Thursday, April 26, 2012

Potty Progress

We are about 2 months into this whole potty training thing so I thought I might give an update. It has been a MAJOR roller coaster.  Based on Lucy's initial excitement and eagerness to use the potty, I assumed this process was going to be a piece of cake.  Boy was I wrong.  Oh how toddlers can change their opinion about something in a matter of seconds.

So here is where things stand currently.  On the pee front, I would say Lucy typically has 1-2 major accidents a week.  I definitely thought we would be past this, but I need to stay positive and realize that she is dry about 95% of the time, so... yay!  I guess I should say I use the term "dry" loosely.  Currently, unless I initiate taking Lucy to the potty every hour (which can usually be a bit of a fight), she only let's me know she needs to go potty once she has let a small amount out.  This irritated me at first, but I'm learning to just let it go because nothing I've done has convinced her to let me know before letting that small amount out.  I'm actually kind of impressed, because anyone who has tried to pee a little and then stop knows how hard that is to do! :)

At first I would change her clothes every time, but after going through about 5 pairs of underwear a day I've decided just to leave them on in hopes that she will not like the wet feeling and stop doing it.  Not sure if that makes me a bad mom, but I just can't keep up with the laundry.  And it really is only about a dime size amount.

All in all I am pleased with Lucy's progress, but I would not say we are officially "potty trained"... I would still say we are in training mode.

On the poop front, we have had even more struggles, but I am happy to report I think we are through those struggles (for now).  My doctor did not like the fact that Lucy was only going about every 3 days and so recommended we put Lucy on Miralax to make her a bit more regular.  We started giving her the Miralax and I'm not sure what exactly happened at that point, but things started going downhill fast.  The first day after using it, Lucy pooped her pants for the first time since starting this process - and honestly I think that freaked her out.  From my outside perspective (unfortunately I have no idea what is going on in that toddler head of hers), I think the Miralax made her stools too loose, making it too uncomfortable to poop and made her not want to go.  She went 5 days once without pooping and we ended up having to use a suppository.  After that I could see her keep trying to hold it in and she would say she didn't want to go because it hurt.  It was an awful few weeks.  I was stressed, I mean major stressed - it killed me to watch her struggle with this.  No matter what I did or said, it ultimately didn't matter - you can not make your kid poop.  Oh how the Lord likes to remind me that I am not in control.  Even if it is in weird ways.

So, after playing with lots of Miralax dosages, and making lots of calls to the doctor, and doing lots of research online, and spending lots of nights crying to Ben in frustration, we finally got it figured out.  My conclusion - the Miralax was too much for Lucy, she is an poop every 3 days kind of person, and that works for her.  I really like my doctor, and trust her, but unfortunately she was wrong in the situation and I probably should have done a better job listening to my gut.

Currently Lucy almost always poops in the potty - she's gone once in her pull-up, once in the back yard (that was fun) and just today she actually went in her pants and then moved over to finish the toilet (not sure what happened there)... but because of all the craziness we went through I am so thankful whenever she poops, wherever it ends up happening!

A funny story - one day Lucy was supposed to be napping but I could hear that she was talking in her bed.  That's not too out of the ordinary, she's been doing that a lot lately, but will stay in her room and play.  So I just left her monitor inside while I went out to water our vegetables and flowers.  After being outside for about 30 minutes I saw Lucy come up to the back glass door and start waving at me - this immediately made me crack up because she had never gotten out of her bed or come out of her room before.  When I went to go get her she declared - "I pooped mama".  My immediate thought was "great!" but I looked down and saw that she didn't have her pull-up on, so I wondered where this poop might have happened.  I asked her to show me where the poop was and she grabbed my hand and walked me over to the bathroom.  Lucy had gone poop in her little potty, then dumped it into the big potty. Yay! Much better than finding poop all over her bed.  I also found her pull-up laying in the upstairs bathroom, so I can only conclude that she knew she had to poop, got out of bed, went to the bathroom upstairs and took off her pull-up, didn't go right away, came downstairs, realized she still had to go, pooped in her little potty, dumped it in the big potty and then came outside to tell me.  Wow! I was impressed... if only ever day was that easy!



Oh yeah - and she is definitely still in a pull-up for nights and naps.  In the beginning she would have a dry pull-up after her nap a couple times a week, but lately she is wet almost every time I get her.  So I don't feel like we are anywhere close to getting rid of the pull-ups (which sucks because they are super expensive... I've actually just been putting diapers on her and calling them pull-ups because I'm way too cheap to keep using pull-ups)

Hopefully I'll have even more progress to report in 2 months! At least that's what I'm praying for!

Random Hank

Almost caught up! I did my random Lucy post... now here are my random Hank pictures.  Oh man, he melts my heart.

 
sporting his new baseball cap
 

Hank was taking really short naps for a few days in a row, so I tried to fix the problem by sticking closer to a schedule.  I think it actually worked (or whatever else was making him wake up went away) - so I've gotten to go in during his nap time and wake him up several times.  I just love how he sleeps all curled up, sucking his thumb.
 

And these last two are just random pictures of my handsome little man...

