Live-Blogging Potty Training... Again

I didn't expect to be writing this post today, but R insisted. Hey, lady, I'm all for having you be diaper independent. If you say you're ready, then let's get this boat moving!

Morning
She fussed through her diaper change this morning, same as she's been fussing through diaper changes for awhile now. The routine after any meal is that R will go to the bathroom to wash her hands, I'll sit her on the potty for a bit, and in the morning, the next step is that we'll take a shower together. She did not want to wash her hands (I made her), and she certainly didn't want to sit on the potty. I told her if she didn't sit on the potty then she wouldn't be taking a shower with me. She LOVES shower time, so that's quite a punishment. Nevertheless, her anger overwhelmed her desire for shower. I sat her on the travel potty in front of Sesame Street while I took a shower without worry of being knocked over by a toddler trying to squeeze herself between my legs.

When Sesame Street was over, I tried to put a diaper on R, and she once again, big surprise, threw a fit. The lightbulb went off in my head, "You want to potty train today, don't you?" It's not like we have anywhere to go today, so it works out. She wandered around in her training pants for an hour with no accidents. Now I'm about to get ready to make lunch, so she's sitting on the travel potty and watching Peter Pan. I'd like to put her back in a diaper while she eats lunch (based on previous experiences), but I don't foresee her enjoying that either.

Lunch
She peed a bit on the travel potty during Peter Pan. She had drank juice while she was watching the movie. Now she is in her high chair to eat lunch, still wearing training pants. I put a plastic bag and a prefold diaper underneath her. We'll see if she'll want to sit on the big potty after she's finished eating.

Well, she really surprised me: she was still dry after eating lunch! I could not get her to wash her hands or sit on the big potty, though. She wanted nothing more than to climb all over the couch with her food-smeared hands and face. That didn't go over so well with Mommy. I sat her in the dry tub and attacked her with a wet washcloth. She played with the bath toys for a bit, still not wetting herself, and still not wanting to sit on the big potty. She accepted a diaper without fighting and then happily went upstairs to take a nap.

To recap this morning, after I took her nighttime diaper off, she has peed only once and it was in the travel potty. She seems absolutely certain to know when she does NOT need to pee, but I haven't really been assured that she knows when she DOES have to pee. Still, it seems like I could place more trust in her judgement. I'm not expecting a bowel movement until just before dinner, as it's been the last couple of days. So far, so good!

Afternoon
She had a long nap (always helpful), and woke up with a wet diaper. She did not want to use the big potty when I brought her downstairs. Right now she is wearing training pants and playing with her toys. Let's hope the rest of today stays dry!

She had drank juice at 4:20. I was going to enforce a mandatory potty break at 4:40, but she beat me to it: at 4:30 she started tugging at her underwear. I sat her on the big potty, and it took awhile, but she did eventually pee a little bit. I waited to see if she would poop, too, but it wasn't happening, so I took her off around 4:45. At 4:50, she picked up her juice cup and started to pee on the floor as she drank. Her first accident of the day. I put her back on the big potty. She peed twice more while sitting on the big potty. She got really involved in a new show I found on Netflix called Baby Class, so now she's sitting on the travel potty to finish up the show while I type this up. Thai food for dinner has been ordered and Senpai is on his way home from work. I'm going to lie down.

Evening
She peed on the floor again as she tried to play with some toys. I put her in a diaper after that. She then stepped in the pee while I was trying to clean it up. I was thrilled. Thankfully that's when Senpai came home, not a moment too soon.


After the way this evening went, I'm tempted to keep potty training only to the mornings for now. Some hiccups are that I have a doctor appointment in St. Louis tomorrow morning, and R has a pediatrician appointment Thursday morning. Fun, fun. We'll figure this out somehow.

Joy to the World

The Season of Giving

There was a toy collection box behind the Santa photos at the mall. I have no idea when it was put there, but when we first found it, four days before it was going to be removed, it was empty.


