Potty Training Funnies

Potty training definitely is not easy, but there are so many funny things that have happened.  Tacy cracks me up all the time as it is and potty training just makes life funnier (and harder, more stressful...).  

So Tacy is a big fan of Dora the Explorer.  She requests to watch this show every morning (I let her watch some if we have time weekday mornings, but usually she watches Dora on Saturday mornings before we run errands).  Well, Dora has quite a few phrases that Tacy loves to say, like "Swiper no swipee!" and "We did it!"  Tacy says these a lot while playing and talking to herself (so funny to here all the times and places she throws the "swiper no swipee" phrase into).

Well as part of potty training, we try to emphasize how awesome it is when she goes potty in the toilet.  So I always tell her "You did it!"  Tacy loves to say "I did it" when she goes potty and usually starts to dance too (Dora dances while singing "we did it" at the end of every show).  Tacy is really cute how excited she gets when she goes potty and gives Brad and I high fives and makes sure we both know she went.  Today we had the sister missionaries over for dinner.  During dinner Tacy told me she needed to go potty.  So I took her into the bathroom and she went poop (this is a big deal because she is great at going pee pee in the toilet but this is only the second time she has pooped in the potty).  Needless to say, Tacy and I were pretty excited (I think she was also a little shocked at first).  So after flushing and washing her hands, Tacy ran out of the bathroom shouting "I went poop in toilet!!!" and Started dancing in the kitchen while singing "I did it!"  I'm sure the sisters were not expecting such an announcement and dance but we all laughed and told her good job.

Our happy faces after a 'no accident' day.  Today was our second! Yay!

Tacy loves to be in the bathroom with me when I need to go potty.  Before Brad and I would always tell her we were going potty to try to show her that we went and so she should to (back when she refused to sit on the toilet because she did not want to).  However, Tacy can be quite clingy and likes to know where I am, so I tell her when I go potty and then she runs in with me sometimes.  Oh well.  Well this morning she started clapping and told me "Great!" when I went potty.  ha ha it made me laugh so hard.  It was adorable even if I would prefer to go to the bathroom alone and not have an audience.  

The week has slowly gotten better each day with potty training.  Tacy now makes it to the potty almost every time to go pee pee, she is dry after every nap (she still wears a pull-up or diaper over her underwear just in case when she sleeps, which is a must for night because she pees and does not wake up at all even though pull ups over wet undies do not hide the wetness), and she is good at saying when she needs to go potty.  With today being Saturday, we had errands to run.  I was a little nervous about going places and making it to the potty if she had to go.  Well we would wait to leave until after she went potty to try to help.  In the afternoon, Tacy and I went to Carters to get her summer jammies and she started holding herself and doing a potty dance.  I asked her if she needed to go and she said no.  But as soon as we were walking out of the store she announced that she needed to go.  So I picked her up and ran into TJ-Max which was right next door.  I walked as fast as I could to the bathrooms all the way at the back of the store.  And guess what?  We made it!  I was so happy and proud of her.  She also had no problem going potty on a big seat (we had no time to set up her little seat on top).  Thank goodness.  I feel like we can go places after that.  

Playing with one of her potty training dollar prizes.  She love bubbles!

I'm still a little nervous about church tomorrow and long car rides.  Seriously, before potty training, well and even the beginning of this week, Tacy only went potty like 3-4 times a day.  Today I think she went potty 7-8 times, and sometimes it felt like she went within 30 minutes of the last time.  It makes me wonder if as soon as she feels a little pressure she just announces she needs to go.  That can make life really interesting when we are hoping to drive 2.5 hours to the beach next week...or the week after when we have to drive 1.5 hours to the zoo.  

I'm hoping next week I can start letting her only sleep in underwear at night and get her potty trained for night time.  I'm not looking forward to it because I love to sleep and waking up to clean up a wet bed does not sound fun, but we got to do it sometime.  The past few nights I have stopped letting her have water at bedtime and she has gone from whinning to telling me ok, so progress.  

I still think diapers are easier, but I'm so proud of Tacy and I swear she is morphing into a big kid before my eyes.  I swear she has grown the past week and no longer looks at all like a baby or little toddler.  The fact that I considered getting her 4T shirts scares me a little (seriously, where has my baby gone?!).  

Can I Get Some Prozac?

Haha sometimes I have a little too much fun naming these posts.  This weekend Brad and I both had Good Friday off (thank you Bible Belt) so I decided I would use this 3 day weekend to potty train Tacy.  I read up on blogs, talked to my mom, etc to try and prepare myself.  Brad had gotten invited to go the beach with a couple different friends from school (by invited I mean our whole family was invited) and while that would have been fun, I knew I really needed to potty train.  So I put fun aside and put on my mommy jeans.  

