Potty Time

There are a lot of potty happenings going on at our house.  These pictures say it all.  I have a girl that is obsessed with playing in the toilet.  She seems to have a sixth sense when the lid has not been put down and makes a beeline for it.  Luckily, I have a boy who helps me keep her out of trouble.  We laugh at how funny she is.  

In other potty news,  it has been almost two weeks that my boy has poopt and pee in the potty.  After the long, long road of toilet training my heart is hopeful but cautious.  He is doing so well.  I am a very proud mama.  Who does a celebratory dance everyday that we get to flush.  Hooray!

All the Happenings

Life is calming down but also getting more chaotic (at least if only in my head).

Kersten started back at work part time yesterday. I think from my perspective, it was really good for him. It made him feel productive and back to the norm. Everyone at work seemed to miss him and welcome him back, happily The only down note is now he has a new boss and so far Kersten is not that happy about it. So we shall see how this all pans out. He is trying to figure out what to dress up for Halloween. It wasn't our top priority and now he needs a costume for tommrow. The rest of his team are being Nuns so he thought he could be the devil. But we can only find glittery horns, so it is not working

Noah is doing really well. He (not to jinx it or get to hopeful) has been wearing big boy underwear since last Wednesday. He has a least one accident a day but overall is doing pretty well. It is all I can hope for right now. He is having a hard time pooping on the toilet. Does anyone have suggestions for this? He waits until he has a nightime pull up on to poop. Or does a tiny bit in the toilet and finishes in his underwear. He got in trouble last tuesday after school for his teacher pulled me aside to talk to me about how Noah would not let her change his pull up when it was wet. He threw a huge temper tantrum and hit her leg. Well, we don't put up with this in our family. No hitting allowed and we respect our teachers. They whole way home I talked to him about how if he wanted to still wear pull ups he had to let his teacher change them at school. He never ever acts like that to his teacher, etc etc. Then when we got home we told Dad what happened and Noah had his dad and mom talk to him about it. He hates being in trouble. That night when it was bathtime, he just walked up to the toilet like it was not big deal and went to the bathroom. The next day he insisted that he wear Underwear. He had one accident that day as he ran up the stairs to the potty. On Sunday he used the urinals in the boys bathroom at church with his dad. He thought it was really cool that only Boys could use these toilets. I am a little hopeful that this is the beginning of the end. But, I am not counting my chickens before they hatch.

My next appt with the doc it next Monday Nov 5. This is also the week that starts my Non Stress Tests twice a week. So the insanity begins until this little girl comes. I am really trying to focus on my time with Noah right now, just us. I have been feeling lately that I will really miss him and our time. He is so joyful and fun (most of the time) and I just Love being his mom. I know I will love this little girl also. But it is kind of an idealic time with just me and my boy. And dad comes home at least for the next month a little early. So I am counting my blessings

Long winded updated Information

It is not often in a mother's life when her child actually asks her to take them to Dr. Katie. I knew Noah must really be feeling yucky if he said that. He did make sure to say "No, ow" He has had a horrible cough for days and recently it sounded in his chest. He has had a stuffy nose since birth and that has just gotten worse. It keeps him up at night. So we took a trip to see Dr. Katie today. Our appointment was after lunch and when Noah finished his lunch after asking all night and morning to see the doc, he says "No more Ow. No doc. I'm Okay". Isn't that always how it works, when you finally get them into the doc, they are feeling just fine. Can I just say that I love his peditrician. I guess more importantly Noah likes her too. She is just the right kind of doctor for the kind of parents we are. She is great with Noah and it was such a relief to actually see her and not someone else.

Noah now weighs a total of 31.5 lbs. He is on antibiotics for his sinus crap and yucky cough. We discussed the whole potty issue with her and our frustrations. She thought we were pretty creative. A good sign is that he is happy and excited when he actually goes potty and felt like he accomplished something afterwards. I expressed my concern that he only went actual pee if we caught it with the timer and how he holds his poo in. He still might not be completely recognizing the signs in his body that he is going to pee, he know when he will poo cause he hides. She said his mind might be so occupied with all the adventures in his head and all the fun things he is learning that he is not paying attention to it. Plus, it has never been a concern before now and to be patient. So we are not going to stop the potty training, just scale back. Keep the timer going to remind him that he needs to keep trying and be patient. I think that is the hardest part.

She also is going to help us fight the insurance company to get them to cover Noah's speech therapy. Oh, this is a huge answer to our prayers. I know that he has needed a bit more than he is getting. She teased that we should move into Jordan District, since they have a better program. But, now we know that we have some people behind us on this front.

