Working the Camera

Our friend Maria (who has taken family pics for us several times before--like here, here, here, and here) came over a couple weekends ago to take photos of Kate. We've usually done spring and fall, but we missed this spring and I wanted to have another shoot focusing just on Kate before she has to share the spotlight with her sister. Plus, she just hit the 2 1/2-year mark, so I should share a little of what she's up to!

Besides seriously working the camera, that is.

At 2 1/2, Kate is a sweet, smart, strong-willed little girl (who can be very bossy at times--good luck, little sister!)

She knows her letters, colors, shapes, and numbers up to 14. She stands by the car and spells out M-E-R-C-U-R-Y, and recognizes the word "Butler," when she or Daddy are wearing their Bulldog gear. The other night, she said her first prayer, "Dear God, thank you for food... church... my room."

She can "read" (i.e. has memorized) the Eric Carle book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and will sing various songs spontaneously, including "The Alphabet Song," "Clean Up, Clean Up," "Monkeys Jumping on the Bed," and "Happy Birthday."

We finally found a vegetable she'll eat--carrot sticks. Finally! V-8 Fusion and Prego Veggie Smart are still good solutions, though. Favorite foods right now include hot dogs, bagels with cream cheese, yogurt, pasta, and marshmallows.

Potty training is going pretty well. We didn't do the boot-camp-style of intensive training, so it's been a long process, but at this point, she can go a whole day without an accident (doesn't always do it, but can!) Sometimes that even includes naps, when we forget to switch to a pull-up, which she still wears at night. I draw hearts on her hands with markers when she stays dry for a period of time, and (yes, we resort to bribery) I'll sometimes give her ice cream for going #2 on the potty, since that was an issue briefly.

She struggled some in the classroom she was in for the last two months at her new day care. While she will ask us--or even other teachers--to go potty when she needs to, somehow that teacher intimidated her and she wouldn't ask to go. Given how harsh the teacher was about it even when talking to Matt and I, I suspect she scolded Kate for accidents and made her afraid to ask. (Talk about a mad mama bear!) She's now in a new classroom, and while she had one accident the first day, she's stayed dry for the entire day yesterday and today.

 So, my little baby is becoming a little girl, and soon will be a big sister!

I sure do love my girl.

Kate Pooped on the Potty!!

I won't get any more graphic than the title here, but she did it this morning and we hooped and hollered. Just when I was thinking how pointless it was to sit there reading Curious George to her while she just sat and went through the motions as usual and I needed to be getting ready... suddenly, success!

I figured this news was worthy of my first blog post all week! I've been a really lazy blogger lately--too busy and tired in the evenings, but I'll get back in the swing of things soon, I hope.

Part of the reason for my slacking in the blog department is that we're getting closer and closer to the launch of Ministry Matters! So if you or someone you know is a church leader, check out http://www.ministrymatters.com/ for thousands of free resources for ministry. You can sign up now to be notified when we launch in beta, and you can follow us on twitter, www.twitter.com/ministrymatters, and very soon, we'll go LIVE! You don't want to miss it.

Singamajig (with a brief potty update)

No, Kate did not get one of Christmas 2010's hottest toys, the Fisher-Price Sing-A-Majig (seems like this year's Furby, but they sing and harmonize if you get several together. Whatever.) But when Kate put the lid to her new teapot in her mouth (while sitting in a laundry basket and wearing a rubber bib, no less) I couldn't help but see some resemblance with the little musical critters... 

This time might be as good as any to document Kate's favorite songs now, at (almost) two years old:

• Itsy-Bitsy Spider (which she requests by making the hand motions)
• I'm Picking Up a Baby Bumblebee (AKA "a-bee". And might I say that the way Kate says "ooh, sticky!" is the cutest thing ever? "ooh, kicky!")
• Ring Around the Rosey ("Ashes? Ashes?")
• The Alphabet Song
• Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes

She has always enjoyed music. I remember singing "She'll be coming 'round the mountain" to her when she was just a couple months old, and making up new, personalized verses as I went. ("She'll be wearing a pink bow when she comes...") She was nuts about "Old MacDonald" for a long time, but that seems to have passed in favor of songs with hand motions.

She starts in the two-year-old room at day care today, and I know she'll be coming home with even more fun songs and crafts and things she's learned (including enhanced potty skills!)

To update on the potty training, we didn't make much progress during our "intensive" week of training, having her wear training pants and taking her to the potty frequently, so we're back to diapers most of the time (and disposable pull-ups sometimes). She may just not be ready, but we have had progress in that she knows how to do the whole drill--pulling down her pants, wiping, flushing, washing hands, etc.--and likes to do it, but just doesn't "go" when she's on the potty. I'm not sure exactly what's up with that, other than that must hard to go in a way you are not used to going. Like when adults have to go in the woods, without a toilet, it feels wierd. As foreign as it would be for us to just pee wherever we're sitting, it must feel strange for her not to go in a diaper. They work on it a lot in the two-year-old room, though, and Kate always follows the lead of bigger kids around her, so I bet we'll see a burst of progress in the next few weeks. I'll keep you posted.

Potty Talk

Thanks for all the encouragement and advice regarding Kate's dinnertime habits. I don't think I'll go with the "sit here until all those peas are gone!" thing (no one seriously suggested that--more like cautionary tales from one's own childhood), but I'll definitely continue to offer them and not try to supplement with extra fruit.

Regarding the sitting-down-to-eat thing, I had been feeling it was time to get stricter on that anyway, so we laid down the law on that one last night. We were having pasta--something Kate likes almost as much as we do--so fortunately we could focus on the sitting and not so much on the food. (Yes, yesterday was our anniversary, but our nice date will be tonight, so we just had our favorite Italian meal last night at home.) Anyway, Kate managed to stay strapped into her seat for the whole meal, so in a way that was easier than I expected. She screamed and squirmed off and on--and was generally too frustrated to eat more than a few pieces of pasta and the tomatoes out of her salad--but that's all fine. Tonight she'll be with Granna and Opa, and never has trouble staying in her seat there or at school, but we'll see how it goes Saturday and Sunday at home again!

On to the next fun parenting challenge I can pick your brain about: potty training!!

Kate has been aware of her "goings" for quite a while now, notifying us when she needs a diaper change. I'm still not sure if she knows before she goes, or only after, but even that level of awareness is still a crucial precursor to potty training. She's only 20 months old, but I figured we'd set the stage and start getting her more familiar with the idea of using the potty. We're talking about it, calling her attention to when I go to the potty, and asking if she wants to sit on the potty.

I tried sitting her on the toilet a few times in the last couple months, since she was showing some signs of readiness, but it scared her. I would prefer to train her on the big potty, so we don't have to go through the second phase of re-training her from the little potty to the big one, but when I looked at all the varieties of rings and seats, etc., this 3-in-1 potty seemed our best option. The seat removes to become a ring for the big toilet, and you can close the lid to make it a stepstool (all for less than the price of a cushioned ring).

So, this gem is now sitting in our bathroom, letting Kate get used to it. She's sat on it a few times with her clothes on, so we'll get there! She actually went on the kid-sized toilet at day care the other day. She often learns by watching slightly older kids (a competitive streak, perhaps) so when she saw some of the closer-to-2 kids doing it, she told her teacher she wanted to do it too!

We're pretty much at the very beginning of the process, so let me know what methods you all have used. I've heard about the one-day thing, letting the child walk around naked, a timer schedule, etc.

In your experience, what has worked well?