Heidi-isms #2

Wow! It's been a long time since I've blogged about my kids and it seems like I'm missing out on documenting a lot of cuteness! My little Heidi turned 21 months yesterday and I'd like to celebrate her being in our lives by recording some fun events. Well, here goes!

1) Bee
Me: Heidi, what's that?
Heidi: Bum-bo-bee
Me: Ya! And what does a bumblebee say?
Heidi: Um. . .BUM!

2) Fireside
We have a firepit in the backyard of our new house. We took it for its maiden voyage last month and made s'mores. The kids loved it! It took awhile to get the fire going, so Robby ended up using a lot of matches. And every time he lit a match Heidi would start singing "happy birthday to you!' (Because usually the only time she sees matches are when a cake is being lit at a birthday party)

3) Camera
At our old place we had a baby video monitor in Heidi's room. We had it attached to the wall just about a foot or so above her crib. She loved it! It was her bedtime ritual to hug and kiss the camera each night before bed. When we moved to our new house we started going to a new church building. In the back of the chapel on the ceiling is a similar camera, which is usually used during stake conferences (large meetings) to stream video to other buildings. The first time she attended church at the new building, she spotted the camera and started yelling "camera! camera!!. . ."Hug it! Kiss it!" and she started blowing kisses at it and trying to reach for it--all during a very quiet sacrament meeting :) We would distract her for a time, but this continued on and off throughout the entire meeting!

4) Potty Training
Heidi has decided she wants to be potty trained. At 21 months I wasn't planning on this happening so soon. But she started off by taking her diaper off and saying "potty". I was skeptical, but she ran to the potty and went pee right away. She has gotten good at going #2 as well! I hope her enthusiasm and consistency keeps up, but I'm not holding my breath!

One time after she went poop (which happened to be diarrhea), I got to work cleaning out her little potty (gee, I hate that part!). In doing so, I forgot to put a diaper on her. The onesie she was wearing wasn't done up and it was hanging below her bum, so I couldn't see that she was diaperless. Heidi and Leila proceeded to play downstairs in the toy room. About 20 minutes later I hear this from Leila "Mom! MOOOOOOOM! Heidi went POOOOOOP!!! And NOT in the. . . POTTY!" I ran downstairs to find a big pile of diarrhea on the floor, and I also found my happy little toddler running around with poop all over her feet from having stepped in it. She was now tracking it all over the brown multi-colored carpet. ALL. OVER. I yelled for Robby. He grabbed her and ran outside to hose her off. I worked on cleaning up the carpet but the poop was so hard to see! It blended in PERFECTLY with the carpet. So as I crawled around on my hands and knees, I would discover little puddles of poop as I planted my hand in it! EEW! Must there be a massive diarrhea mess associated with every potty training?! Yikes! It reminds me of Leila's airplane poo-splosion!  Anyway, needless to say, we bleached a lot of toys, threw lots of stuff in the washing machine ASAP and shampooed our carpets last week. So now everything seems even cleaner than before! Yay!

5) Thank You
Something that has especially endeared Heidi to me is how good she is at saying "thank you". Any time you give her anything she sweetly says "thank yoooooou" (really she draws out the "you" like that).  Last week (the day before the poop incident actually), she took a really bad fall, bit her lip, and had blood GUSHING out of her mouth. It was all over her face, all over the floor, her shirt, my shirt, my hands, the door frame, and the bathroom sink. The blood didn't seem to want to stop! We started wrapping her up in towels to bring her to the hospital. While we were doing so, the bleeding started to subside. We ended up just keeping an eye on her and bringing her to the dentist on Monday--her roots were not damaged thankfully. But she had a rough day!! The pain would come and go and she would cry and scream. Her lip swelled up HUGE! She looked like a little duckling! At one point I was lying in my bed comforting her. She started calming down and she looked at me through her tears and said with an expression that seemed equally pained and sincere "thank you Momma." I just melted! She was thanking me for being there for her! No longer is motherhood a thankless job :)

I'm sure grateful to have our Heidi girl in our lives. She is such a treasure!

