Potty Trained!!

Woohoo!  Selena is officially potty trained and I am so happy.  She still wants a diaper at night, but wakes up dry 75% of the time, and thus I've gone back to putting her in cloth so I don't have to buy diapers for her (we had been using disposables at night).  About a month ago she just stopped having the one or two accidents she would have during the day, and she started waking up in the middle of the night to go.  It took about 7 months but it finally clicked.  So my lesson learned, and what many experienced mom's tried to tell me, was to wait.  Treats and candy did entice her sometimes to go, but I regret using them.  I think with Allie we will wait till she is able to dress herself.  Then we will show her the potty, offer some undies, and let her take the lead.  But even though on one hand we did start too early with Selena, on the other hand she was ready to poop in the potty and for that I am thankful we haven't been changing poopy diapers the last 6 months.

Christmas was fun.  It was exciting this year because Selena was actually anticipated Christmas this year (except she still talked about her birthday more often).  She got some neat blocks, a scooter, and a doll house but, unfortunately she hasn't played with them too much.  She just really isn't into toys and never has been.  Whenever she plays independently she either just talks to herself, runs around the house, or plays in the sink.  The exceptions are her baby doll and her little stuffed dogs Howlidays and Douglas.  She does enjoy the toys when I play with her though.  

The last couple months Selena has been doing a lot of cooking.  She helps me with most meals.  She really likes stirring and rolling out dough.  She has learned a few hard lessons about not tasting the food before I say and has got mouthfuls of raw ginger and unsweetened cocoa or chocolate.  She also likes to mix up her own concoctions.  But when she mixed up flour, brown sugar and ketchup and insisted that I eat the "cereal" she made it was a little too much for me.  She used such persuasive arguments like telling me "its just food", and she is top chef so I should eat it, and even trying to trick me by telling me there was no ketchup in it.  Luckily I distracted her with Curious George and got out of eating it.  But despite her love of cooking she will hardly eat anything.  She went from a baby who ate everything to a toddler who eats nothing.  Starting around 18 months she slowly started eliminating things she would eat.  Now she pretty much lives on peanut butter and jelly, pasta, and rice.  I am exaggerating, but not by much.  I even got the book The Sneaky Chef which had a recipe for putting some carrot/yam puree in her cheese casadia. Selena spotted a difference in the color quickly and said she didn't like it anymore.  She even refuses to try dessert type foods that she would definitely like if she would just put it in her mouth.  My only consolation is that I was super picky as a child and I eventually grew out of it.

Other cute Selena stories:

• She has turned from a human child into a kitty cat.  Even when she is pretending to be a dog she will say that the "kitty cat is pretending to be a dog".  
• One day we were talking about how when she turns three she can go to sleep on her own and a few days later while I was putting her to bed she started getting teary and was telling me that she didn't want to grow up, and she didn't want to be a big girl and was asking me how she could stop getting older.  Of course that made me feel so bad and I assured her I will snuggle her to sleep as long as she wants.  
• Sometimes while she is going to bed I'll rub her back to relax her and lately if I go to rub it she stops me and says, "Mom.  You have to ask me if you can rub my back."  So I ask her and she says, "Yes.  Thank you for asking."  :)  
• Another day she was doing something that I didn't like and I asked her why she was being mean to me and she said it was because I was mean to her.  So I asked her what I ever did that was mean and she said "You take things away from me like scissors and stuff."  Which is true. 
• We took her roller skating which she absolutely loved.