Stubborn Streak

I started potty training Cailyn on Sunday, using the same 3-day-potty-training method that I used with Rylee. Cailyn was SUPER excited about wearing panties and sitting on her Dora potty ring - in fact every time I changed her diaper after we bought her panties until I started training her 2 days later, she whined "No diaper! Dora panties!"

The first two days went pretty well - especially Day 2! Even though she only went to the bathroom 3 times that day (I have discovered that she has AMAZING bladder control!), she always made it to the toilet and was very excited about getting stickers and treats as rewards for going potty.

Today, however, proved to be a challenge. Cailyn decided initiate a power struggle. With this method, you never force your child to sit and "try" going potty; instead, the goal is to get her to recognize her body's signals that she needs to go potty and only put her on the toilet when she actually needs to go (this means that I have to catch her in the act), so we've been joined at the hip and I've asked about a million times in the last 3 days if her panties are still dry, cheered wildly every time she said yes, then reminded her to tell me when she needs to go potty. The first two days, Cailyn was totally excited about telling me her panties were dry, and would cheer with me - "Yee Haw!", "Wow, Amazing!", and "Woo Hoo!" are her favorite cheering phrases. But today, she started telling me "no" when I asked if her panties were dry - even though they were! She did go pee in the toilet once in the morning, but then had an accident. When I put her down for her nap, she kept whining "Dora Potty!" because she knew that if she told me she needed to go potty I would get her out of her crib. She did this a few times and sat on the toilet for about 20 seconds each time without doing anything. About a minute after the last time she sat on the toilet, she yelled from her room "Wet bed!" The little stinker knew that I would have to get her out of bed to change the sheets. So I quickly changed them, took away everything wet - including her beloved purple blankie - and left her to fall asleep. That was at 1:30.

She woke up dry around 4. I pumped her full of liquid, but she refused to go potty all afternoon. I even started cheering, getting stickers and candy for myself every time I went to the bathroom. When she asked for her own treats I told her she could have them when she went potty. She said no.
Around 7:30 I started giving her as many popsicles as she could eat, figuring at some point she would hit breaking and go potty before it was bed time. I was wrong. Even taking her purple blankie away (I couldn't see her panties to know if she was starting to pee with it wrapped around her body) and telling her she could have it back after she went potty didn't work!
Finally, a little after 8, I came up with a solution. I bought a Dora backpack - not with pictures of Dora, but Dora's actual purple backpack complete with map in the pocket - a while back with the intention of using it as Cailyn's "Big Girl Bag" (with extra panties, etc.) for going places after she was potty trained. I pulled it out of the closet and showed it to Cailyn, and her face immediately lit up! I told her she could have it if she would go potty. And that did it!

Just to remind you, she held her bladder from 1:30 until 8:30 tonight!
(How I wish I had that kind of control!)

In Rylee's words: "This is awesome!"

And she got a Halloween Treat, too.

Dear Cailyn,

You may be stubborn, but just remember: the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree and two can play at this game!

Love, Mommy

Long Overdue (Read First)

So...we've had an abnormally busy few weeks! This is the first chance I've really had in a few weeks to update my blog. Here's the latest on us:We've been enjoying lots of nice weather lately, and Rylee loves to take advantage of the sun by blowing lots of bubbles.

She also got her second haircut a couple weeks ago...we're still working on getting the hair on top of her head to grow out to even up with the rest of her hair! It's coming along slowly, but surely. We went to Cookie Cutters again where she sat in the airplane chair, got to blow bubbles, watch Elmo, and then got a balloon and sucker afterwards. She talked about her "hair cut" for quite a while afterwards.

Now, for a potty update...Rylee's doing GREAT!!! Here's her first attempt at putting her panties on by her self (or as she says, "Rylee self!")
She got the pee thing down pretty quickly, but took slightly longer with the poop. So we bought her a doll as incentive and made a chart...she got a sticker each time she went number 2 on the toilet...

and after three stickers she got her doll!

I guess she decided to crown herself the potty princess...

We are currently in San Diego...Quinn's mom's family is having a reunion here starting tomorrow (we rented a condo on the beach, which is AMAZING!!!) We came down a little early, and Rylee kept her panties dry for the ENTIRE car ride from Utah to San Diego! What a big girl! I am so proud of her! This picture was taken at one of our potty stops on the drive. Her Grandma Mac (who flew out for her uncle's funeral and then drove back with the girls and I)bought her a Cinderella and Belle tattoo from a little quarter machine and we put it on her tummy.

(Speaking of Rylee's Grandma Mac, we taught Rylee to distinguish between her Grandma and Great-Grandma by saying "Grandma Mac" and "Grandma Clawson" since we have been around both of them a lot lately. It's pretty cute - she calls them "Mama" Mac or Clawson, as appropriate.)

Little Miss Cailyn Del continues to learn and grow. She started rolling from her back to her tummy about 2 weeks ago. Oh, and I think that she's double jointed! That girl has some serious flexibility in her shoulders!

She is getting pretty good at sitting up! She still topples now and then, but is getting better and better.

She discovered her tongue last Friday night and enjoys sticking it out. (She also discovered her toes right about the same time.)

Yesterday we went to Disneyland! It was Quinn's parents, our family, and Katie, Josh and Ava. Grandma and Grandpa Mac bought the cutest little dresses for Rylee and Ava - Rylee was Tinkerbell and Ava was Sleeping Beauty.

Here's Tinkerbell riding into the park on Daddy's shoulders.

The whole gang

In front of some beautiful flowers...this is one of my favorite parts of Disneyland! The flowers are so beautiful - I think they make it feel like you are in a story book.

