A couple new pics.

Two of the pics are self explanatory, but I wanted to explain the other two. The kids are eating their snack in the closet because the tornado sirens went off. It was a cozy afternoon, especially when I got in there with them. Also, Kadyn tried to tatoo her belly button with a pen. That was lovely!

She's clever!

Kadyn has started something new that is so clever and it has taken me a little while to figure out how to work around it. She really is doing so well with the potty training. Saturday she even had a entire day where she stayed dry. The day after she only had one accident while she was outside playing (understandable and expected). Then yesterday she only had two accidents, both were on the naughty spot while she was serving her time. She told me she had to go as soon as I put her on it. Naaa, I thought, she just wants to get out of serving her punishment. Turns out she went on the naughty spot. So I wondered if it was just a coincidence that she had to go every time I put her on the naughty spot or if she was just saying that to get out of serving her time. If I didn't let her go, I think she would purposefully go in her panties.

As the day went on I found out it was the later of the two theories. Every time she got in trouble she suddenly had to go to the bathroom. Because I didn't want her to go in her panties I decided the best way to deal with it was to let her go and then make her go back to the naughty spot and finish her time. My only issue now is whether or not she really remembers why she was there in the first place. Sure I can remind her, but I'm not sure it's soaking in. She's so clever!

Saturday we went to the park and flew kites. Kadyn loved it! The first 5 minutes were rough. She chased me through the park crying because I wouldn't let her hold the kite, but I wanted to get it up in the air first. It really was humorous. I was surprised she could hold that kite all by herself. Kites are made so much better than they used to be. Hers was just the right size for her.

Jeff and I had a good hee haw this morning. Apparently in the middle of the night last night I woke up briefly and shook his arm and said, "Don't fall off, don't fall off!" For some weird reason I thought he was going to fall off the bed. Perhaps my fears of Kadyn falling off the bed transfered to Jeff? I immediately went back to sleep. I do remember doing it, but I'm not sure why I did it. I forgot I did it until he reminded me this morning.

Well there's our new news from last week. Toodles for now. Pictures will be coming soon!

Still doing well

Kadyn is still doing very well with potty training. Yesterday she had a total of 3 accidents, only one of which she didn't tell me about immediately following. Today she had two accidents, both were poopy accidents. I think the poop thing will be a bit harder. The first one really wasn't her fault because she was strapped down to a highchair for her snack and I was in another room changing the baby. Needless to say, I am very pleased with her progress.

For the past two weeks she has really been fighting going down for the night. For the past two weeks she has really been fighting every step of our routine to get to bed. She would throw little fits and procrastinate. She even pretended she had to pee on the potty for what seemed like eternity. Then, last night she laid in bed for almost an hour and a half chattering and whimpering occasionally until she finally fell asleep. I felt like perhaps she just isn't needing as much sleep as she used to. So tonight with the later bedtime things went much better. She wasn't nearly as resistant and much more pleasant to put down. I still hear her singing as I type this in her room, so we'll see how long it takes her to actually fall asleep.....5 minutes later, silence.

After her bath this evening she started making up a song. Most of it was jibberish, but I caught a few words. The weird thing is that it actually had real notes and a structure that would repeat. I think perhaps she is going to have some musical talent when she grows up. That's so exciting.

Tonight when we said our prayers she expressed an interest in saying a little prayer of her own. For the first time I could actually understand some of what she said to Jesus. She thanked him at least three times for her friends Nam, Whoa, and KoKo (Liam, Will, Kendall). She also thanked him for books. It was oh so sweet and it gave me warm tingles to know I am getting through to her the concept of a relationship with Christ.

We are less than two weeks into Kadyn being two and I am just loving this age. Sure it has its challenges, but everyday she just seems so much more endearing and adorable. How did I get this lucky? Thankyou Lord for my sweet little girl. I am so blessed.

Try number one.

Huge strides of progress.

Just an update on my monstrosity of a blog post last time, Kadyn has made leaps of improvement. She had two half accidents this morning; I say half accidents because she started to go and then realized what she was doing and stopped and told me so she could finish in the potty. She has had a dry day ever since, telling us every time she has to go.

