Potty training-day 1

had mixed results.

All morning, he happily sat on the potty, although the only times he peed it was on the living room floor. At naptime, he peed on the floor to his room (better than the bed, right?) No biggie.

But when he woke up from his nap, I don't know what got into him. He was cranky because he hadn't slept quite as long as normal, and when I tried to put him on the potty it was like he had developed a sudden huge terrifying fear of the toilet. He screamed, flailed, and absolutely refused to sit on the potty. He wanted to be held. But he kept letting little squirts of pee loose. I did not want to hold him at that point, which made him madder. After an hour and a half of fussing and struggling, he suddenly decided he was ready to sit on the potty. Lo and behold, we got our first pee in the potty!! Granted, it was only a tiny amount, since he had been spurting all over the house, but still, major progress! We did the whole big hoopla, called Daddy upstairs from work, got the dog sticker he's been eying for weeks, the whole nine yards.

The rest of the afternoon went okay. Lots of sitting on the potty and lots of peeing on the floor. But when he's in the potty, he clearly has the idea of what he's trying to do now. He did get one really good pee in. I think it was actually a pretty good first day.

Then came nighttime.

Night has been more challenging lately because Rinnah will go down around 8-9pm, but then she's back up after half an hour and won't go to sleep until nearly midnight. She usually only gets up once and often sleeps until 9-10am. By herself that's great for a five month old, much better than Ian. But when Rinnah doesn't go down until midnight, Ian and Rinnah are each up once or twice, Rinnah eating once, and then we're all up at 7-it's taking it's toll. I went ahead with potty training anyway because I figure I've been tired since Ian was born; if I wait until I'm getting good sleep he'll be in college.

So, last night we decided to try the underwear. Ian's still back and forth between the crib and toddler bed, so the plan was to make up two sides of one mattress plus the other bed. We figured he could have two accidents in the toddler bed; after that we'd put him in a diaper in the crib. Good idea, but Ian wanted to sleep in the crib. Okay, fine.

Jeremy & I took turns with Rinnah until about 11:30, then I went to bed and he got her to sleep. At 12:15 Ian wakes up wet and completely hysterical. Won't sit on the potty, doesn't want to wear underwear OR a diaper, doesn't want new pj's, just wants to sit in my lap naked in a room that reeks of pee because I haven't been able to clear off the wet sheets yet. Needless to say, I am not excited about this plan. Eventually, with Jeremy's help, I got a diaper on him, and then Jeremy went back to bed. A few minutes later, Ian suddenly decided he was fine with putting on new pajama pants. But he still wouldn't lay back down. He has a bit of a cold, but it's not that bad. I think this was mostly confusion about waking up wet, plus he's normally a beast when he's tired. I spent an hour and a half with him, thought he was asleep, slipped into the hallway, and heard Rinnah awake. So I got her resettled, came back out, and Ian's awake again. I tried to help him, but I just reached a point where I told him Mommy had to go to sleep and thankfully, he settled down. Now it's 2:30 and I'm finally back in bed. At 3:20 Rinnah is up. She probably doesn't need to eat yet, but I'm not awake enough to process that idea until she's already half done eating. At 4am I had Jeremy rock her back to sleep. Then I had a dream that we had hired someone to get the kids for five hours a night and I didn't have to get up, only to realize it was only a dream and Ian was awake again. Not even sure what time that was, but it only took a few minutes to get him settled. Then at 7 it's time to get up. Ugh. I hate nights like that.

So this morning we got up, I mustered up some enthusiasm from somewhere, and got all excited for Ian to get on the potty and wear underwear again. But he was like he was after his nap. Completely and utterly refusing to even take off the diaper, let alone sit on the potty.

My current plan is to leave him in this diaper until he's ready to try again (provided he doesn't poop) and then go at the potty training again. I'm too exhausted to push him any harder than that. I know consistency is important, so I'm not quitting, but my goodness this would be easier on a few more hours of sleep. I think my kids are conspiring against me already.

Potty training

Well, here goes nothing.

I was all set to start yesterday. I've been making some freezer meals, we did the big trip to pick out underwear, and made sure all his pants are clean and ready to go.

But then Ian started coming down with a cold, and was up sniffling and hacking until 1am, then I was up with Rinnah at 5:45 to feed her and she never did go back to sleep. And then Ian woke up uber cranky. I tried to do the "You're a big kid now!" thing anyway. I took him to the potty and was all excited for him, but he said "no" and ran away. On 4 hours of sleep, I didn't have the patience or energy to fight him, so I gave up.

We tried again this morning, and thus far it's gone better. He likes the underwear and is wearing them proudly. We're setting a timer and he's sitting on the potty every 20 minutes. So far, nothing has happened on the potty, just one accident on the floor in the living room right after a potty stop. Hopefully this afternoon will get us off to a better start. I really think that if he could just go on the potty once and get the concept, we'd be well on our way.

Our first ER visit

Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm kinda surprised we made it this long.