OMG!!! ANNOYING!!! This blog site is having issues...for some reason it put the pictures that I uploaded into several different posts. I am too tired to mess with it, so I am just going to make a bunch of little posts right now that are really meant to be one big post...so here goes...

Three Days

Last Sunday I was talking to a mom at church who has a little girl in nursery with Rylee. She was telling me about this 3 day potty training method that she used and said how great it was! I kind of introduced Rylee to the idea of using the potty a few months ago, but she just never really seemed that into it, so I didn't really push it. But I decided to give this a try, and it worked! I'm so proud of Rylee, she's done so well - she only had a few accidents during the 3 days (Thursday-Saturday) and didn't have ANY accidents today - even at church! Yay for having only one kiddo in diapers!

So here's the basic gist of how it worked. On Thursday morning I took off her diaper and put on panties and talked to her about what a big girl she is. Then we went and found all of her diapers and she threw them away. (Later that night when she was talking to Quinn about it, she was so excited about being a big girl that she even took two of her binks and threw them away! She said she was going to sleep without them, but when bedtime came around she wound up wanting a bink...) Then Rylee and I were basically attached at the hip for the next three days. The idea is to never force her to sit on the toilet - "trying" to go potty is a no-no - but to help her recognize her body's signs that she needs to go. So I spent three days saying "Tell mommy when you have to go potty, OK?" and "Are your panties still dry? Yay! What a big girl!" The reason that we were attached at the hip is that I had to catch her in the act of having an accident - whenever she started to go, I picked her up and ran to the bathroom and let her finish on the potty (like I said, this only happened a few times - most of the time she told me that she had to go "potty pee!") So I tried to find activities to keep Rylee entertained that would also allow me to keep a close eye on her. We made brownies (I wound up eating about half the pan by myself before I took the rest to the neighbors so that I couldn't finish the pan!) As you can see in all of the pictures below, Rylee didn't wear pants, just a shirt and panties for the training process, which allowed me to see as soon as she started going...We also made popsicles...this served a double purpose:

1) it was an activity that Rylee enjoyed and

2) she was supposed to drink lots of liquid to give lots of teaching opportunities...she got tired of me always trying to shove drinks down her throat.

Another major part of the training is that it's cold turkey - no diapers of any kind, even at night and during naps! Rylee made it through all of her naps dry, but the first two nights she woke up wet. Anticipating this, I had bought some extra sheets. They have a really cute little birdie pattern on them, and when I put them on her mattress Friday morning, Rylee was SO excited!
She literally spent probably close to two hours that morning jumping around in her crib because she loved the sheets so much!

So now, when she goes to bed, we tell her to "keep her birdies dry." When she woke up this morning and they were dry, she was very excited and kept talking about her "dry birdies."

At some point (I think after she went #2) I taught Rylee to say "hip hip hooray!"

We spent quite a bit of time playing outside, too. Rylee loves wearing these boots lately...I must say, she looks like quite the sassafrass in her boots and panties!

She also played a lot with some plastic pots we had out back...she carried them all over and wore them as hats.

By Saturday, Rylee was pretty sick of me following her everywhere and started getting upset when I would ask her if her panties were dry or telling her to let me know if she had to go potty. Honestly I was sick of it too - it's amazing how tiring it is to pay such close attention so something for three days straight! I was pretty worn out, but it was SO worth it! I'd much rather be exhausted for three days than have her have accidents for weeks or months on end. So it's just panties from now on...yay!

Here are a few other hi-lights of the week...

I put Rylee's hair in pigtails and she looked in the mirror and said "Aya hair!" (Because Ava wears her hair in pigtails sometimes.)

I thought this picture was so sweet! These girls love each other so much!

Cailyn just keeps getting cuter and cuter...

I just love kissing those cheeks!

And here is Rylee in her favorite hiding place during tonight's round of hide and seek. She still loves it, and still hasn't figured out that you're supposed to be quite when you're the one hiding...

Can duct tape fix Rylee?

Yesterday we were out running errands and Rylee just about zonked out right as we were getting home, so I carried her upstairs and put her in her crib...and she never fell asleep. She was just talking and kept saying "Mommy! Mommy!" I just left her, figuring she would eventually fall asleep. Well, after about an hour of this, I started hearing her say "Potty Pee!" over and over, so I decided maybe I should check on her. I opened her door and found Rylee stripped down to nothing, clothes and diaper on the floor, and pee all over her crib! Lovely. So I got her out to clean up...but as I've been thinking about it, I'm wondering whether I should have just left her. I mean, I was already going to have to wash her sheets anyway, so more pee couldn't hurt, and I'm wondering if she's going to think stripping and peeing is a good way to escape naptime and make a habit out of it. We'll see. Quinn suggested we start duct taping her diaper on before naptime...we'll see...

So, we finally had a few BEAUTIFUL days this week!

Cailyn soaking up the sun in the back yard

Cailyn and Aunt Emily

I took the girls to the park on Tuesday afternoon and they loved it!
Rylee running from the car to the playground
(she's still a little gimpy, but can run well enough)

Whee!!!

This picture is out of focus, but I actually like it...I think it looks kind of artsy and abstract and captures Rylee's happy spirit.

Rylee had fun pushing Cailyn on the swings

Then Rylee took a turn swinging with Cailyn...

Cailyn definitely is NOT the acrobat that Rylee was from early on, but Quinn managed to get her to stand in his hand for a little bit this week.

And then Rylee took a turn...she hasn't done this in a year or so and she thought it was hilarious!

Silly smiles!

So overall it's been a good week so far...now if I can just get Rylee to nap like Cailyn does...