Potty Training: Two Steps Forward and One Step Back (The Airplane Blowout)

The day had started well! We had packed the night before and only needed to gather a few last minute things like toothbrushes and makeup. We had selected a great time for our flight to Victoria so that we didn't have to rush. On top of that, we were actually leaving the house looking pretty clean, so we could even look forward to returning home! I was walking around our apartment with a little extra bounce in my step. "Family vacation hasn't gone this smoothly since. . .well. . .I don't think it's ever gone this smoothly" I thought. I smiled as I remembered the flat tire we got on the way back from California and ended up sleeping in the car between semi's at a rest stop in Nevada because we couldn't find a hotel. . .that we were willing to pay for. Or the time that we woke up late, were out of gas and had to find a gas station which turned out to be way off the beaten path, ran through the airport as our names were being paged over the intercom, making it to our gate as they were closing it, relieved that the TSA employee who found a butter knife in Robby's backpack let us through. . . But this vacation was going to go great because we were off to a nice start!

Here are the girls the day before we left for vacation

Robby's mom dropped us off at the airport and we leisurely walked in, knowing we had plenty of time. I handed Leila a muffin to fill her tummy and keep her occupied. After Robby had checked himself and Leila in at the kiosk, my "perfect-vacation-bubble" popped--Leila vomited all over her shirt, pants, and the stroller! Luckily we had our luggage still, so Robby whisked the Leila-stroller package off to the bathroom, changed, her rinsed the umbrella stroller in the sink, threw out the pants that were too small for her anyway, bagged the pukey shirt and returned to my side as I was checking our bags. OK, a minor hiccup on the outset of our trip, but we glided through that just fine! This was going to be a good day still! We made it to our layover airport in Seattle, a little tired of occupying two busy girls, but nothing unusual for a day in the life of a parent.

After having some trouble finding our new gate, Leila said she had pooped in her diaper. I asked Robby to take Leila to the bathroom and change her diaper. He went into the men's bathroom, but there was no changing table (what is up with that by the way?) So he looked all over for a family bathroom. When that was fruitless, he settled on changing her diaper on the counter in the men's bathroom. A little flustered by now, he opened her diaper to find. . . no poop. He returned feeling spent. I, not picking up on this and learning of her poop-free diaper, asked Robby if he would take her to the potty so she could go poop before our next flight.

Aside: As an update on the potty-training adventure, Leila had been doing awesome--keeping her pull-up clean all day except for when she napped or slept at night. And even then, she sometimes woke up "clean and dry".

Since this picture, she has learned how to
wear underwear correctly :)

Robby brought her to the toilet, not at all thrilled by this point.
"OK. Go potty." This came off as too much of a command for Leila as this little threenager doesn't take orders from anybody!
"No!" she resisted.
"Well, if you don't try now, you're not going to get to go on the plane. It's now or not at all!"
"That's OK! I don't need to go" she said.
"Alright! If you need to go on the plane you'll just have to go in your pull-up!"
Leila agreed and they came back to the gate to await our plane's arrival.

It was a small plane--about the size of a greyhound bus--two seats on either side of the aisle. As fate would have it, I ended up sitting next to Leila. Robby sat with Heidi on the other side of the aisle. We were seated smack dab in the middle of the plane--perfect--not too close to the stinky bathroom at the front, not so close to the back that we'll be the last off the plane! It wasn't long after we sat down that Leila insisted that she needed to go potty--of course.

"Nope. She's not going potty. She agreed that if she didn't go potty before she would just have to go in her pull-up. She said that was fine. She's not going potty" Robby insisted.
I stared at him hard. I understand following through, but the urge to go potty sometimes comes later than sooner. . .but I could tell he was resolute, so I backed him up.
"No Leila, you didn't go potty before. It's too late."
"But it's poop! I have to go poop!"
I turned to Robby to see if that new snippet of information would help him to let up. Nope.
"Sorry Leila. You'll just have to go in your pull-up. Your pull-up will catch it."
. . .or would it?. . .
Leila started to cry. The plane hasn't even left yet; It would be so much easier to take her to the potty. But my husband and I are a united front, so there we stayed. The plane took off and the poor girl was upset.
"It's coming out!"
I tried to comfort her, but it was in vain since I wouldn't be helping to relieve her discomfort.
"She had pooped in her diaper a thousand times before. I guess it wouldn't hurt if it was one more time?" I thought, trying to reason with myself.
"It's coming OOOOOUT!" she said, more loudly this time and with more anxiety in her voice.
"I know honey. . ."
"Noooo!" She cut me off. "It's coming out of my DIIIIIAPER!!!" she shrieked.
OH NO! I lifted her shirt.
"It's all over my shirt!" It sure was! liquid poop oozing out all over her pants and pouring onto the leather seat.
"Oooh! I'm sorry honey! It's OK!" I told her.
I threw a glare at Robby.

