Potty Training, Part 2

So yeah, that nap I laid him down for last Saturday- he woke up completely soaked. I had laid towels down on his bed and had a complete change of clothes ready, so just like that, we changed and went on with the day. The afternoon seemed more difficult- lots of little piddles through underwear while running to the potty.

Over the course of the next few days, our schedule changed and we were out of the house a lot more than I planned on. I ended up bringing diapers with us and using them- just to avoid the hassle. I'm not quite confident that the car seat will stay dry on the way to the library, not quite ready to let the nursery ladies suffer at church because he won't tell anyone but me when he has to go.

So today, 6 days after our first big day- we are again going completely diaper free and it seems to be clicking better than day 1.  Ian is still in his 1st pair of underwear for the day, and hasn't had an accident  yet (3 hours strong!) He has sat on the potty twice today with no results. So that's- oh wait- he's yelling pee pee!
Ok- had a success on the potty!!! And he clapped for himself and said "yay" about a million times! ha ha...

Things I've learned so far:

1) Potty training is what you make of it. If you wanna be a tyrant for a full week and boss your kiddo around and be totally frustrated and upset with accidents- you totally can! And if you wanna be gentle and see every accident as a learning opportunity and have fun- you can too! I've got nothing at stake here, so we're having fun picking out underwear each day, doing sign language for potty words, and learning more about each other as we go along. If I hated this process, I'd just stop and wait till later.

2) Underwear is key for us. Lots of people say go completely pantless, and I will say, we have had lots of times where we do. BUT since we are going diaper free all day long, turns out, underwear catches a lot of things. AKA- the Big Bird undies took the hit when Ian looked up worried from his play kitchen saying "uh oh mommy, poo poo". When I scooped him up and took him to the bathroom- turns out my black bean soup had not sat so well in his tummy.... I'll spare the rest of the details on that. BUT since we cloth diaper, I was able to just dump the contents of Big Bird into the toilet, rinse him out, and toss him into our dirty cloth diaper pail. Big Bird came out clean the next day, and thankfully, the play kitchen was not harmed a bit from Ian's accident. I hate to picture what might have been without the underwear on.......The undies also seem to let Ian really feel that he is wet, I can see that he is wet or currently wetting, and we still have time to make it to the potty without making a mess everywhere!

3) I really love my boy. Watching the faces this kiddo makes while on the potty, watching him learn how to navigate his step stool up to the big potty, seeing him learn from his potty mistakes- these moments with him are priceless. I'm so lucky to get to parent this particular child, and I can't wait to navigate through more of these milestones and learn what's really going on in his little brain and little body.

Sorry no pics today. I'll get some good ones this week for my next post. But for now, I'm back to the trenches :) Hope you're enjoying the updates!

Potty Training my 20 Month Old and a 28 Week Pregnancy Update

So today we have officially started potty training. I chose today because we have the next few days with very few outside commitments, Ian's showing lots of the readiness signs, and I just felt it was time to pull the band-aide off and go for it. Just for my records, I want to list the readiness signs we've seen.
-Knows what his little potty is, can carry it around, can get on and off it easily.
-Knows that the potty is where pee pee and poo poo go
-Can say the words pee pee, poo poo, potty, uh oh, more, all done and others related to using the potty.
-Is interested in watching Mommy and Daddy use the potty, likes to mimic and pretend, throws a piece of toilet paper in the toilet and says "bye bye pee pee", "bye bye poo poo"
-Can go hours without having accidents, often has dry diapers when checked or changed
-Loves his big boy underpants and asks to wear them
-Understands rewards and can be enticed by them :)

Also- because he has yet to hit his independent streak (also known as the terrible twos) and his little brother will be coming soon, it seemed the right time to train. Of course, if he completely bucks the idea, pees everywhere, and goes insane, we may wait and re-visit this topic at a later time. But I am fully confident that if I just stick to the training ideas we've researched and don't look back, that potty training my son at 21 months is completely possible.

So today is day one. After breakfast, I took his diaper off and told him NO MORE DIAPERS. I explained everything slowly and made sure he was paying attention. We taped up his homemade potty chart after he colored on it for a bit, and I showed him all of the stickers he could choose from when he pee peed in the potty. I also showed him a basket full of "goodies" he could choose from if he went pee pee in the potty. The goodies included juice boxes, capri suns, starbursts, bubbles, toy cars, animal crackers, and some craft and educational projects I put together. Then we went about our day playing.
For 2.5 hours, he wore his Elmo undies, and stayed dry. Then he winced and looked down at himself, and he had just started to dribble. So I swooped him up, got those undies off, and got him on the potty, where he then started to pee pee again! And boy did we celebrate! An hour later he did the same wince/whine, looked down at himself and then ran towards the potty. I again helped get the Thomas undies off, then he began to go again. Woohoo. That time he chose a capri sun as a reward, so while still sitting on the potty and drinking, he began to go a third time for the day!

Dry for the next few hours, he ventured up to begin nap time. Before a nap, he sat on the big toilet upstairs and read a book about going potty. Nothing happened. Then he put underwear and pants on, brushed his teeth and started reading a book. When I was about to ask him to lay down and take his nap, I began with a pep talk about telling me when he felt he needed to go. I reminded him he was wearing underwear and pulled his pants down a bit to show him his Batman undies when I notices they were wet. A quick talk about accidents and a change into some plain blue underwear, and I laid him down.

I will post this now and let you wait in suspense until my next blog post to tell you how the rest of day 1 and the week go! Exciting!

Out of all the stickers he could choose from, he chose this Watermelon first.

Playing at the park the one day it was 50 degrees. The next we had a snow storm.