Save for one toy truck and some pieces of trash, it was just a black hole of nothingness.

We had Rosemary with us. She was fussing and I said, "It's okay, Sweetie, we'll come back tomorrow with toys for this box." It broke my heart to see a lack of giving from the community in this way. I thought I'd fit in a trip to Toys R' Us in the morning to pick up a few things for the box, but Senpai was pissed and wanted to do something about it right then. We had just received good news that Senpai's contract job was secure for the next year, and he was determined to share the wealth. He stormed off to Sears and started loading a shopping cart full of toys.


I wanted to help pick toys out, but Senpai was on a mission, and someone needed to chase Rosemary between the clothes racks.


Here's his loot. When he told the manager at Sears what the toys were for, the manager kindly took 50% off each item. Senpai said this made him want to get more!


The Donation Box after. It still needed work, but Senpai did make a dent in it. I placed a Facebook call out to locals telling them about the box and encouraging them to make a donation in the limited time that was left. I never had a chance to go back to the mall again to see if more toys were added or not. I dearly hope so.


Jelly Bean

On another note of Joy, I waited so long to share the following bit of news that the initial excitement has worn off and now I don't know how to say it.

Out with it, I guess: we're pregnant again. ^_^ I'm 14 weeks now; baby is due June 22. We plan to find out the gender but we do not know it yet. [Update: Girl!]


Here's me and the Jelly Bean (baby) at 12 weeks.

I've been seeing high risk Maternal Fetal Medicine (MFM) doctors in St. Louis every two weeks. (Early on, I asked if they'd always see me this often and the doctor replied no, they will see me more often later in the pregnancy! I guess that answered my question.) They help me keep my blood sugars under control, and, with this close care, we're all hoping that Jelly Bean will gestate longer than Rosemary did. [Update: she didn't.]


That's it for now. I'll post Christmas morning pics as soon as we can extract still frames from the video we took. [Update: Doesn't look like that's ever going to happen. Sorry.] Merry Christmas from We Look Like a Family!

Thanksgiving Surprise, part 2

So I said last post how we drove 1,000 miles to spend Thanksgiving with Senpai's extended family, because his Papa's health is failing and everyone would be there. I also said it was a surprise to all but one aunt.

We pulled up into that aunt's driveway just before dinnertime on Wednesday. I recognized the house from when we visited two years ago, but there was a moment of uncertainty if we really were at the right place when we saw many faces peering out the windows at us... the aunt lives by herself. We walked in to find another aunt and a host of cousins there for dinner, too. The other aunt (visiting from out of town as well) was borrowing this aunt's oven to bake numerous pies, and the cousins found out from their mom whom our aunt had to ask to borrow a baby gate from. So the secret had been spilled to a limited few, but we were still excited about the big reveal on Thanksgiving the next day.

The next morning, Senpai and our aunt drove to town to take food to the hall where the family dinner would be held; there were too many people for any one house to contain us all. An uncle walked in and saw Senpai. Before the uncle could say a word, Senpai held his finger to his lips, called his Dad, and asked him how his Thanksgiving was going, saying how sorry he was that we couldn't be there. The uncle got the hint. An hour after the dinner was supposed to start, we were all scurrying at the aunt's house, trying to pull together last minute dishes: deviled eggs, stuffing, and even a fried turkey. We drove separate vehicles to the hall. When we pulled up, we saw Senpai's Mom holding the door open for the people coming in with dishes. She didn't notice Senpai's car (a very unique vehicle- a Scion xB) park behind his aunt's large SUV. We huddled behind the car, waiting for her to go inside, but that didn't seem like it was going to happen, so we brazenly stepped out into the open and started walking toward the hall. Senpai had given his phone to his cousin to record the surprise. Here's what he got.



So you know who everyone is, well, it's obvious who MIL is. The aunt who helped us with the surprise is the lady walking in with a dish just before MIL starts exclaiming, and FIL is the man in the blue shirt who leans over. He also is the one who asked us if we drove.

