Toilet Paper Caper

I came around the corner the other day to find this...





Oy.

It has to slide down!!

Ella was stalling and didn't want to go to bed (this is new as of 3 nights ago) so after she was all tucked in she screamed and cried and eventually insisted she had to go potty.  I let her go and she sat there FOREVER and talked and talked about all kinds of things, perfectly happy to be out of her bed and "winning" the go to bed fight.  I was not thrilled however and I kept asking if she was all done and of course, she said no.  Then...

Me: Ella, I think you're all done.  It's been a long time and nothing is coming out.  All your pee pee is out.
Ella: No Mommy!  I need to go pee pee and poo poo.  The poo poo is all the way up here in my head and it has to go all the way down down down to my heinie.
Me: Really?
Ella: Yes.  It has to slide slide slide down.  That takes time mom.

Well, she shut me up with that.  What do you say to that?  I guess that would take time.  So I left her alone and came out and started writing this.  Lo and behold 2 minutes later she calls out "Mommy!  The poo poo came down!!" and she was right.  Huh.  I totally thought she was making it up about having to go at all.  Her stalling tactics certainly worked though.  She demanded the promised 2 treats (MnMs) for when she goes #2 in the potty.  Then, of course we had to re-brush her teeth etcetera. Oh well, at least she certainly entertained me in the process :-)

Random Fun

I love this picture Marissa took of Ella eating a popsicle at her house. They watched The Little Mermaid that day and Ella LOVED it. We sing "Under the Sea" and she wants to read her "Ariel" book all the time. On one occassion of reading it, Ella pointed to King Triton's chest and said "Mom look! He has weally big nickels!" Ahhh from the mouths of babes.

Marissa's friend Nora pulling Ella up and down the long hallway of Marissa's apartment! She had SO much fun.

Ella put on this dress up outfit by herself (complete with little chinese slippers that look like cats) and then came out and asked me to take a picture of her. Of course I obliged. She's never asked for that before-she usually runs from the camera!

Lunch with my dad, Marissa, and GG. Ella's first outing in underwear! (too bad if that's too much information, it's a big deal around here)

My niece Hannah on her 2nd Birthday!!!

Beach pics to come soon...

Potty x3

Peer pressure certainly still works on me at 28 so why not use it on 2 year olds? That was the idea when Amy, Jen, and I all brought potties to our weekly playdate this week. Amy wanted Hannah (who actually turned two that day) to learn from the more experiences potty-pee-ers Lexi and Ella (who have been potty trained for about 2 weeks and 1 week respectively). Hannah did very well at our potty play date but I'm not sure if the results "stuck." Either way, we had a lot of fun :-)

The Girls on their thrones

Ella wanted to take a picture of the mommies while we sat across the kitchen cheering them all on in their peeing. I didn't edit this picture at all-pretty well centered! I was impressed with her photo skills (though she did take 10 pictures of her pants laying on the floor also).

This is the floor and a finger and a skirt. I have about 15 similar pictures from when the camera got passed down the line of potty girls. Thank God for digital cameras! Kids probably didn't get to touch cameras when people had to buy film!

Lots of fun was had by all. As for a potty update, Ella is doing really well-very few accidents and she has acquired the skill of "holding it." She even did two 3 hr trips to and from the beach with no accidents at all! She is not doing so well with #2 but she doesn't go very often (once a day and sometimes skips a day) so it hasn't been a big deal. I'm honestly kind of shocked and how well it's gone! I'm so proud of her!

Potty Training: Take Two

We're potty training again. I wasn't really planning it but it seems like God engineered the timing. We had an exhausting weekend last week so we stayed home a lot at the beginning of the week to recover (normally we're out and about every day). Since we were here, I decided to put her in underwear and see what happened. She did pretty well so I got bold and took her out in underwear on Thursday-a 40 min drive each way to lunch with my dad and sister and grandmother-and she did great! NO ACCIDENTS! The last two days she's been in underwear all day and had one accident each day (neither were when we were out thankfully!). So, I think it's really going to happen this time! She gets an MnM each time she goes in the potty which is highly motivating for her. The only thing that makes me concerned about whether this will last is that she has NEVER told us she has to go to the bathroom. I just ask her 100 times a day and she says yes 3 or 4 times. So, I'm not sure that she REALLY understands what it feels like to need to go or exactly how to "hold it" (she grabbed her underwear the first time I told her to "hold it"-makes sense!). But, it's looking very promising. It feels very different from the first time we tried. I've been dreading it since she turned two but it's not nearly as painful as a expected to remind her to go all the time or to carry a change of clothes. I think next time around (with another kid and future milestones with Ella) I'll be more willing to wait and resist any pressure for kids to do things early or even "on time." These things really do happen in their own time and it's much less painful when they're really ready. So, if she stays in a crib 'til she's four, I'm ok with that :-)