And my pregnancy update....

How far along? 28 weeks

Maternity clothes? It's embarrassing when I try anything but!

Weight Gain?  + 16lbs ... lots this past month

Stretch Marks? nope

Sleep? Wake up a few times each night

Movement? His movements feel a lot more... violent? than Ian's... But I love feeling him lots of times every day.

What I Miss? Being able to clean and scrub my bathtubs/showers. Anyone willing to come over and clean my bathrooms for me?  

Symptoms? As a singer, it's so weird when the notes and breathing patterns you've always done for particular songs starts not to be as easy. There's a baby just sitting on my breather, so it's very difficult to breathe deeply and then hold high notes for long periods of time. 

Food cravings? Today I had a major craving for Ramen Noodles. And I always have tons of these around. And then I searched and searched and nothing.... Seriously- a food that costs 20cents and I've run out. I can't even go get them because of this snow storm that's rolled in.

Food aversions? None.

Best thing this week? Had a pregnancy massage that was amazing. I will be getting at least one or two more of those before this gig is up.

How Ian's doing with everything? A few days ago, Ian walked up to me and said, "Knock, knock, Neil. Knock knock" while knocking on my belly. I told him it wasn't time for Neil to come out yet. But now when we ask him "What's your brother's name" He will answer Neil.

What I’m Looking Forward to? Completing my Hypnobabies training and feeling great about my birth plan, should I get to deliver vaginally. Ultrasound confirmed NO movement from my placenta, so still with a placenta previa that leaves me with a c-section if it doesn't move.

Weekly Wisdom? No one is mothering AT ME. Some days I see the cute mommas, all put together at the grocery store. Or the ones wearing earrings and heeled boots at church. Or the ones breastfeeding their children who are over 2. Or have packed the best snacks for our playdates. And it's like I feel like they are saying something to me, even though they are not. That they are mothering "at me" even though they are not.  We are all on the same team, and if I wanted to wear earrings, I should have thought of that before I left the house- no reason to feel "less than" now. If I want my kiddo to eat healthy, I should have packed a good snack too. Jesus is giving me clarity into where these voices are coming from, and it's definitely not from Him, so that's all I need to know.

Milestones? Took my 1hr glucose test and failed..... Boo. Took the 3 hr yesterday so hopefully I pass. I did hit the 28 week mark, which to anyone in a high risk pregnancy is like- the best milestone. It means that basically, as long as baby lets me know if he's having issues, there's a great chance he would survive. 

Next Appointment? Feb 17th. Praying for movement from the Placenta! Please join me in praying! If God can part the red sea, he can certainly move my placenta up just a few cm!

26 Weeks

So similarly to my first pregnancy, I have been terrible at taking belly pics. It's totally exciting to see other people posting their week by week, I tell myself it's a good idea and I should do it, and then somehow I get to 26 weeks with no pics! So here's a pic of me around 25 weeks that I sent to a friend, for anyone who wants to see.

How far along? 26 weeks

Maternity clothes? Yes! Embracing them!

Weight Gain?  + 11 pounds

Stretch Marks? nope

Sleep? Wake up a few times each night

Movement? Yes. He moves A LOT. No big rolls or elbow jabs yet, not cool enough to video my belly yet, but enough to make me smile.

What I Miss? Being able to take medication for illnesses, and going on a ski trip with my hubby. 

Symptoms? Hungry pretty often, and very sore/pressure when I stand for too long. Also- I do have placenta previa, which basically means my placenta attached low in my uterus instead of up high like they normally do. It still has the chance to move, but if you can picture it- its kinda blocking babies exit currently, which would mean a c-section if it doesn't move. With this condition, there's also a chance for bleeding, which could leave me in the hospital on bed rest or with a blood transfusion- worst case- a super early c-section :( I tell you all this so you can join me in praying this thing moves out of the way and we have no more issues!

Food cravings? Juicy meat. If you're reading this, just go ahead and bring me a cheeseburger- no pickles or onions.

Food aversions? None.

Best thing this week? Took a 2 hr nap one day! 

How Ian's doing with everything? He moved to his new big boy room this week, and sleeps in his big boy bed now. He also loves looking at pictures of babies.

What I’m Looking Forward to? Getting Neil's nursery complete. It's all the same furniture that Ian had, but we're painting the walls and going with a new "theme".

Weekly Wisdom? Here's something I posted on facebook a day or two ago...

 Not one of us will win the invisible "mommy competition". So I need to stop working so dang hard to have the smartest kid, cleanest house, cutest post baby body, etc- and just totally live in the moment of loving on my family. I really am living the dream if only my eyes are open to it

Milestones? I take my glucose test next week. Yuck. 

Next Appointment? Jan 21st- we're hoping for good results on the placenta front!!!

In other news, Ian is talking up a storm. Hearing him say "Thank you, Momma", "More orange please", and "Amen Jesus" is the best! This week he's also been waking up and staying in his bed, singing to himself. His favorite tunes include "I'm walking on sunshine", "Theme from Elmo's World", and "Cray Button" to name a few. That kid is hilarious!

After much research and thought put into it, we went with the Baby Jogger City Mini GT Double for the boys. There will be an infant adapter on the other side until Neil is a bit bigger. But this is what I got  for Christmas from mom and MIL.

Here's us on a really hard day. Someone decided to cut 4 teeth in one day and screamed for hours. 

Here's Ian facetiming with his cousin Charlie. I think Charlie was really confused on why Ian was stuck in that little box.

And Ian at his uncle's donut shop- North Lime Coffee and Donuts. He lovessss the sprinkles!

Hope you all are having a fantastic week!