Teeth!

Nola is getting her top teeth in. It doesn't look very fun. It's so fortunate that we don't remember the pain of teething. Just imagining hard, white teeth bursting through tender, red gums causes my mouth to hurt. Kind of in the same way that my mouth hurts when I hear the twang of steel guitar in country music. That's what they played at my orthodontist. Since it was the only place I listened to country music for any meaningful amount of time, I now have a very painful memory association with that sound. Sorry, Country Music. You will never be my friend.

Yep, we're still doing it...

Warning: This post is a little graphic and a hair preachy.

In case you thought I would give up by now on this new, crazy, parenting technique...Nope. We're still going. Why? Because it honestly feels so natural and normal now. We went out to dinner recently and I noticed that she needed to go to the bathroom. So I swept her up quickly and off we went. I held her over the potty and she had a nice big poo. Later, while we were shopping, I needed to use the ladies room so I offered to let her go, too. After I was finished, I held her over the potty and she had a nice little pee.

We have passed the off ramps and there's no going back now. Now that Nola knows she can use the potty when she needs to poo, it feels a little strange of me to make her go in her pants. Can you imagine telling your newly potty trained three year old, "I'm sorry, but I don't have time to take you to a bathroom. Can you just poop your underwear?" I think we'd all agree that would be an unfortunate situation for all involved.

At this point, pee is still a different story. She pees WAAAAAY too much for me to get her to a potty every time, but little by little I've noticed her holding it longer. Today we went grocery shopping. She peed in her car potty before we went in, we shopped for about forty five minutes, and then she peed when we got back to the car. She also holds it more when she is being held, riding in her car seat, and just generally sitting up or standing. She pees the most when we are at home letting her play on the floor on her belly. I swear she pees every five minutes when we stay home all day. Any ideas why that would be?...

Remember, anyone can do this. I have no superpowers. I guess I'm just really into pretending I live in a third world country!

EC update

We are doing well with the pottying! I say "we" because it is definitely a joint effort. Nola still does not give any signals when she needs to go. At least, not that I recognize. But she seems to do really well with timing. Meaning that she goes almost every time the potty is offered. She has been doing so well today I let her wear some tiny undies while we are at home. As I write this, I had to clean up a tiny little "miss". But it's only the second miss today in a five hour stretch. That seems pretty good. She has not pooped in her diaper in over a week now. She uses the potty every time. So I think we may have that one pretty much conquered.

We have good days, and we have bad days. I never would have thought I would do this...but I'm actually really enjoying this process!

A Singer and a Mom

We were clapping and laughing and practically jumping up and down with excitement. We couldn’t believe this was happening!

Ryan and I were recently on the radio. We were on KOTK 1420 am Radio Luz, here in Omaha. It was quite an experience because it was entirely in Spanish. We sang two songs and were really looking forward to hearing ourselves on the actual RADIO!!! The program was pre-recorded so we were planning to listen together the following day. I got me and Nola all dressed and ready and we ended up meeting Ry at his parent’s house to listen. It was really exciting to hear our broken Spanish as the program began, and then hear our song start to play. Just as the song started, though, I noticed Nola starting to go to the bathroom. This was when I had just started taking her to the potty and I didn’t want to miss a possible success! So I rushed her to the potty just a hallway away from the radio and sat her on it. I could tell she was going to go so I called Ry and he came running in, too. We could still faintly hear our song playing on the radio, but we didn’t even care. Nola was going potty! We were so excited. She had never used the big potty before. So the whole time our song played, We were clapping and laughing and practically jumping up and down…for Nola pooping in the potty.

I hope that’s a recurring story in our lives. I hope whatever success we achieve with our music…I hope it just becomes the background music to the real story of us cheering on our kids.

A Little Update

It's gong surprisingly well! Just thought I'd let you all know. I think this time the process is going to stick. Today I took her out shopping and just brought her potty along. She went only once, but I offered every time we got in or out of the car. It sounds time consuming, but I feel it's worth it. She pooped twice this morning at home, and had a nice big poop before nap. This is awesome! Little by little I have less diapers to wash. I'm not sure I would've tried this if I hadn't had that motivational factor.

Oh, yeah. I bought her the smallest little undies I could find at Baby Gap today. I'm going to tailor them for her so when we're at home she doesn't have to be completely naked. I'm going to put a little soaker in them, too. Just big enough to catch one pee.

I'll keep you posted...Nola is going to love this when she turns sixteen. "Well, Sweetie, I never made you a cool scrapbook like the other moms. But I have a whole blog about your poop and pee!"