public restrooms

nothing makes you truly understand the nastiness of public restrooms like taking your two-year old in and asking her to pee in one. "don't touch anything.....well except the toilet seat and then only when there's paper between your bottom and the seat!" yuck. add sanitizer to the list of diaper bag goodies, please. i've now washed two public toilets with hot soapy water before letting elsie even enter, and it's only just beginning for us.

little gym.

our girl, in a goofy mood 'cause she's on her way to the little gym!

so we enrolled elsie in the little gym for the summer session. it's great fun - we go every saturday morning for 45 minutes. when i go into her room to get her from her sleep on saturdays i ask her, "do you know what we're doing today?" her eyes get wide and her voice gets low, "go lil-ly gym today?" yep, going to little gym. rush of excitement followed by screaming, "go lil-ly gym RIGHT NOW?" i'm so glad she loves it...

it begins with a group activity. we sit in a circle to introduce ourselves (in song of course!), then walk in a circle to music directing us to do silly things like fall down. yes, that's right, fall down. the floor is matted of course. then it's the fun parachute or some other large group activity. independent exploring comes next, though at this age the parents are in tow. they have balance beams, bars to swing on, giant mats for forward rolling (which is good for their inner ear, by the way). all kinds of fun things. elsie sometimes just likes to run around the room like a crazy person, screaming with glee the whole way, then slamming into mommy or daddy so that we all go crashing to the floor. it's actually quite fun, and very comical.

jumping on the giant air-filled thingie (better for them than trampolines).

finishing off a forward roll!

on the balance beam! she's getting good at this.

after some independent exploring and learning a new skill (the first day was the forward roll), a bunch of squishy, colorful balls come out with mini basketball hoops. great fun. after singing the "it's time put the balls away, balls away" song, we sit in a circle again for bubbles! every child gets bubble blown at them, then a stamp on their hand and it's time to go home. and hopefully take a nap!

oops.

little potty accident yesterday at the dog park. and again this morning. well, she's still learning and i'm still very proud of her. the good news is that we've moved the potty seat to the big-people potty and she's using it like a champ. i think she secretly (or maybe it's no secret) she wants to be a grown-up.

and she's wearing big-girl panties now. sigh.

progress.

i can't believe my girl. still no potty accidents.

monday i put a diaper on her for her nap rather than the cotton training pants i used over the weekend. the trainers were soaked after a long nap and she hated them, woke her up on sunday, which i guess is the point. but i wanted her to get some rest monday because she had that flu bug, so i caved and put a diaper on her. when i went into her room after she woke, she announced that she needed to pee-pee and that she didn't go in her diaper. sure enough, dry diaper. incredible.

last night while she was taking a bath at grandma's house, she looked up at me and said "need go pee-pee!" so out of the tub and onto the big-girl potty - the actual big-girl potty, not just her potty seat! after a nice long pee, back into the tub she goes. i'm so proud of her, i just can't believe how well she's doing with this. must've been as tired of those diapers as mommy and daddy were.

big girl potty.

it's day 3 of our potty training adventure.

we came home from the little gym on saturday morning and i wasted no time stripping her naked from the waste down. "okay elsie, when you have to go potty, you need to use the big-girl potty now." of course she loved being naked so there was no argument from her. within 20 minutes she was on the back patio with her dad saying, "eldie (elsie) tooting!" dad says, "do you have to go potty?" um, no. i go ahead and lead her to the potty anyway, in time to see a little poop fall to the floor. "that's okay honey, if you just sit in the big-girl potty and put it in there, you can have an m&m." (don't judge me.) with some hesitation, she sat and put the rest in the potty as her dad and i erupted with excitement, cheers and kisses of congrats. you would've thought we won the lottery. her face lit up and something clicked. off we went to wash hands before devouring an m&m as reward for her new skill.

and she got it right away. "need go pee-pee" she'd announce, heading for her potty. all day. she and i even went for a short walk with our woofie and she was able to hold it. so proud of her. at one point she sat down to pee and must've had some stage fright. she looks at me with a sheepish smile and says, "wait for it...." hilarious. now it's a pretty common comment when she's trying to go pee.

after about a dozen successful potties, she looks up at me as she's washing her hands and says, "eldie get big-girl bed now!"

sunday morning, after a night with a diaper, we stripped her again. she went potty right away and kept it up well. she even lead me into my bathroom one time and sat on the big-big potty with no kiddo potty seat. amazing. she was doing so well we put her and the dog in the car and headed to the dog park...with the potty seat in the back of the car, of course.

she didn't have any accidents while we were at the park, but she did tell me she had a tummy ache. oh no. i was thinking maybe she needed to go but was holding it, giving her cramps or something. no. when we got home, she threw up a little. poor kid. then she had runny poos. are you kidding me? of all the times for her to get a tummy bug, it's this weekend? the weekend we're trying to teach her to go in the potty? unbelievable. and this kid never gets sick! confirming it was learning that sophie, elsie's friend next door, had also gotten sick. elsie was amazing though, never once had an accident. she struggled a little to go in the potty when she wasn't feeling well last night, but eventually she did it.

today was her very first day wearing underwear! her little bottom looks so skinny without a diaper. it's been a tough day though. kayley came to take care of her this morning and elsie was already feeling kind of punky. she added to her own misery when she took a header into our kitchen table as kayley and i stood there, helpless. ugh! she's got a giant goose egg on the side of her forehead now, the poor kid. but no accidents. no wet underwear. no poop in her pants. i took her to the park for a little break, potty in tow. she was wonderful. went on the potty while we were at the park and had a great time.

i realize we may run into struggles with this at some point, but i'm so proud of her for how well she's done thus far. it's really amazing. i think she must just be ready to move on.

her bigger reward for this is a big-girl bed, coming in just over a week!

just so you know.

"dance minnis!" means dance music. she asks for it every time we're we're in the car. she means lady gaga, just dance. not madonna, not gwen stefani. lady gaga. just dance. nothing else will do. one day, after playing it over and over, i was done. no more. please, my ears need a rest. elsie says to me, "but aldie (elsie) needs dance minnis so bad right now!" i caved. (and thank you auntie trixie for mixing that great cd for us - and for introducing my girl to the dance minnis.)

another thing: there is a difference between "brown-nose demma" and "pink-nose demma." (in case you don't already know, "demma" is elsie's name for all of her most favorite bunnies, the ones we can't be without ever. we have seven of them.) she prefers pink-nose. when pink-nose isn't available, there are certain brown-nose demmas that trump the others. she'll pick up demma, look at his face and say, "no, not this one." um, okay. how about this one? "ya, this one! thank you mommy." melts my heart.

we're tackling potty training this weekend. ought to be interesting. her incentive for succeeding at this is a big-girl bed. she's very excited about this and lights up when she talks about it but she's not nearly as excited as me. i'm anxious to lay in bed with her to read her stories.

i know. she's growing up way too fast.