I scrambled and found the wipes in my diaper bag. I swept up the stinky mess with a wipe. The stench was surely filling the small plane from front to back. Maybe our centrally located seating arrangement wasn't so ideal after all. After scooping up the mess, I laid the wipes on the inside of a clean diaper so I could wrap it up when I was through. To what end was I wiping this up, I didn't know. There was still a poopy mess that couldn't be remedied without a washing machine and a shower, but I had to so something. Leila just cried and clung to my legs, burying her head in my lap. Within minutes, she fell asleep. There was mess, there was stink, but now there was relative calm with her passed out. That was Heidi's cue. Our plane started descending and she started to scream. Her ears must be popping! My plan had been to nurse her as we descended (the best way to help a baby who's ears are popping, because it encourages them to swallow). But now my hands were disgusting! I couldn't hold that girl! I definitely didn't want to pass the germs on to my baby. Irritated at the spot I found myself in, I turned my back to Robby as if to say "this is the mess you get to deal with!"

The flight ended and all the over-stimulated passengers vacated the airplane. We avoided eye contact with them and remained until the last passenger had left. Robby told a flight attendant that we had a poop accident. Bless her heart, you would have thought he had said we had dropped some pretzels with how calmly she reacted. "No problem! We'll send someone to clean it up!" Her calm reaction made me less anxious. Then a male employee entered the plane. The flight attendant asked him to call for a clean up.
"What kind of a clean up?" he asked, looking puzzled.
"poop" she said matter-of-factly.
"POOP?! You mean like. . .POOP?! What, is it like, SMEARED all over the seat or something?!"
--Two strikes for males in the poop department today--
She calmly explained the incident and brought out some sanitary wipes and Delta imprinted grocery bags to help out.
We woke Leila up to an empty plane, stripped her down completely and wiped her off. We put her poopy clothes in a bag to bring with us and wash. . .which we accidentally left on the plane. This time we didn't have a change of clothes for her so after putting a new pull-up on her, she donned Robby's purple hoody.  It went clear down to her ankles.

She looked like a hobo child. I know, because that's what a stranger said as we were walking through the Victoria airport.

Leila had diarrhea for the first few days of our vacation. That mixed with the with the changes in setting and schedule that vacations inevitably present, Leila was set back a couple of weeks on potty-training. We got back two weeks ago yesterday and we're just now getting back to the stage we were at before we left--she's doing great! And I'm glad to say that adventure in potty training is over. . .and at least we got to return to home to a clean apartment :)

This was the flight home. #Both kids sleeping. #Dream come true. #God's tender mercies.

Potty Training: 2 Steps Forward

Being that my naive mind had presupposed and determined that Leila would be potty trained by 2 1/2, you can imagine that I felt a little uneasy as her 3rd birthday loomed closer. And not only was she not potty-trained, she would say something that I had heard other precocious toddlers announce. She had said something that I had rolled my eyes at and judged mothers for and for which I am now eating karma pie. She had repeatedly declared "Mom! I'm poopy! Can you change my diaper please?" (. . .at least she used manners right?!) Or worse: "Mom! Guess what?! I'm POOPING right NOW! Ha ha ha ha ha!" Yep! She was mocking me! I was sure. I was THAT kid's mother!

I knew this little girl was aware of her physical functions, but why was she so attached to her diaper? One time I was giving her a bath and she got a nervous look on her face. "oh! oh! oh! I gotta go pee!" she said anxiously.
"oh great!" I thought, "she's telling me when she needs to go potty! This is progress". But my excitement was premature. "I'll put you on the potty. . ."
"No!" I was cut off by my resolute toddler.
"Why not?!" I implored, "it's RIGHT here!"
"No! In my diaper! Get my diaper on! I just wanna pee in my diaper!".
I tried to reason with her, but two-year-olds and reason go together about as well as oil and water, right? So eventually I succumbed and just put the diaper on. The very second the last tab was secured, the flood gates opened and that diaper immediately expanded to full capacity. So I was just left muttering under my breath as I sauntered off to grab yet another fresh diaper.

 On the bright side, this and other similar experiences, were evidence that she could "hold it" really well. . . just maybe too well! In light of that, I ended up making up some new lyrics to a catchy little song you might know. It's called "Let it go".

