The Pedometer

Apparently we have stumbled on a way to make kids tired before bed.  Just give them a pedometer!  Abby got one that Peggy and Bobo got from their race.  Yesterday, she ran with it for a while.  But today, holy cow, she doesn't want to stop doing laps around the house!  She's "running a race."  Luckily, it's right before naptime, so she's wearing herself out!  She got it up to 1,625 steps before stopping!

 Noah wasn't quite as interested, so he just followed Abby around in his car.  They were going for a good fifteen minutes!

Potty Dance!

Noah has been doing SOOOO well on the potty.  We're truly amazed.  He hasn't had a pee accident in about 10 days.  Basically, since the day he figured it all out.  It's so awesome.

Everytime he goes, we do the potty dance.  This consists of Peggy, me, and Abby squeezing in the tiny main level bathroom singing and dancing.  The song has had several iterations, but the latest and most frequently used goes something like this: "Potty dance, ah do the potty dance, pee pee on the potty do the potty dance, oh yeah."  And then usually repeat that once or until Noah tells you to stop.  Going crazy and being happy is one of the main reasons Noah loves to use the potty.  Well, there's also the TV part.... :-)

Abby is so happy that Noah uses it so much.  Main reason?  TV of course.  It's the only time we let them watch anything lately.  We try to keep it to 20 minutes per use.  That adds up to about a movie per day, which we're not incredibly fond of.  But, we figure 1.5 hours per day is probably less than the average kid.  And, we're planning on weaning off of that soon.  I'm thinking we may come up with a chart.  Each time he goes gets him a sticker on the chart.  Each sticker equals something.  Most things would be small.....a few M&M's or something.  But then he would have bigger things to work towards as well.

Poop on the other hand, is not going so well.  He always informs us of his poop, but it's always right after he does it in his underwear.  He talks about pooping on the potty, but so far no luck.

We still put him in a diaper for naptime and bedtime.  Although, the last few days he's woken up from nap dry!  So, sometime soon, we'll probably do underwear for naptime too!

If only we could figure out this poop thing we'd be good to go!  Even so, we're pretty happy considering we're only a little over two weeks in.

Noah Dancing in the Rain

Can't forget the tupperware hat!

Froggy Time

It's not officially summer until the kids have caught a frog. This summer we had one early in May. Meet Ferris the frog. He spent one night in captivity in the Pleimann garage.

 Noah wasn't so sure about touching the jumpy critter but once he saw Abby do it he changed his mind.

 Poor Ferris, he just wanted to live in our garden... Abby did let him go in the pond. I hope he lives a long life eating the mosquitoes in the yard.

I love this picture, our fancy girl and her frog. It could really be a book. 

 She didn't really lick it I promise.

Potty Training Noah Update

After getting back from vacation, we had planned on starting potty training right away.  We put that off a few days because of the dog bite stuff.  Last thursday, we bought Noah some big boy Toy Story underwear.  He was super excited to wear them.  We decided just to go all in.  He didn't do well with the naked time stuff.  And in all those hours we spent in the bathroom with him before vacation, he didn't pee at all (except on the floor that is!).

We had a going away party for his diapers.  We got a trash bag and I asked him to help me put the diapers out to the "trash."  Initially, he was very excited, but that was only because he didn't know what was going on.  Once he realized it, he was DEVASTATED.  You should have seen the look on his face.  It was like we were murdering Elmo, right there in front of him.  Needless to say, he was NOT excited to see his diapers go.

After that drama ended, he was in big boy underwear for good.  Yes, call us crazy.  He's only peed on the potty once in the past 5 months, and here we are putting him in underwear.  Perhaps we were/are crazy.  And for the next 5 days, we really thought we were....

He wasn't really excited about using the potty.  Of course, we played it up like it was the coolest thing ever.  For the first couple days, there was not much success.....despite sitting on the potty for hours a day.  We tried everything we could to get him to sit and stay there.  We didn't force him, but we tried to keep him on there as much as possible.  We did think he was old enough, but that he didn't have any control yet.  The first couple days, he peed on the floor every few hours.  He was pretty ok with the accidents, and even thought they were funny. 

