A Girl and Her Elephant-- 21 AND 22 Months

**Note** Partial to full nudity ahead...by the 22 month old, no one else.  Thank goodness!

I'm going to confess something and then forget I ever confessed and cover it up so "no one" knows.

I didn't take a 21 month Elephant picture with Sam.  I know, I know.  Sad day.  But, when I took one of her at 22 months old, I just did it in 2 different outfits, so I can claim one was 21 months and one was 22 months.  No one will ever know!

21 Months

22 Months

I thought it would be important to show Samantha as she has been the last several days: in just her new undies.  It really shows our life and her life right now.  I apologize if it offends anyone! :-)

Samantha has grown into a little girl (it feels like) overnight.  Some of her accomplishments as of late:

1) Potty Trained!!!  It took a week or so of staying home, but she's pretty good now.  I know there will be more accidents, but she's got it down for the most part.
2) She knows all her letters and can even sing her ABC's.  She often misses a few letters here and there, but the tune is there, which is pretty good too.
3) Other songs she knows and can often sing along with (but not on her own yet) are "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" Same tune, that helps!
4) She knows her name.  She calls herself Sam, Sammie, and Manta.
5) She puts sentences together all the time now.  Most of the time, they are in the form of "I want..." so we've got "I want some dinner/noodles/etc." "I want to try it" "Manta do it" (not a complete sentence, I know, but we give it to her) etc.
6) She's pretty concerned with emotions.  Everything is "sad" as that is the only emotion she knows.  If someone's crying, they are sad, if she sees something scary, she gets sad.  It's pretty sweet, because that's usually the only time she'll give hugs and kisses.  So, she's learning some sympathy.
7) 3 new teeth.  She almost has all her teeth now, just in time for her to turn 2 and get the 2 year molars.
8) Her hair is finally long enough to put it in a "ponytail."  See picture to follow.
9) She has become VERY independent.  Terrible two's in that sense has come a little early.  The only way I can get her to do things is to ask is she'd rather do it by herself or if she'd rather I do it.  She almost always wants to do it herself, even if I still do everything for her...if she thinks she's doing it herself, everyone's happier.  Things she can do herself are put on her boots, zip up her jacket, climb into her car seat, buckle herself into her high chair, etc.  It makes my life a little easier in most ways.  Though, it is hard to be patient enough sometimes!
10) She likes to clean up after herself.  I've been trying to get her to clean up her toys before naptime and bedtime and she's gotten very compliant.  She also likes to wipe up messes, which didn't make the "punishment" of cleaning up after an accident very effective.

We took swim lessons in September.  She had a love/hate relationship with it.  

Just being cute. 

Her first owie needing a bandaid. 

First time with a "ponytail."

Ice cream date with mom after getting her shots. 

Samantha and the baby we babysit on Thursdays.  Her mom and I made the tutus and bows together. Aren't they adorable!

Halloween trick-or-treating at the mall.  

Halloween party at our local Tuscany Club.  I've got a cute family!

Potty Training Day #6

It's been 6 days, and I'm pretty confident that Samantha has potty training down.  Yes, she'll most likely have more accidents in her little life, and I have a good feeling she might have a hard time going in public restrooms and such, but as for here and now at home, she's pretty good.

One thing I have learned, is she is much less stressed if I'm not in the room with her.  She'll tell me she has to go every time and I'll help her in the room, but then I have to find an excuse to leave her.  Usually that means I have to go get her something, like a chocolate chip... If Derek or I am in the room with her, she won't go.  So, that was a good thing to find out.

As for today, she has gone twice in the potty and had 1 accident, but I blame myself for the accident.  She was in her high chair and said she needed to go but I wasn't quick enough, because I thought I might have enough time to get her cleaned up before she went.  I was wrong.  It was my fault.

I'm very excited to have a potty trained kid!

The next step will be to leave the house more.  It might be kind of hard since she likes to be left alone, but I won't really be able to in public.  Plus, she's using her own potty and it's a hassle to haul one around.  I'm afraid she won't use a big potty.  She gets a little scared of falling in, and I can't blame her, because I'm kind of afraid of it too with her being so little.

Anyway, I appreciate your kind words of encouragement, as that was (and I'm sure I'll still have my days) one of the hardest things I've done.  I'm sure it was one of the hardest things Samantha has done as well.  It was stressful in the beginning, but it has paid off.

Potty Training Day #2

I'd say today was MUCH better than yesterday.  3 successes, 1 accident (wait, now 2...daddy came home and she had one for him).

First of all, she gets it.  She knows when she's about to pee and she knows when she's peeing, and a lot of the time, she'll stop peeing after a drop or two and hold it.  THAT is what I'd call success.  I feel validated in the knowledge that I didn't start her too early in that sense.  She totally, totally gets it.  Does she want to go in the potty?  Not so much.  So maybe it's a little too early for her in that sense.  Only time will tell, I guess.