Of course, now that I think of it, today is actually Hanks' 5 month "birthday", so I'm back to being behind... shoot.  Hopefully I'll find our camera so I can take his 5 month pictures ASAP!

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Busy Bodies

 Here are some of the reasons I've been behind on blogging...

These two cute babies who don't always have that whole sleeping thing down...

Work in our yard... a new vegetable garden!  Hopefully we'll have some homegrown tomatoes, peppers, carrots, spinach and broccoli! (at least we'll have some nice lucy-fertilized soil)

A visit to the Little 500! It was rainy and cold, but so good to see old team mates and watch the race...

A trip to Lafayette...

Complete with baby playing....

Festival going...

And bug holding...

Lots of fun, but we are pooped...

Hank's Pre-Crawling Moves

This little guy is getting places.  I'm sure we are a long way off from official crawling, but Hank is definitely starting to get himself up on all fours, is lunging, and can move himself forward and backward by combining the two.  I wanted to include a video because I have a similar post with Lucy doing her pre-crawling moves.  He isn't as crazy as she was, but he's getting there...


It's been hard to catch Hank's milestones - he doesn't really do things a lot, or in front of me!  He rolls belly to back ALL the time in the crib (which is actually annoying because we often have to go in and flip him), and he has rolled back to belly a handful of times (we've spied in the video monitor) but he rarely rolls during play time.  He also has gotten up on all fours and pushed himself forward several times (again he'll do this a lot in the crib), but of course when I grab the camera he stops.

(up on all fours just long enough for me to get a picture)

(nothing special here, just a handsome babe)

So, Hank... if you're reading this blog when you're older, I'm trying to document your milestones as much as your sister, but you are hiding them from me, so it's hard.  Not because I love you any less :)

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Random Lucy

So I've been really behind on my blogging for a couple reasons - I lost our camera, and was waiting to find it to take pictures off of it before blogging... although I still haven't found it and have decided to just upload pictures from my phone for now! We've been busy doing lots of fun stuff (more to come on that throughout the post) and both kiddos have not been great sleepers lately, so that seems to take up any extra time I have!  

Anyway - here's my attempt to get caught up! These are all random pictures of Lucy from the past couple weeks...

Getting ready to go to Uncle Matt's baseball game, I thought she would need some shades :)

And a baseball cap of course


We made homemade play dough one day last week.



 Lucy has will now make funny faces when I ask her to... here I asked her to show me her sad face...

and happy face...

This picture says so many things to me... I painted Lucy's nails one day (and she painted mine) when I was encouraging her to try to sit on the potty for a while and get a poop out.  She is  dipping her triscuits in salsa because she loves to dip food - in anything.  And she's got underware on her head... no explanation there...

More funny faces... this is her sad face

I think scared?  I forget what I was telling her...

 Happy face...


Pony tail! The back of her hair is getting so long, but the top is still so short... not sure what to do about that...

Monday, April 9, 2012

Happy Easter 2012

We had a great day celebrating Easter this year. We went to church on Saturday night, so we had some down time with just our family on Sunday morning before Ben's family came over. I really love the idea of having lots of traditions, so I'm trying to start incorporating things for our family to do every year. This year we read the Easter story and then Lucy got to do an Easter egg hunt in the backyard. Those seem like good traditions to keep up each year, maybe we'll add a little something each year.

But before going to look for Easter eggs I thought I'd grab a couple pictures of the kids... here's how that went...

One quick picture with dad... such a happy boy

Lucy refused to take pictures at first, so got another one of the happy boy


Pulling on Hank a little too much


Lucy decided to be shy and not show her face


This is about as good as I got...


Easter egg hunt - we filled each egg with one jelly bean. Lucy figured this out right away and opened the egg right away and ate the candy... when we tried to hide the eggs again later in the day with no candy, she had no interest in it. Smart girl.


Woops, one of the eggs fell outside the fence...


Running to go get it!


Hank wasn't too in to the egg hunt, but I'm sure next year he'll be running after his sister looking for eggs too.


After having Ben's family over for brunch we headed to my grandparents to celebrate Easter and some spring birthdays. My mom wanted to grab a picture of all her grandkids...




We got a couple good ones!


Another Easter egg hunt...


And celebrating Lucy's bday with all the extended family!

Thankful on Mondays (or I guess Tuesday this week!)

Today I'm thankful for:

1. Jesus. And that He rose from the dead, bringing hope to the world.

2. Lots of family that is close by so that we can celebrate Easter and Lucy's birthday with them.

(Easter and bday celebrations at my grandparents.)

3. A hard working husband and his helpful brothers who built up our flower beds with lots of mulch and dirt this past weekend.

(Lucy looking for eggs in the new and improved garden!)

Lucy is thankful for:
1. Easter eggs (I was so glad she said something new... not that a repeat would have been bad, but I wasn't sure she totally was understanding what I was asking her and was just saying the people we often pray for)
2. Elmo (while we were talking I was opening a word document to write this down and it happened to have an elmo picture on it... so, guessing she just said that because she saw Elmo, but I actually think he is someone she really is thankful for... she loves that little guy).
3. Grandma and Grandpa