In spite of how many people the secret had already been leaked to, there were still many more people with surprised looks on their faces, Nana and Papa included. While we were there, we also revealed another secret to the family, but I'll save that for another post. Nana slapped Senpai in the face for keeping not one, but two big secrets from her.

Here's a pic of Nana, Papa, and all of the siblings and their significant others. There were pics of all of the cousins, too, but we didn't take any ourselves. Sorry, that's my fault. Since Senpai was standing up there, I should've had my camera out. Oh well.


The next couple of days were all about spending quality time with family. Nothing too exciting to report, I don't think. Senpai will correct me later if I forgot something important.

We drove home on Monday. The drive home went a lot like the drive over, except that I spent more time behind the wheel, and R spent more time glued to the portable DVD player. We drove through snow in Indiana. Here's a video of her seeing snow for the first time this season.



And our detour this time was to Baja Fresh. I loooooooove Baja Fresh, but, sadly, there is not one within 500 miles of our home. We drove through New Jersey to find this one.




It was a fun trip and I'm glad we went. Next year, though, I want to spend Thanksgiving with my Chicago-ish relatives like I had told them we would do this year.

A Journey of a Thousand Miles...

Once again, I find myself in the position of having way too much to blog about. How much info will I try to squeeze into this one post, or will I conservatively space it out over multiple posts? Guess I'd better start typing and see what happens.


We drove to upstate New York to spend time with Senpai's family this Thanksgiving. I have relatives 5 hours north of us near Chicago, and I had told them we'd be spending Thanksgiving with them this year, but then Senpai heard that his Papa's health was failing, and we both agreed that NY was where we needed to be. Senpai's Dad has six siblings (seven kids total), and what made the event even more special is that it would be the first time in a very long while that they all would be together. Senpai and I upped the "special" ante by making our visit a surprise. We only told one aunt (the one whose house we would be staying at) we were coming, and she helped keep the secret from the rest of the family. Senpai's Mom and Dad had no idea.

It was a very long drive. We started on Tuesday morning after we ate breakfast at home. We left an hour later than we had wanted to, but we made up for it on the road. Senpai drove the entire day on Tuesday. The weather was bad. It was either foggy or raining down torrents the whole day, and Senpai braved the storms. I sat in back keeping R entertained. My memory has lost exact details, but I think her behavior was good that first day. It must have been, because I managed to crochet myself a hat while I was sitting back there. We stopped at malls for meals whenever possible to give R a chance to run around. We stayed the night in a motel.

The next day had better weather, so I flexed my driving muscles in the morning. Senpai had planned a side trip to the Museum of Play in Rochester. It was a bit off our path, but the extra time spent running around a fun environment for R was so worth it.

There's a map of the museum here. We started by grabbing lunch in the cafeteria, then R browsed the Yo Gabba Gabba toys at the gift shop while Mommy and Daddy took our respective potty breaks. Next order of business was Sesame Street. The exhibits are smaller than you'd expect, but the keepers certainly cram as much as they can into the small space. R's favorite part of Sesame Street was the taxi cab. She likes cars.


Her favorite parts of Reading Adventureland were a pulley system used to transport kid-drawn notes from one side of a treehouse to another, and a light harp (as in the strings were beams of light). She then met the Berenstain Bears, but was not impressed enough to stand still for a photo.


The American Comic Book Heroes section was fun. I particularly liked the Spiderman photo op.




Senpai and R liked the Green Goblin flight simulator.


The three steps to the side of this Hulk statue is where R got the nose boo-boo that you'll see in photos from the rest of this trip. She usually won't attempt to go down stairs on her own, because she knows she needs help. But Daddy had just showed her on a previous set of steps how to hold on to the railing and do it herself, so she tried it when Mommy was distracted (without holding on to a railing) and scuffed her nose on the carpet when she fell. Poor lady.


The second floor contained the actual museum aspect, with old toys (stuff I grew up with!) on display behind plexiglass walls. It also had a huge Lite-Brite board.


