If there's one thing I know about Henry, it's that he's not going to do something unless it's his own idea. What's up with that??
So, when it came to potty training, we were in agreement that we would do our best to let it be his idea. Or at least trick him into thinking it was. We bought him a potty chair a year ago and let it sit in our bathroom as an experiment. He drug it around the house a little, filled it with toys, figured out how to take it apart, but had zero interest in sitting on it. Fine with me. I didn't want to try to train him right before Baby #2 anyway. I had heard from several credible sources that you shouldn't try to train a boy before age 3, so that was always in the back of my mind. Every now and then I would feel a little bad for him because he is so verbal that I think people assume he is older than he is, so to them it seemed strange that he was still in diapers. And every now and then he would suddenly be in the mood to sit on the potty chair. But that's all that he would do. Just sit. Nothing would happen. No positive reinforcement. We bought him underwear but they just sat, too. Sat in his drawer.
Then one day about three weeks ago, we had an unexpected playdate pop up. We told him his friend would be coming in about 20 minutes. The next thing we know he's silent and when we went looking for him we found him in his room trying to hurriedly put on his underwear over his diaper. Didn't want to look like a baby in front of his friend, I guess :) We jumped on the opportunity and introduced the idea of pottying and earning a treat. That was a game changer for the little guy. The treats started out big. A choice of one piece of candy from the Halloween bucket. And suddenly he was able to go a little trickle every time he sat down. Which just so happened to be every six minutes. No joke! How can he go that often? He must be holding in just a little each time so he can up the number of treats he earns. So, the treats quickly turned from a trip to the Halloween bucket to a single M&M.
But because of this need-to-go-every-six-minutes issue, potty-training takes over our entire life. We can't do anything else besides potty, clean out the potty, flush (big deal), wash hands, get M&M, and do it again. Ughhhhhh...turns out I have little patience for this routine. How will we ever leave the house??
And potty training is messy! Our little do-it-yourselfer has decided to try dumping the potty on his own a few times and that doesn't go well. And then there was the time that I turned my back for two seconds and the dog was DRINKING the potty. Ahhh!! After that little incident, I grabbed my phone to text about it to my mommy friend, but just as I started in with the story a text popped up from her telling me that her CHILD had just drank the potty. Her exact words were: What.the.actual.heck?
Yup, I got trumped.
All this is to say, this potty training business has me secretly wishing he stays in diapers for another year. It's just so much easier.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
all about me (x20)
A few weeks ago I saw these things going around on facebook where people would write a list of random facts about themselves and pass it on. I enjoyed reading some of them and learning new things about my friends. I didn't get around to doing the facebook thing, but I thought just for fun I'd do a list here on my blog.
1. I really hate to fly. Hate it. I haven't flown since my honeymoon in 2007. It's not a fear of being up in the air as much as it's the motion sickness and confined space and HEAT. Oh, the heat. It's always soooo hot on those things. And, yes, I have utilized the barf bag. Just once on a flight from Des Moines to St. Louis.
2. I enjoy a good jigsaw puzzle. Always have. And I really want my kids to be good at puzzles!
3. I say, "We don't bounce on the couch," at least 11 times a day. Been saying this for about a year.
4. I think I would have 8 or 9 kids if I could skip over the being pregnant for many months part.
5. I once got fired from a job. Well, not fired so much as asked to quit. Same thing, right? It was a job I had in college that I thought I was pretty good at. I even had a customer bring me a plant once and thank me for doing such a great job. About a week later one of the managers led me to the office and told me I need to learn how to multi-task and I should reconsider majoring in education. Oh, and I was a senior. Sheesh. That was a bad day.
6. Mischa Barton, Amy Adams, Sarah Michelle Gellar. These are the celebrities I have been told I look like at various points in my life. The Mischa Barton call-out was definitely the most random. It was the very end of one of my college semesters and I stopped in my professor's office to pick up my final project. When I opened the binder to check my grade there was a giant picture of Mischa Barton that had been ripped out a magazine. She had stuck a post-it note to it and written about how she was on a flight and was reading this magazine. When she saw the picture she stared at it for a long time wondering if it was me. So she did the next most logical thing: rip it out, stuff it in her carry-on, and bring it to work to put in my project. Random!?!
7. Speaking of Mischa Barton, during our first Christmas break as a married couple, Dameon and I watched the entire series of The O.C. Ah, free time. Pretty sure nothing like that will happen again until we're empty-nesters.
8. The following is a list of shows of which I have seen every episode: Full House, Felicity, The O.C., Elmo's World (unfortunately), The Hills, Teen Mom, Parenthood
9. I have never seen or read Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. And I don't want to.
10. I didn't learn to swim until I was 10 years old. I have very vivid memories of my mom bribing me with ice cream cones if I would jump off the edge and let her catch me. I'm still not much of a risk taker.
11. There are no amusement park rides that I enjoy. There are a few that I will tolerate, but I don't enjoy any.
12. I think it would be fun to go to cosmetology school. I'm not sure I would enjoy working in a salon, but I think it would be a fun thing to know how to do.
