Since you unsnapped the pajamas a few minutes ago, the snaps have multiplied. Now instead of six sets of snaps, there are 247, and none of them match up. So you sort of fasten them up, and it's time to feed on the other side.

Eating done, time to go back to bed. Up from the chair, one arm holding baby and the other reaching . . . there's the crib! Feel around to make sure you are putting the kid in bed and not dropping them on their head.

Do zombie walk back to bed.

Repeat.

When you can do it all without opening your eyes, then you know you've got it. Between kids one and two you forget that you get so adept, and then when you are back in that place you wish you didn't have quite so many opportunities to gain that particular skill set. But if you ever wonder how you would function if you suddenly went blind (yes, I have thought that scenario out and plan to develop batlike sonar skills), you just have to have a newborn for a couple months to know you'd be just fine.

Mama's boy

Jude is a mama's boy.

There is no other way around it. Given the option, he would prefer to be glued to me 24/7. And I'm coming around to it, after fighting it and (yes, I admit it) resenting having to wear him all the time.

No one has been able to adequately explain to me why Jude ONLY naps when he is in the Moby wrap on me (and sometimes on John when he is home). Our wonderful pediatrician is stumped, and she usually has a good answer for pretty much everything. Even my sleep bible, "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child," doesn't have an explanation. HSHHC does promise that by 4 months we can start sleep training him, though, and that makes me happy.

Jude has started this thing where he wakens every hour from 3 a.m. on . . . unless I bring him into bed with me and let him sleep on me and eat occasionally, and then we sleep peacefully until 7:30 a.m. Grrr. I know there are those who love the family bed. I am not one of them.

That said, I keep going back to "Why?!" Why does this kid scream bloody murder when he is tired and anyone but me is holding him? Why does he insist on sleeping ON me 12 hours out of the day? Why does he wake up in his crib crying but then not want to eat?

He misses me.

He loves his mama so much, and is so sad to be out in this big scary world, that he just has to cling to what he knows . . . and what he knows is me. It has taken me over two months to figure this out, but he just needs a little extra time to adjust. He needs this "fourth trimester" to learn that he is safe, and figure out just how to function in the real world.

Whatever this is . . . fussiness . . . colic . . . tired baby . . . I'm sure I will have more days of being frustrated with wearing an extra 13 pounds 2 ounces (just weighed two days ago!), but I also think it is absolutely sweet that he loves his mama so.

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And on a completely different note . . . on November 1st I will be drawing a name out of all of my followers, and one lucky reader will win a pint jar of my famous (ok, maybe not sooo famous) peach salsa! So those of you who have been reading my blog on the sly, now is your chance to become a follower and just maybe win a great prize (other than just getting to follow my blog)!