Let it Go
Let it go, let it go, can't hold it anymore
Let it go, let it go, when I walk through the bathroom door
Here I'll sit, and here I'll stay, 'til the pee comes out
I don't need a diaper anyway!

Rightly or wrongly I had tried (in vain of course) to get her to want to be potty trained: "You're a big girl, big girls don't go in diapers", "it's so much cleaner when you go on the potty", and "it doesn't stick to you if you go on the potty". A friend of mine had read a potty training book of some kind and said you are supposed to treat it with disgust so that they are grossed out by using a diaper. I tried that: "Ewww! Changing your poopy diaper is really gross!"

Then, on a day when I felt a little more patient with the whole potty training business, I made a statement that incidentally got the ball rolling: "You know what?! Your best friend was potty-trained at the age of 3!" To which she momentarily stared off in the distance, then met my gaze and said "I'm gonna go on the potty when I'm 3!" This was a couple months before the big birthday arrived. So to my chagrin, every time I suggested she try to go potty she responded "nope! I'm gonna go potty when I'm 3!" So of course I awaited her birthday with anxious anticipation. The day came and I had an enormous box of pull-ups all ready to go. Then I resorted to techniques found in a book my friend, Caitlin suggested: 

Potty Training 1-2-3: What Works, How it Works, Why it Works by Gary and Anne Marie Ezzo (FYI Gary Ezzo wrote Baby Wise--you may have heard of it?)

Instead of trying to persuade your child to "go" on the potty from the outset, the focus is initially on staying clean and dry. Mom uses a baby doll to show the child that he or she is supposed to be clean and dry. Both dolly and child get candy if they're clean and dry and they get two treats if either dolly or child go on the potty.

Hiding candy and dollar store toys in 

eggs made the reward process more fun.

Here's how it worked for us: Day 1
I showed Leila the baby doll and introduced the concept of clean and dry. We set a timer and every 15 minutes I would ask "is the baby clean and dry? Are you clean and dry?" (She got way too much candy that day!)

Day 2
The second day we didn't really need the dolly anymore--Leila got the concept. Instead, we focused on whether or not Leila was clean and dry. Leila sat on her princess potty and went a couple times.

Day 3
We tried the real potty (AKA toilet). She sat on the toilet and I walked into her bedroom to put something away. As I walked back, I said "did you go potty?" to which she answered in the most discouraged yet sincere voice "nooo. . .I didn't. . .I'm sorry!" I assured the poor sweet thing that it was OK! She didn't have to be sorry! I assured her that she was doing great just by trying, and she would figure it out eventually! That turned a switch on in her head--one that lit up her face and seemed to give her confidence; because once I gave her that permission to "fail" or rather, communicated that not peeing wasn't a total fail, she relaxed and things happened so much more smoothly! She peed! And after that, I no longer needed to give her candy for being clean and dry --only for when she went pee on the potty.

Day 4
Another cool thing happened! I was super impressed with her--she would stop watching songs on the computer (our typical ritual for while I'm taking a shower) so that she could run to the bathroom and go pee! I wasn't even having to ask as much--she was saying "momma! I want to go pee!"
She went six times that day!

Leila, happily sitting on her princess potty!

Day 16
She went poop on the potty!!! Hooray! We celebrated of course! Leila knew exactly how she wanted to celebrate--"I want to go to the car cart store (Macey's) and I want to sit in the car cart until we get me some chocolate ice cream and then I want to sit at the tables" We had a lot of fun eating our ice cream cones and trading cones every lick! I'd share a pic, but I forgot my phone at home--and all for the better, I just got to thoroughly enjoy our little date :)

She got more brave and started going at public restrooms. Leila even kept her pull-up clean and dry through all 2 hours of nursery, then went potty after that! Every once in a while she will just run to the bathroom by herself and go from A to Z without any help! Not bad right?! I'm proud of this little girl!

Now let me tell you that just because we had some success doesn't mean this is going to work for everyone. Every kid is different, every parent is different and for all I know it might just have worked because the ninth try (with potty training my strong-willed child) is a charm. So . . .if you're thinking that pulling your eyeballs out would be preferable to the adventures of potty training, just hold on for that ninth attempt :) --see more about our potty training misadventures here.

And if you think we rode off into the sunset of panty land after this. . .oh! Just wait for the sequel. . .my next blog post will be titled something like "Potty Training: Two Steps Forward and One Step Back (the airplane blowout)."