Recognize these?




We also introduced R to Star Wars memorabilia.


Gosh, this post is getting long, and I haven't even gotten us to upstate NY yet! Another post then. Concluding our visit to the Museum of Play, I took R on the Carousel. She <3's carousels.

Then we hopped back in the car for the last leg of our journey. To be continued.

R's First Sick Day

She woke up uncharacteristically early from her nap. I heard coughs and uncomfortable sounding noises over the baby monitor. I waited a few minutes to see if she would fall back asleep, but when the noises continued, I went upstairs to see what was up. Looking into the darkened room, the first thing that hit me was the smell. Her room usually doesn't smell like this... I could tell she was sitting upright in the dark, babbling groggily to herself. I turned the lights on and confirmed what I had feared: she had puked. It was on her bed, pillow, outfit, blankie, and quilt. Even Pooh had not escaped the onslaught. I carefully stripped her clothes off and carried her to the bathroom downstairs. While filling the tub, I remembered how she had been unusually clingy when I took her up for the nap. What had she eaten? Cheerios and yogurt for breakfast, that's standard, a lollipop while we were at Target, and leftover baked ziti for lunch. The ziti was from Sunday, less than a week old, but maybe that did her in. I had chosen a sandwich for myself for lunch. The possibility also existed, of course, that the problem was a stomach virus. I was less happy with that idea.

R was splashing in the tub when Senpai let himself into the house, home early from work. "Good timing!" I called from the bathroom, "R puked." I asked if he could strip the bed, since I was busy supervising R's bath. I immediately felt guilty for giving him that gruesome task, so I quickly offered to swap places: he could finish R's bath while I stripped the bed. But Senpai is an awesome husband, and said he had to go upstairs to change out of his work clothes anyway, so he accepted the challenge. After washing vomit out of R's hair, I drained the tub and wrapped her up in a towel. She was shivering. It's so rare to see her shiver; the girl is usually a furnace. I had her endure the cold for a moment to put a diaper on, and then I whisked her upstairs and into our warm bed (her bed was as naked as she was by then). I tucked her in under the thick covers until I could dress her in flannel pajamas. She looked so sad and pathetic, not at all sure what was going on.

Back downstairs, I made R a straw cup of water, a peppermint tea bag, and a dash of ground ginger. She hardly touched it, but she was more accepting of that concoction than her typical apple juice. I grabbed a big bowl and snuggled under covers on the couch with her, then we threw on some movies. She started to throw up again almost right away. I had sat her on my lap, which made it easy for me to hold the bowl in front of her and lean her into it. Senpai won more awesome points for emptying the bowl and bringing it back. I had tried giving her a small candy cane to see if the peppermint would help settle her stomach, but instead of eating it, she played with it through all of Mickey's Christmas Carol. I took her to the bathroom afterwards to wash the sugar off her hands, and there, standing at the sink, she got the scared look on her face and started to heave. I lifted the toilet seat, stood her in front of it, and convinced her to puke there. She was so unhappy, poor girl. More hand washing followed, then I settled us in to watch Disney's Robin Hood. She chewed on her straw. I don't think she drank any of the peppermint tea, but she had to get some, at least, from the straw as she chewed away.

More awesome points were awarded to Daddy as he got dinner ready for himself, and cooked soup for R and I (nothing like seeing/smelling puke to make your own stomach feel a little rocky). The movie ended before dinner was ready, and I started going through the special features. R loved watching the clip of all of the characters dancing to "The Phony King of England" (do you remember that? "A pox on the phony king of England!"). She was even dancing herself. It was such a relief to see her happy and full of energy again, three hours after the puking had started. I replayed the clip about three times and she didn't tire of it. When dinner was on the table, she chowed down. It was our first time letting her fend for herself with a bowl of soup and a spoon. She didn't do as well as I had hoped, but with Mommy and Daddy's help, she slurped down lots of soup and went through many crackers, too. Even more relief! She danced, she ate well, life is good!

