Attempted Potty Training

Selena is doing really well and we are all happy. A couple weeks ago we attempted a solid 3 days to consistent potty training but it didn't work. I thought she was ready as she showed many of the signs to look for: she tells me when she needs a diaper change (both kinds), she sometimes will tell me if she has to poop and actually go on the potty, some nights she wakes up dry, and has been using far fewer diapers during the day. The only thing holding her back was that she still didn't seem to actually recognize when she peed. So I have some online friends who had success with a 3 day potty training method, which basically involves quitting diapers cold turkey day and night, sticking close to your kid for three whole days and rushing them to the potty whenever they start to go, being very positive in praise, and constantly (like every 5-10 minutes all day long) reminding them to tell you when they needed to go. The lady who's method this is also says that 22 months is a great age to do potty training because lots of kids get stubborn the older they get. I thought this would work well for Selena since she had all the signs and rushing her to the potty every time she would pee might clue her in on the feeling. Well after three exhausting days of being housebound and cleaning up lots of messes Selena did not figure it out. She gets all excited if she poops or toots on the toilet, but if I did manage to get her to pee on the toilet she just stares at me and doesn't really seem to understand what I'm excited about. I was kind of bummed as I was hoping to get her out of diapers a few months before the baby arrived, but she isn't ready--oh well. Ironically we never once had an accident at night or during naps. So if I wanted to I could say she is night trained, but not day trained. But we got all the diapers back out that I had washed, neatly folded, and organized. I am still putting her on the potty every morning right when we get up hoping that if we do that enough maybe she'll figure out that she is actually peeing. And if she happens to tell me or if I happen to notice she is going I'll put her on the potty, but for now we will wait till later before we try again.

Other than potty training Selena has been a ton of fun lately. For a couple weeks I was starting to get a little overwhelmed because she was becoming a handful, but I've picked up on how her little toddler brain is working, and now have ways to get her to do what I want and her like it. Mostly I have to keep her super busy with lots of new things, and thus she has become an extreme book worm. We have been going to the library at least once a week, sometimes two or three times to get lots and lots of books. I have been hitting my 50 book checkout limit.

She has also started becoming a puzzle master. She only had a two puzzles, but she started playing with them more, and then started showing more interest with the ones at the library. So I bought around 10-12 used puzzles (from ebay and goodwill) and now she has tons of puzzles and can do the easier ones by herself, but still enjoys doing the harder ones with me or Floyd helping her.

She is talking a ton. She talks in the third person so her grammar isn't perfect, but she definitely is sharing complicated scenarios. A couple months ago she spent the night with my parents and ever since then she decided her nickname was pooh bear. So she is constantly talking about how pooh bear likes to run, or pooh bear's baby needs a bath, and pooh bear's mom and dad are nice. But she will also refer to herself as "Selena", "me", or recently "big sister". If she is helping me do something then she usually is big sister, because big sister's are very helpful (sense any mama brainwashing there). The cutest is when she will randomly say pooh bear is happy. She also has started singing songs and gets lots of the words right. She has also started making up her own songs. The cutest was when she made up a song about her eating cookies "every day" (a favorite phrase of hers).

She also likes to run amok. You think I would have learned with Dyna (the dog), but when they are little and just learning how to run it is so fun to watch them run with complete abandon. But when they get older and faster and they are running somewhere where they aren't supposed to be running and won't come back, it isn't as much fun. When we are at the library she will be sitting with me reading a book and then all of a sudden bolt, giggling in glee. But we've been working on it, and if I remind before we go somewhere that she can only run while holding my hand, if she does start to bolt and I remind her to hold my hand she will sometimes stop and wait. So hopefully we'll get this fixed before baby comes. But it is funny when we are out shopping and she is in the cart and she will say "me run amok, now."

Other than puzzles and books she still loves going to toddler gym, she likes jumping, running in circles, helping mom cook (especially stirring), taking care of her baby (her baby goes everywhere), taking baths (even ones without any water), numbers, letters, watching Elmo and Abby on Sesame Street, ice cream, cookies, band-aids (she read Doctor Dan the Bandage man one too many times and now goes through about 5 band-aids a day), and snuggling with her mama. :)