My favorite memories of the day and this whole process now include when she went poop and would have to stand up after each turd to take a look and then sit down to do the next. I also about melted when she hugged me as I was helping her put her panties back on and said, "Tank too (thankyou) for help mommy!" Each time she has told me she has to go, I grab her hand and say, "Hurry, hurry, we don't want to pee in our panties." I guess she caught on because the last few times she's been the one running to the bathroom saying "hurry, hurry!" And my all time favorite, weird yes, but so endearing....she loves to wrap her arms around me and kisses and hugs me while she's going. As long as it works, it's OK by me. My little girl is so bright. I love her so much am so proud of her right now. Sorry I have to brag! I'm sure there will be accidents to come, but we are well on our way.

We've begun!

This entry is bound to be lengthy. My apologies. This is also not for the squeamish. We've begun potty training! I had no plans to begin this soon but it just kind of happened on a whim and based on Kadyn's cues. The first day I did panties only and I must have cleaned a gazillion puddles off the floor. I could tell Kadyn felt awkward about going on the potty because a few times she stood up halfway off of the potty and let it go on the floor instead. My favorite was when I was cleaning up my dog's puddle while Kadyn was busy making a puddle with a few turds of her own beside her potty. Not using pullups was really giving her a full experience of wetting herself and she didn't like it much. She got really good the first day of telling me immediately after it happened or during but never before. So... most of it ended up on the floor and we probably went through a dozen outfit changes if not more.

She did manage to go on the potty two times. Once because she sat on it forever just for the sheer enjoyment and newness of it and the second time was only because I caught her in the act half way through and rushed her to it. She tried to add more to it and convinced herself everytime she got up that it was new pee and exclaimed, "I peed" with her nose about 3 inches from it. Very cute!

Day two by midmorning we had one accident. I asked her shortly after if she needed to go and she said yes. I did not know she had just finished pooping in her panties which is why she said yes and she did actually still needed to pee. I pulled down her panties to put her on the potty and three poop balls roll out on the floor and she starts to pee. Brutus, our dog, takes off with one. I got upset, which upset Kadyn, and ran after Brutus. Rescued the poop ball out of his mouth and then proceeded to clean up the rest of the pee that started to come out of her before I was able to get her on the potty. Are you laughing yet?

That inspired me to take my mom's advice and try something different; I knew if I had to clean up this many messes for too much longer I would get burnt out really quick. I caved and bought pullups, cloth training pants, and vinyl covers. Started with the pullups (the kind that get cold). That totally didn't work. She didn't even tell me when she wet in them which she did so well with the day before when she was wearing regular panties. Next I put her in the cloth training pants with the vinyl cover. That didn't work either. She wet in them and never told me, although it didn't leak. So finally I just put her in the cloth training pants without the vinyl cover and without pants. This time when she peed she told me during so I whisked her to the potty and let her finish on the potty. I gave her a chocolate egg as a reward and she was so excited. I let her do the honors of flushing it down the toilet and saying bye bye to it. Even though she starting peeing in the training panties they did not leak on the floor.

10 minutes later she says to me "poo" (we're still learning the difference between poo and pee).
So I whisk her off to the potty again and she pees again this time without wetting her training panties at all. I COULDN'T believe it! She was once again excited for her reward and to get the opportunity to flush it. All my fears about this being too early to train her just went out the window. Maybe she can do this. I know tomorrow will bring more accidents but at least I know if she did it once surely it can happen again.

My plan now is to only use the cloth diapers without a cover and without pants during the day, use them with a cover when we're out in public so we don't leak (FYI they didn't leak down her leg without the pants but they would probably get the pants wet if she had them on) and to use pull ups only at night while she's sleeping so she will stay dry and not get diaper rash. I'm going to save so much money on diapers. Yee haw!

I have decided not to night train her just yet. I'm going to postpone that for quite awhile. I don't think she would wake when she feels the urge to pee which would mean a lot of wet sheets to clean for me. Of course if she starts asking to pee in the middle of the night I won't discourage that. For now, I'm just happy to be seeing progress with what I'm doing. I don't expect we'll be done training anytime soon, but at least I know she can do it. Go Kadyn!

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