I feel so much better. It sounds so silly but just knowing that his doc thinks we are doing okay and that we have done all we can has quieted my mind about all the stuff swirling in my head

Baby Girl- Shaak-Ti is doing fantastic. I had an ultrasound yesterday and she is growing spot on. She was at exactly 27 weeks. Babies of diabetics usually get really big and grow to fat, to fast. So it is nice to know that she is doing so well. During my exam, after my doc spoke with me and said that another would review the results and I would see him next week, I had 3 other doctors come in and comment about how beautiful her heart was, including my doc. Oh, comfort again. I had 4 docs act astounded, I was not on full bed rest yet and commented how strange that things were progressing this way. They were all really throuogh with my chart. I am still on moderate bed rest. The only reason I am still only moderately on bed rest is that I had a blessing and the Lord is watching out for us. RELIEF and starting in 2 weeks I start going for Non-Stress tests weekly for 3 weeks, bi-weekly after that and to the doctor once a week. And I still have 2 or 3 depending ultrasounds. So the craziness has just gotten a bit crazier. The receptionists were teasing me that we will see each other so much, that we will be best friends. At least all of these appointments are at the Brand new hospital by Costco. Fun fun fun

Potty Update

Oh, the joys of teaching my son about the potty. I am so tired of potty training. He might just not be ready. I feel at this point it is just a matter of something he can control. We have had some struggles over the weekend. He was doing really well about keeping dry during the day. We realized he had not gone poo for 2 days, So he was holding it in. On Friday, Noah gave us back his helicopter and all of his Star Wars toys he earned. All while making a smirk. Usually, just threatening to take the helicopter to Mommy's closet is enough to motivate him to keep trying. Kersten had totally had it with this whole thing. And went extreme. He said if he was going to keep being a baby, he would only let Noah do things that babies would. It was close to lunchtime and we had some Rice cereal Amy left here. So for lunch he made him some baby food and gave him a bottle. During this Kersten ate Cheetos and some of his other favorite foods. Oh, the fit throwing that happened on Noah's part. He actually went upstairs and went pee in the potty after that. Kersten was worried he went a little over board, but It seems that we now have to take this to the next level. We all had a huge talk about how this potty thing needs to be HIS decision. And it is his choice if he wants to be big or not. We now just remind him of the baby food and he slowly walks upstairs to the bathroom. We have been doing the naked thing (Again) this weekend and through the week. All it has done is made it so we have a lot to clean up and he waits till nighttime to poo. I worry that if we back down now, it will completely blow up in our faces later. So we need to be consistent is what I keep feeling. One of the hardest part of being a parent is being consistent.

Potty Training 1.2..3...

Warning, this post has the words Pee and Poo in it frequently. So if for any reason those words offend, STOP reading right now.

Noah should have been potty trained forever ago, according to me and Kersten. After all he is 3 1/2 in a bit over a week, he has started preschool and we have a new diaper bum to change in 3 months. We have talked about it, encouraged, celebrated, bribed, begged and anything else you can imagine to get him to think the potty was cool. His teacher at preschool even commented about how violent he gets when you ask him if he wants to go. Only Aunt Ginny could get hime to go on the potty on a regular basis. We asked her to move in for awhile to help out. Luckily for her, but not for us, she is right now in Europe on a month long vacation. Ginny even bought him Star Wars Galactic Heroes to earn as he goes potty. For example: he would earn Count Dooku if he made a poo on the toilet (We laughed Dooku if he made a dook)and Anakin if he made a pee. And we chose this by what ones were more desirable to him. And that stinker would stare longingly at toys in our bathroom and sigh that it was to hard. He did go about 4 months ago for 2 days to earn his Spiderman and Dr Octopus guys and after that decided he was done and never would sit on the toilet after this.

Well, we have had a breakthrough and hopefully now there is an end in sight. He saw this Rescue Helicopter at Costco and Dad talked to him about earning it for going to the Potty for 4 days. He promised he would. We made a chart when we got home and hung it on the bathroom door to put a sticker on at the end of the day. The first day went really well, we also had an egg timer in the bathroom that we set for him to go every 1/2 to hour. And when that bell went off he ran to the potty. And for more bribes, even if he did not go we would give him 3, M&M's just for trying. I mean what else can we do here people. So day number 2 arrives and Noah throws a huge fit, first thing in the morning as I escort him to the potty. He even told me to take the helicopter back and it was too hard. So Kersten figured out a compromise, he could have the helicopter pilot. He named him Hank the helicopter man. So for the next three days, in the haze of M&M's, timer bells, wet pants, two 45 minute events trying to go poo to only have a tiny lump come out and Hank the helicopter man escorting Noah to the toilet. Noah earned his helicopter yesterday. Oh it was a proud moment. This is a picture of him on the potty first thing in the morning with his helicopter. He is very aware that if he stops trying to go potty all the time, the helicopter will go in Mommy's closet untiil he is going again. Oh my, this is such a headache and he is not even close to being completely potty trained. We are trying and will continue this event. There probably could have been a better time to go hard core about this, but as I read everything it would say, "do not potty train during first trimester of pregnancy, or when big changes are going on" etc and blah blah blah and it would just frustrate me further. I totally agree with what Carrie wrote about how the mom need to be ready and commited to this also. I am clear now until the 16th of Oct to be on moderate bed rest so I figure better now than later.