I wanted to be consistent and I wanted to keep going today, but I realized that some of the way that we did it yesterday just wasn't working.  Sam's not really into rewards or consequences.  They don't seem to work as a motivator for her, but I really wanted her to have success today since it had been so long since the last one from yesterday.  So, this morning she spent most of her time naked and we were in the bathroom.  I wanted it to be so close that she could get there and get a significant amount in potty.  She had a lot of juice and she was dancing around like it was super hard for her to hold it.  Eventually, she sat on the potty and even though it kind of stressed her out, she went for a long time!  I didn't make a big deal about it (when I do, she gets a little freaked out) but just kept whispering that I was proud of her and good job, and other acknowledgements.  The smile she got on her face was priceless.  I may or may not have teared up a little.  After the fact, well, then we did the big celebration.  I threw her in the air (she loved that) and I made a MUCH bigger deal about it than yesterday because I felt like it was an actual accomplishment because she didn't really want to do it, but she did it anyway.  After that, I gave her a sticker book and we played with that for about an hour.  She had 2 more successes before her accident, but we had to be in the bathroom the whole time to get the successes.  One of the reasons we had the accident was because I was kind of done in the bathroom and wanted to see what would happen.

After her nap, I thought it might be a good idea to take a couple hours off.  For her sanity as well as mine.

Right after dinner, I tried taking her in the bathroom again and we stayed there for about 30 minutes.  Nothing.  I went upstairs to give Derek a turn (aren't I so nice) and she had another accident.

Overall, I'd say SUCCESS.  She's a pretty stubborn little girl, so it might take longer than I had anticipated for her to really want to do it.  She knows how, it's just a matter of getting her to want to.  It's been hard trying to figure out how to do that, as the rewards don't really seem to make much of a difference.  Yeah, she likes getting candy after going or whatever, but it's not really a motivator for her to do it the next time.  So, I don't know.  We'll just keep on keeping on and see where it takes us.  If we do end up taking a break for awhile, I don't have to feel like I started too early, because the kid's ready. I'll stick by that until I die.  We just have to get her to want to do it!!!

Potty Training

For those of you who care, and believe me, it will NOT hurt my feelings if you don't, today was Day 1 of potty training Samantha.  She will be 22 months on the 9th, but I've had a feeling that she's been ready since she was about 17 months.  I just wasn't ready.  But since 17 months, she's spent a lot of time sitting on the potty (when I wasn't too lazy, I'd put her on the toilet without clothes and she went on the potty 3-5 times), listening and talking potty talk, learning words, and even telling me when she was peeing or pooing in her diaper.  I was impressed, but certainly not ready to do anything about it.  It was the summer and I didn't want to spend all this time inside when it was beautiful, so we waited.

It's cold outside now, so I thought, when would be a better time? Holidays are coming, but I have enough time before then to get this done; plus, I wanted a lot of time before baby #2 comes in February.

This morning was a little hectic.  We started after breakfast.  The very first time I put her on the potty, she went!!!  We did a celebration dance (there's a song that I found on youtube that's awesome) and she got to put a popsicle stick in the potty jar.  We set the timer for 10 minutes, drank lots of juice, and waited.  Accident.  That's fine.  We did our accident routine and reset the timer.  She stayed dry for 10 minutes, so I gave her a chocolate chip, put her on the potty and she went!!!  We did a celebration dance and she put a popsicle stick in the potty jar.  10 more minutes and more juice.  Accident.  Accident routine.  Timer.  Within 2 minutes she'd had another accident.  Then another.  Even after her having to get cleaned up every time (including getting in the shower in which I didn't quite wait for the water to get warm...).  I don't know if she was testing me to see if the same thing would happen every time, but it was a little crazy. The next 2 times she had an accident, she told me, stopped and we were able to go the rest of the time on the potty.  So we celebrated and put popsicle sticks in the potty jar.  I wasn't about to "punish" her for telling me and holding it (ish) long enough to put the rest in the potty. She had one more potty success and one more accident and the last accident was a doozy.  We had just been on the potty for about 20 minutes (I pulled out the iPad to get her to stay on!) and nothing.  It was almost time for nap and I was going to put a pull-up on her (she usually poos as she's waking up from her nap so I didn't want to risk it) but I wanted to change the laundry really fast.  Of course, in that 1 minute of time, after the 20 minutes on the potty, she climbed on our couch, and peed everywhere!!!  It was the biggest accident or success of the whole day!

After cleaning and putting her down for a nap, I took a little nap myself.  I slept for about an hour, she slept for 2.5.  She was exhausted!

The afternoon was a little less dramatic.  She never had a success on the potty and she only had 2 accidents, but they were the only-have-to-wash-the-undies kind.  She was able to stop before it was a huge mess.

I feel like it been a little bit of a regression.  Well, I feel like she was excited about the whole potty training idea at first.  Sitting on the potty was new and exciting and so was wetting herself.  Once that wore off, nothing.  I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.

There were a couple times that she told me she had to go pee, but once we got there, nothing.  I guess that's good too.

Anyway, if anyone has any encouraging thoughts or tips, I'd be happy to hear them.  Today was hard.  As I told a friend, I knew it was going to be hard, but I knew Sam was smart, and ready, and awesome so I thought maybe it wouldn't be that hard.  But, I was reminded quite quickly that even though Sam is all of those things, she is also a stubborn, tantruming, almost 2 year old.  So, it was quite hard.  I'm hoping tomorrow is better.  I'm really hoping.  Like really.  Really, really.