Potty debacle

Shortly before Emily was born I bought Kyle one of those cute little potty chairs that converts into a step stool once kids begin using the regular toilet. After I found that a Styrofoam eating monster had bitten a chunk out of the foam cushion I decided maybe one of those seats that you set onto the regular toilet seat might discourage further PICA like behavior.  He used to use it every once in a while, but lately any time I try to coax him to try and use the potty like a big boy he acts like the stupid things burns his bottom, crying and screaming “No No No, I don’t want it!” My bag of tricks was quickly becoming useless as one by one they well, became useless. It was time to break out the big guns, a.k.a the “Big Boy Box”.

This morning after I changed his diaper and he got dressed I showed him the Big Boy Box, which is filled with little goodies to entice him to use the potty, things like snack packs of cookies and graham crackers, some match box cars, and a fake snake and spider. Not quite sure how his little 2 ½ year old mind would understand a token reward system, I decided to ease him into it with some immediate gratification so I told him that if he peed in the potty and not in his diaper he could have some of the cookies and if he pooped in the potty that he could pick one of the cars. He immediately ran to the bathroom, stripped off his pants and diaper and tried to pee. He eventually managed to squeeze out a couple of drops, proclaiming “Yay Dyle, I did it!” as he ran to the kitchen to point at the BBB which I had placed on top of a cupboard. You can imagine the site of the half naked little man excited jumping up and down, chanting “tookies, tookies, tookies.” Being a mama of my word, I handed him a couple of the cookies and gave him a high five for being a big boy, and then sat down to play with Emily. 

Maybe 10 minutes later I realized that my house was unnaturally quite and called for Kyle. A slightly muffled “what” floated down the hall from the direction of the bathroom, where I found Kyle sitting on the toilet, trying to earn some more tookies. “Can’t get it” he grunted when I asked him what he was doing. I helped him get redressed and told him it was ok, and that he could try again later. The next couple hours where like a bad imitation of a scene from the movie “Groundhog’s Day” with Bill Murray.  As I followed the little Mister into the bathroom for the 209^th time in 30 minutes, I think he decided that maybe if he had some privacy while he was in the bathroom that he might have some more success, and so he began slamming the door in my face, and yelling “No Mama”. On second thought, maybe potty training is over rated.

Apples and Pumpkins

While I am not huge on making New Year’s resolutions, apparently my baby girl is. On Thanksgiving we gave Emmie her first taste of solid food ~ a festive blend of apples, cranberries and squash. It did not go over so well. The next food was peas. Again, she was not impressed. In all of the wisdom gained from months of trying every type of baby food available when Kyle was a baby, I decided to save a lot of money  time and put Emily on a baby food hiatus until January. So with half-hearted hope, I decided to give it another try. And honestly,  after 8 months of being on a liquid diet, who can blame a girl for wanting some real food? Apples and pumpkin was the ticket, and we went from this:

 to this:

This time around peas were also a success, with Kristen reporting that Emily ate them like a champ. Spinach and Potatoes were not quite as well liked. I have found ways to sneak spinach into Kyle’s blueberry muffins, and since I consider myself to be an equal opportunity food deceptor, I found a way to fool Emmie into eating it as well. First I scoop the spinach onto the spoon, and then cover it with a scoop of carrots. Instead of me having to pry her mouth open, or trick her into smiling or laughing so I can quickly slip the spoon into her mouth, Emily saw the orange carrots on her spoon and willing opened wide. And so the life long skill of trickery has begun.

A Sad Day

Today we said good-bye to Pampers Swaddlers . There is something so precious about these soft little baby scented dipes that I just couldn’t make myself say goodbye until now. The move from Swaddlers to Cruisers should be made into a developmental milestone. It marks the transition between helpless-little-precious babies to on-the-move-gonna-eat-everything-I-can-fit-into-my-mouth babies. Heavy sigh RIP Swaddlers.