He had minimal success those first few days, only peeing twice in those three days.  Each time he did, we went crazy with excitement.  But, we still didn't think he had much control over it.  It was just a random chance whether he would pee during our hours in the bathroom with him each day. 

Over the weekend, he started holding his pee for a lot longer.  It was typically 5-7 hours between pees.  Yes, seriously.  How he holds his little bladder for that long is beyond me.  It was getting frustrating for us.....after he would pee, we'd wait a few hours before taking him to the potty again.  From there, we would try to take him as often as possible until he peed again.  We would spend a few hours on each "pee" only to usually have it wind up on the floor.  It was pretty frustrating to spend that much time on it for (seemingly) nothing.  He would go once or so a day at most. 

The hardest part was that he just doesn't pee very often.  I know in the future that may be a very good thing.  However, if he's only peeing three times a day, it's very difficult for him to get the feeling of peeing.  Just not many opportunities for success or accidents.  So, we started getting him to drink a lot of water.  He's not much of a water drinker, so we had to remind him every few minutes to drink water.  Even that didn't seem to get us much of anywhere.

At this point, we were questioning whether he was old enough.  Maybe we made a mistake.  Our biggest reason for doing it this summer was so that he wouldn't have to go back to school un-potty trained.  They require the kids to wear pullups.  We don't like the pullups training technique.  We think they're just glorified diapers.  Plus, we really don't want to buy all those pullups.  So, we really want him trained before August.  However, as our Parents as Teachers person told us, if they're not old enough, it just won't work.  We were worried that was the case with him.  At this point, all of his pees (we were up to four or so) seemed to be just random.  Our only saving grace was that he could hold it for so long.  So, we thought he did have some control, just maybe didn't know how to release.

So, yesterday, I tried two new things.  I put cheerios in the toilet bowl (he's on the big potty now, not his potty chair) for him to pee on.  Of course I had to demonstrate for him and play it up like it was the coolest thing in existence.  He thought it was awesome and really wanted to try.  So, I tried letting him stand up to pee on them.  We stood there for a while, but nothing.  I was getting discouraged.  We REALLY didn't want to put him back in diapers after leaving them "forever."  So, we took a break and tried again 30 minutes later.  This time I had him sit down like normal.  I also told him he could watch a movie if he peed.  We typically don't bribe our kids.  In fact, potty training is the only time we ever bribe the kids.  I was desperate.  We typically only let our kids watch TV every few days.  So, I was hoping this would be a really good motivator for him.  And, amazingly, it worked!!!!  A few minutes after sitting down, he was staring off in to space like he was really concentrating.  And he peed!!!!!!!!!!!!  Yes, he had peed a few other times.  But, I think this was the first time he was really trying and peed.  It wasn't just random.  So, we let the kids watch 30 minutes of the Lorax (their favorite movie). 

I was hoping this wasn't a one time thing.  Sure enough, later in the day, he peed on the potty again!  Again, it was while he was "concentrating" and it seemed purposeful.  We were beyond excited.  He did still have an accident, but that was ok with us!

Today, he kept up the good work.  He had NO ACCIDENTS for the first time!  We were so excited.  Although, he only peed on the potty twice.  Yes, he seriously holds it that long.  We put him in diapers still for bedtimes.  So, he did pee in his diaper at naptime.  But, we'll worry about that later.  The kids also played in the hose tonight.  He probably peed there too.  But, all I know is that he's improving!  He finished up the Lorax this morning, with his third pee in the last two days.  I even got him a new movie from the library that he watched after his forth pee today.  He did it right before dinner.  But, he probably wouldn't have liked to wait til after dinner.  So, yes, I delayed dinner by 20 minutes so they could watch a movie.  So sue me!  I just worry that any one like thing could knock him off track.  Each time he peed the last two days has been purposeful and like he really knows what he's doing.  We're SO EXCITED!

Here's to hoping he keeps improving!