13. I was a teacher for five years. In those five years, I had four jobs in four school districts. I taught preschool for two years in Deep River-Millersburg, kindergarten for one year in Williamsburg, kindergarten for one year in Waterloo, and preschool for one year in Winterset. That was a lot of classrooms to set up and tear down. It was a good career, but I don't miss it. I'd much rather be home with my kids.
14. I saw Titanic in the theater five times.
15. When I was in sixth grade I got my first CD player for Christmas along with my first CD. Jock Jams! ("Everybody dance now...")
16. Things that I've learned to like since marrying Dameon: the hawkeyes, diy projects (okay maybe I don't like them all the way, but I like them more than I used to. I remember the first project he ever did was to replace our sink in our old house. I had never heard of such a thing and just kept insisting we do things the traditional way and CALL SOMEONE.), old houses, biscuits and gravy
17. Things I still don't like, much to Dameon's dismay: frosting by the spoonful, boating, antiques, Grimm
18. I could probably eat pasta for every meal.
19. The last movie I saw in the theater was Les Miserables. I was super pregnant and missed a decent chunk of the movie due to frequent trips to the bathroom.
20. I've never broken a bone but I have dislocated my right knee three times. Once in high school, once in college, and once in May.
1. I really hate to fly. Hate it. I haven't flown since my honeymoon in 2007. It's not a fear of being up in the air as much as it's the motion sickness and confined space and HEAT. Oh, the heat. It's always soooo hot on those things. And, yes, I have utilized the barf bag. Just once on a flight from Des Moines to St. Louis.
2. I enjoy a good jigsaw puzzle. Always have. And I really want my kids to be good at puzzles!
3. I say, "We don't bounce on the couch," at least 11 times a day. Been saying this for about a year.
4. I think I would have 8 or 9 kids if I could skip over the being pregnant for many months part.
5. I once got fired from a job. Well, not fired so much as asked to quit. Same thing, right? It was a job I had in college that I thought I was pretty good at. I even had a customer bring me a plant once and thank me for doing such a great job. About a week later one of the managers led me to the office and told me I need to learn how to multi-task and I should reconsider majoring in education. Oh, and I was a senior. Sheesh. That was a bad day.
6. Mischa Barton, Amy Adams, Sarah Michelle Gellar. These are the celebrities I have been told I look like at various points in my life. The Mischa Barton call-out was definitely the most random. It was the very end of one of my college semesters and I stopped in my professor's office to pick up my final project. When I opened the binder to check my grade there was a giant picture of Mischa Barton that had been ripped out a magazine. She had stuck a post-it note to it and written about how she was on a flight and was reading this magazine. When she saw the picture she stared at it for a long time wondering if it was me. So she did the next most logical thing: rip it out, stuff it in her carry-on, and bring it to work to put in my project. Random!?!
7. Speaking of Mischa Barton, during our first Christmas break as a married couple, Dameon and I watched the entire series of The O.C. Ah, free time. Pretty sure nothing like that will happen again until we're empty-nesters.
8. The following is a list of shows of which I have seen every episode: Full House, Felicity, The O.C., Elmo's World (unfortunately), The Hills, Teen Mom, Parenthood
9. I have never seen or read Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. And I don't want to.
10. I didn't learn to swim until I was 10 years old. I have very vivid memories of my mom bribing me with ice cream cones if I would jump off the edge and let her catch me. I'm still not much of a risk taker.
11. There are no amusement park rides that I enjoy. There are a few that I will tolerate, but I don't enjoy any.
12. I think it would be fun to go to cosmetology school. I'm not sure I would enjoy working in a salon, but I think it would be a fun thing to know how to do.
13. I was a teacher for five years. In those five years, I had four jobs in four school districts. I taught preschool for two years in Deep River-Millersburg, kindergarten for one year in Williamsburg, kindergarten for one year in Waterloo, and preschool for one year in Winterset. That was a lot of classrooms to set up and tear down. It was a good career, but I don't miss it. I'd much rather be home with my kids.
14. I saw Titanic in the theater five times.
15. When I was in sixth grade I got my first CD player for Christmas along with my first CD. Jock Jams! ("Everybody dance now...")
16. Things that I've learned to like since marrying Dameon: the hawkeyes, diy projects (okay maybe I don't like them all the way, but I like them more than I used to. I remember the first project he ever did was to replace our sink in our old house. I had never heard of such a thing and just kept insisting we do things the traditional way and CALL SOMEONE.), old houses, biscuits and gravy
17. Things I still don't like, much to Dameon's dismay: frosting by the spoonful, boating, antiques, Grimm
18. I could probably eat pasta for every meal.
19. The last movie I saw in the theater was Les Miserables. I was super pregnant and missed a decent chunk of the movie due to frequent trips to the bathroom.
20. I've never broken a bone but I have dislocated my right knee three times. Once in high school, once in college, and once in May.
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