Tonight I was making dinner and of course Ian was trying to help me (Jeremy was out at Home Depot). He did fine until we were trying to clean up. We had used chicken broth and he grabbed one of the cans by the lid. I started to say, "No! Don't touch that." He went to yank his hand away and wound up slicing off at least half his fingertip. Still attached on one side, but a pretty deep cut. So I called Jeremy to come right home and thankfully my mom was able to come over and stay with Rinnah, who was sleeping at the time.

He did awesome. He calmed down within a few minutes and wasn't even crying. He did cry when they gave him the shots of Lidocaine, but I don't blame him. Those suckers burn, and there were four people holding him. During the stitches he didn't flinch. He actually was trying to watch. They said they have 10 year olds worse than him. They'd called in an extra nurse because they said normally stitching a two year old is pretty terrible, but we didn't need her. He sat perfectly still through the whole thing.

So four stitches later, he's doing great. They gave him a whole pile of stickers. He though he was just picking one, so that was very exciting. And he had a great time saying bye and waving to all the nurses and the other patients.

Walgreens

Woohoo! A great run at Walgreens today, even though they didn't have the best product for my deals. I still think this was pretty good:

5 12-packs of Sprite
5 fancy soap bars that I'm not allergic to ($4.49 each-ouch!)
2 packs paper plates
12 Lindt chocolate bars
4 Hershey chocolate bars
1 large roll Reynolds foil
3 tubes toothpaste
4 toothbrushes
2 air freshener candles

Pre-coupon total: $117.74
Coupons: $79.35
Register rewards: $23
Net total: $15.39

So that was cheaper than the original price of just the soap! I love it when Walgreens pays me to buy what I want, as long as I take a bunch of other products home with me too. :)

Peek-a-boo

That's the new game around here.

Ian plays with Rinnah. He hasn't quite got the words down yet, but he'll go up to her, cover his face with his hands, then pull them away with a big grin. She always laughs.

Today she was really cranky, in that just before sleep point, when Ian woke up from his nap. I laid her down to get Ian out of his crib and she just started wailing. Poor Ian was a bit groggy and not at his best either, but he was such a sweetheart. He came over and gave her a big hug. Then he said "iss", and gave her two kisses on her head. By this point she had stopped crying and was smiling at him. Then he played peek-a-boo with her until she started laughing before he went back to being grumpy and whiny himself. It was the sweetest thing! I love how he thought of her and took care of her even when he wasn't feeling his best.

They're playing together more and more. They each think the other is ten times more entertaining than either mom or dad, and it's so much fun to watch! I wish Ian were more cooperative about us catching these moments on video!

A milestone

We are now officially OLD.

From Van

We just bought this.

The only thing more embarrassing than owning a minivan is the fact that we really like it.

It's amazing how much smaller our cute little sporty hatchback got once we added the second car seat, the second diaper bag, and all the extra sorts of luggage that seem to go along with small children. Just for a day out we find ourselves needing the stroller, two diaper bags, snacks, books, toys, a baby carrier, blankets...it's crazy. When we went to Chicago for the weekend we had more than we did when we moved to Thailand for a year.

Now we have room galore. And when the kids are fussing, there's room for me to sit between them with both my hips intact. I can even put my arms beside me instead of in their car seats. And the next time we buy a dresser or outside toy off craigslist, or we want to take two friends along somewhere, we can do so all in one trip.

Chalk one up for team "minivan mama".

Long overdue update

I keep thinking I'll wait until I get all my pictures uploaded and then make a big post, but that may be awhile yet.

Recent events-my grandma passed away last week. She was 86 years old. My dad's death last spring was especially hard on her. He was the second son (of 3) she's had to bury, and she just never got over it. She got depressed, stopped eating, and stopped taking care of herself. In some ways it may be for the better. She was getting more forgetful, and there was some question of whether she should still be allowed to drive. If you knew my grandma, you'd know that living with someone else to help her was just not an option she would consider under any circumstances. As it was, she passed presumably in her sleep, in her own room. It's the way she wanted it.

We were able to make it to Chicago for the funeral. Jeremy had been out of town for work but was able to catch an early flight back and we left at 5am Saturday morning. Thankfully, both kids slept for most of the way and we were able to get there and change clothes with 15 minutes to spare. Ian was not happy about sitting still after the long ride, and Rinnah was fidgety so neither of us got to hear the whole service, but I'm still glad we were able to be there. We spent the afternoon with my family and then came home that evening. The trip home didn't go so well, and for a couple days afterwards Ian was still pretty difficult. Overall though, it gave us hope that maybe someday we could go somewhere. Not yet, but maybe someday.

This week Rinnah had her 4 month checkup. She is now 24" long and weighs 13lbs 11oz. She's growing! She is a very happy baby-she smiles all the time and laughs a lot.

This week all 4 of us seem to be fighting some sort of a cold, so that's not much fun. Hopefully we'll all be rested up and better by the time the weekend is over.