Potty Training in just a weekend??? Really??

At first I was skeptical.  I mean potty training in three days seemed like a parent's dream but an unlikely reality. But my daughter is living proof that it can happen.

Before I continue, I want to make it clear that I understand all children are different and potty training one child one way may not work for another.  So don't start harping on me about how this method didn't work for you. It worked for me and my daughter, so I am giving it a two thumbs up.

I read Potty Training in 3 Days by Lora Jensen. I have to give her the credit even though I do believe many of her tips can be found elsewhere online.  In a nutshell, she advises parents to be at their child's side all day for three days and constantly ask if they are dry.

Here is what I learned. 

1. Buy LOTS of panties.  It helps if you aren't really paying attention when your child puts package after package of panties in your shopping cart. (read previous post to see how THAT can happen!) Marley went through 12 pairs the first day, half that on the second day and only two on day 3.

2. Don't bother with pull-ups.  I was actually tempted to put them on my daughter until I saw how long it took a friend of mine to potty train her daughter.  Pull-ups ARE diapers.

3. With the help of mattress protectors and pads, I never put another diaper on my daughter...even when she was sleeping. I agree that it sends mixed messages to the kid. Marley had one nighttime accident the first night.  The rest have been dry.

4. Toys go a loooong way. Especially those crappy ones that come in kids meals. I save those and can now give Marley something for staying dry all night, peeing before nap time and pooping in the potty...all without breaking the bank!  

Speaking of good ol' #2, Marley did not go until day 4 of potty training.  I was starting to get worried since she is highly regular and had been eating high fiber foods.  

But since I knew she liked to hide when she pooped in a diaper, I let her play alone in her room.  When she was in there for just a minute, I went back in, saw her making the "poop face", rushed her to the bathroom and HOORAY...she pooped!  

So remember, all of us like a little privacy when we want to make our own "poop face". 

 

Will Marley be accident-free from now on? No, probably not. So I'll carry spare panties and clothes for some time to come.  

But I will say that we both have reached a milestone in our lives and it was surprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be.

What the hell was I thinking??

Shopping is not something I particularly like to do.  And do you want to know what makes it worse? Trying to shop with two kids.

What was I thinking?
 
I'm an intelligent woman.  Why would I think I could actually make it through Target without both children completely flipping out on me?

I thought I did everything right. I breastfed the little man, made my daughter lunch and changed both their diapers. So you'd think they'd give, oh, half an hour to shop for necessities.

But I was wrong.  Dead wrong.

I should have seen it coming.  Right after we parked, my daughter demanded to walk instead of riding in the cart.  Ok.  That's fine. But I told her she would have to stay by my side.
"I promise Mama," she said. 
Yeah right.

She couldn't have bolted fast enough.  At first it was just a few feet.  And then she started darting around the aisles.  I'm sure the other shoppers thought she was cute.  I'm sure those with kids understood the situation.

But hollering my daughter's name over and over was one thing.  This trip was about to go from bad to worse.

It started as just a whimper. Then a slight fuss and a grunt.  But within a few minutes, my little Dylan began crying so hard, I thought he was going to throw up.

So into the cart went Marley and out of the cart came Dylan.
But the crying continued.
"I WANT TO WALK!"
"Waaaaaa!!
"I WANT TO WALK!"
"Waaaaaa!"

(where is the damn hair gel aisle? I sure as hell was not going through all of THIS to leave empty-handed.)

So after grabbing half the stuff I was after and waiting in what seemed like the longest check-out line EVER, we leave. Dylan's crying continued of course, but now Marley decided to join in with her best impression of Dylan's crying. Lovely.

The only thing I could do was turn on the Bullfrogs and Butterflies CD.  It's a bunch of religious kid songs and by the time the song This Is The Day came on, Marley had stopped "crying" and was singing along and Dylan was finally quiet.

Thank God!

A time out on time outs

As a child of a generation that faced spankings as a form of punishment, I am quite torn on how well time-outs really work.  I admit, I do put my two year old on time-outs.  But she is a sassy little thing (wonder where she gets that from?) and when I ask if she WANTS a time-out, she actually responds with YES!

But as I sit and watch my tiny little girl plop down in a corner with her lip stuck out and her soft brown eyes looking up at me apologetically, I wonder what I am accomplishing.

Although she says sorry for the offense, I'm not sure of the punishment's effectiveness.  For instance, she colored my Wii Fit board with blue crayon and I put her in a time-out.  I then talked with her about how we color only in coloring books and on paper.  NOT on furniture, windows, my Wii Fit board, the entertainment center, etc.  Then we hugged. 

Fast forward to earlier this week.  I had written my daughter's name on a towel when she had a water day at play school.  She saw the towel and said, "Mama.  You are NOT  supposed to draw on that towel.  TIME-OUT!"

I explained why I had written her name on the towel, but she wasn't having any of it.  "TIME-OUT!" So I sat on my bed in a "time-out".

But looking back at the entire situation, I wonder what part of her "punishment" really stuck with her.  Yes, she put me in a time-out after seeing the towel, but she also understood the reason behind the time-out (no drawing on towels)

So was it the time-out, the talk explaining why it was happening or a combination of the two?  If I had only talked with her about why she shouldn't color on my Wii Fit board, would it have still made a lasting impression without the addition of the time-out?  What do you think?  And do you use time-outs as a form of punishment?

Casey Anthony is guilty where it matters most

A lot of America is still in shock over the Casey Anthony verdict.  Most of the people I talked to thought this young mother killed her beautiful little girl Caylee.
Why? Because Casey lied to police about her daughter being with a non-existent nanny and then continued to party it up while her daughter was missing.

No mother whose child was missing would behave that way.  They would be canvassing neighborhoods, hitting the the airwaves and pleading for their child's return. But not Casey.  She apparently went into a "dark corner" and pretended nothing was wrong. She blamed her behavior on past sexual abuse by her father.  She eventually claimed Caylee died in a swimming pool accident and her father made it look like a murder.

Riiiight. Because THAT is what innocent people do.  They make accidents look like crimes.

So while Casey was found not guilty of first degree murder by a jury, the same cannot be said for the court of public opinion. Social media sites were blowing up with exasperated posts about a child killer being found innocent.

And those posts got me thinking.

What is worse? Being behind bars as a convicted child killer or out in a public that believes you are a child killer that got off scot free? It's a reputation O.J Simpson knows well and Casey will too.  While I'm sure she will have friends and family standing by her side and may even get married someday, I doubt many people will be able to meet her and not think "She's the one who killed her kid."

I hate being "that girl".

If you have a spouse/significant other, there is probably SOMETHING they do (or don't do) that bothers you. Maybe they leave their socks on the kitchen floor or never empty the dishwasher or fail to change the roll of toilet paper.  So you ask them to stop doing it or start doing it and they say they will, but then they don't and the cycle starts again.

And soon...ever so slowly...you realize you've become "that girl". And by "that girl" I mean a nag.

I even asked a male friend if I was being mean by harping on my husband.
"No Nikki. Of course not.  You nag just the right amount," he said. (gee thanks!)

I don't WANT to nag "just the right amount".  I don't want to nag at all.  What I want is for something to be done in a reasonable amount of time after I've asked and he has agreed to get it done. 

But what's a reasonable amount of time?  That day? That week?  And if it is NOT done, do I do it myself and then "nag" about having to do it myself?

How do I stop being "that girl"? Or is this just one of the roles I must sometimes play in this adventure we call marriage?