We remade her bed conservatively after the laundry had finished: no mattress cover (the mattress itself is plastic), a fitted sheet, yes, but no rolled up towels underneath (they usually act as a bumper to keep her from falling), and no pillow. Otherwise, we made sure she still had her quilt, blankie, and the backup Pooh doll. She has partially awoken twice already tonight, but she's been able to go back to sleep, and the vomit has not made a reappearance.

I had planned a playdate at our house tomorrow morning, but I went ahead and cancelled it, not knowing how R will feel, and certainly not wanting to risk giving other kids a virus, if that's indeed what got R down. I'm feeling optimistic, though; the night ended well. To err on the safe side, the baked ziti is getting thrown away.

Christmas Decorations

We broke out the Christmas decorations, including the tree, last night after R went to bed. I started off just wanting to dust. Barnes & Noble Storytime is on hiatus in December, so I decided to host a playdate at our house with some of the Storytime moms and kids this coming Thursday. The house needs to be cleaned, and first on my list was dusting our incredibly fuzzy wood bookshelves. Senpai wanted to take it a step further by replacing some of the clutter lining those shelves with intentional holiday clutter, and out came the Christmas tote.

This morning, the first thing I did when R and I came downstairs was to put R on the toilet so I could step out and set the scene. After R was done on the potty, I took her out to her changing table in the dining room and diapered her butt up again. She was babbling happily until she looked up and noticed the garland and banner hanging from the ceiling. She immediately shut up and remained quiet, staring at the new sights while I finished putting her diaper on. I started the video after I put her on the floor.

Diaper Frustration

We had bought our Fuzzibunz One Size cloth diapers with the intention of diapering two children with them from birth to potty training.

We may not make that goal.

Impetigo. It sprang up on R's privates earlier this year, and has lingered ever since. It would come and go with the help of prescription strength anti-bacterial ointment, but I am incredibly frustrated that it is not yet GONE. I made a last ditch effort in November to get rid of it once and for all. I bleached the tub and the bath toys, I bleached the changing table, I bleached the cloth wipes and diaper inserts, then, finally, I stripped all wipes, inserts, and covers with Dawn and Thieves cleaning solution. I line-dried everything for days in the cold outdoor air (that's gotta kill bacteria, right?). R was in disposable diapers being cleaned with disposable wipes for at least three weeks to get it fully off her body. Then. Then. We put her in the cloth diapers again, and surprise! The impetigo rash came back. GRRRRR!!!!

I walked into the Cotton Babies store today on a MISSION. The very helpful assistant there recommended I use color safe bleach on the diaper covers as well. In my laundry frenzy I would have loved to have bleached the covers, but I didn't think you could. They have, you know, colors and stuff. But this lady said it could be done; it will soften the colors a little, but bumGenius actually recommends doing it every month. I am so relieved: I have another step to try! I am not currently the owner of color safe bleach, so a trip to the store is in order, but I cannot wait to see if this works. Please work!

Cloth diapers are an investment. You put your money and your hopes into them and it's a damn shame if they let you down. I'd hate to stop short of being able to diaper another baby with these diapers, but I also wouldn't want to knowingly give another baby a bacterial infection. Because that's another thing: after diapering OUR two children, the goal was to then sell the diapers to other parents to recoup some of the cost. But how could I sell these diapers with this impetigo bacteria still on them???

So, one more round of diaper bleaching and stripping, and then... I don't know what. If the rash comes back, I hate to say it, but the diapers may just have to be thrown away. I sincerely hope not.

UPDATE:
R is three days back in cloth and the impetigo has not yet reared its ugly head (or blisters). The color safe bleach must have worked! W00T! Such a relief. Now I can prewash the additional hemp inserts I had bought on my Cotton Babies excursion. I didn't wash them right away out of fear that I would have to abandon cloth diapering. Why buy more inserts when they won't get used, right? But it looks like, happily, that these diapers will continue to work for us, so let's get more absorbent action!