We did kick off the weekend by going shopping for Tacy.  Every spring and fall we have to buy her new shoes and clothes because she has outgrown her shoes/clothes and it's a new season.  So we bought her some shorts and t-shirts.  I did look at some shoes, but I'm so cheap and seriously, she grows out of them so fast so I'm just going to get her some sandals at Walmart and hopefully find some good new church shoes for her and call it good because spending $10 or less on shoes is much better than $25.  After the shopping we went and watched Cinderella.  I figured this was good movie to take Tacy to see since she LOVES princesses.  I was a little worried about how she would handle a movie theatre and sitting still in one seat, but we got popcorn and she did pretty good.  It was disappointing that 11 was the earliest movie we could find. So the movie pushed her nap back, which led her to be a little tired.  She was so excited by Frozen Fever (we hadn't told her she would see Anna and Elsa).  Frozen Fever was really cute and funny.  I let Tacy wear her Elsa dress to the theatre too.  She got a little scared when Cinderella started, not because of the movie itself but because of the dark theatre from the dimming house lights.  But she sat on her seat for half the movie and then sat on my lap the rest of the time.  She says she loved the movie.  I thought it was really good.  As soon as the movie was over Tacy asked to go home and have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with strawberries.  Ha ha my sweet girl is easy to please.  But she passed out in the car and was taken right to bed.  When you ask her about Cinderella she will tell you "Cinderella mom broke shoe!" or "Cinderella mom broke dress!"  Apparently the evil step mother really stuck with Tacy so we keep talking about the importance of being nice to people (courageous and kind is a little over her cute head right now). 

After her nap I took off Tacy's diaper and let her be in the kitchen naked from the waist down.  Tacy thought it was a little wierd but was okay with it after a while.  We played games (thank goodness for the games/toys my mom sent her for easter).  I kept trying to ask her if she needed to go potty, and we sat on the potty but she never went and then all of a sudden she had an accident.  She was so confused and kept trying to back away from the wetness.  It was pretty funny because she was oblivious to the fact that she was peeing and causing the wetness.  Oh well.  That was Friday.

Saturday Tacy and I camped out in the kitchen ALL day.  She wore underwear (I showed her her Frozen underwear in hopes that she would be motivated to stay dry to keep wearing Anna and Elsa).  Brad ran all our grocery errands alone while Tacy and I played in the kitchen, kept sitting on the potty, and I kept trying to get that girl to drink water.  Well she had 3.5 accidents which made for lots of cleaning up.  While it was a lot, she started getting better at recognizing that she was going and running in the direction of the potty.  We have a bathroom right next to the kitchen and I brought her little potty down into the kitchen as well.  But she did manage to make it to the potty twice.  It's amazing how happy I felt when she did.  I was so excited and proud of her.  She would also look at me and look so overjoyed.  She would say "Momma I did it!" We would then sing a little Dora, high five, and hug.  Then she got a treat and to put a sticker on her chart.  For her nap and bedtime she wore a diaper.  When she went to bed I was exhausted.  It had been a long day in the kitchen.  So I ran to Target to get more underwear and walked over to Cook Out to get a shake.  The fresh air felt so nice (sad that we had such good weather for the weekend and I was inside the whole time).

reading Daddy's PA journal, just some light bathroom reading

Sunday, Tacy got right into her underwear again.  While I was showering/getting ready, she told Daddy that she needed to go potty and went!  That made me so happy because she didn't forget everything we had done the day before!  We let her go in the living room.  She took her nap in her underwear.  Everything was going great except she kept insisting she didn't need to go or would only sit on the potty for a second then wiggle off saying she couldn't go.  So disappointing.  I kept catching her holding her bum and trying to get her to sit on the potty but she insisted she did not need to go and would fight me.  Needless to say she had 2 accidents.  Brad kept looking at me and asking if I wanted to put her in a diaper, and as much as I wanted to give in and do it, I said no.  That was my weekend.  I felt like we would take one step forward and then 2 back.  My mom told me that this is normal.  But goodness, it is hard on me.  I feel like I understand depression now, because I would be so happy and feel it was all worth it when she made it to the potty but would be so sad, down, and ready to give up when she wouldn't make it and would fight me.  

I am glad it was conference weekend so that while potty training I was able to listen to some wonderful talks about family.  I can't say I remember a lot of what I heard because Tacy takes up a lot of my attention, but I was grateful for the bit I did hear.  I am grateful for youtube and that even though we don't have BYU tv we can still watch General Conference live on Youtube or through lds.org.  

Tacy wanted to take a picture of General Conference

We did have funny times during the weekend.  Tacy did have a little easter egg hunt inside Sunday morning.  She was adorable and would put her hands on the side of her face to help her look better when we told her that we still saw eggs.  She got some candy from the dollar store, change (she loves money and put all the change in her piggy bank to "save for later") and some Ariel underwear.  The true meaning of Easter was a little hard for her to understand since she does not understand death.  We did watch Because He Lives video on Monday for FHE.  She loves Jesus but was sad when she saw Him getting hurt and hung on the cross.  My sweet and tender girl.  

I love when people say that diapers make it easier for the kids.  That might be true, but I think diapers are easier for parents.  It is so much easier to not have to worry about accidents, to be able to run errands without worrying about potties and what to do if she has an accident.  This morning I had to pack extra underwear and clothes for her to take to my friend's house.  I also put a towel in her car seat.  I told my parents that potty training is great birth control.  We will get through this....one way or another.  My mom told me to "be patient and wait".  Haha, not near as nice as "Have courage and be kind".

making jewelry!