Adventures in Potty Training

Okay, so I thought I would give you an update on how Laney is doing with her potty training. So I decided to pull out the Pull Ups on Sunday. Now for those of you who know Laney, you know she loves anything Dora. So of course I bought the pretty pink Dora Pull Ups. I got them out and she was very excited to put on Dora. I explained to her that she is a big girl now and about using the potty. I decided to take the strategy the first few days to just take her potty every hour or so to get her acclimated. The first few hours went fabulous. She was dry everytime and was able to go tinkle each time as well. I would give her 3 M&M's after a success and 1 if she only tried. I thought to myself, "This is going to be easy". I should have never even processed those words.

At about the fourth trip, Laney was not so happy about going potty. The novelty of the M&M's had already worn off. I tried stickers, episodes of Dora and other things. Finally, I said to Laney, "You have to go potty in the big girl potty because otherwise Dora will get wet. If Dora gets wet or stinky, then that will make her very sad. We don't want to make Dora sad, do we?" She responded with "No, Dora Happy". Needless to say the rest of Sunday and all of Monday, Dora was dry. Who knew that was all it took. God bless you, Dora!!!! There were even a few times where she came to me and told me that she had to go. It is a still a work in progress. She is coming to me know and saying "pee-pee", but she has already done it. Therefore, we are continuing the routine trip to the bathroom every 1-2 hours.

We had some other firsts here at the Mohler house last week. Leah gave us her first smile, and boy was it sweet. She really responds to Laney's voice and will give her the most smiles out of all of us. I have yet to capture her sweet dimpled grin on camera yet, but I have been trying.

The other first was Laney got to play with Play-Doh. Yes, I know Cindy, you gave it to her for Christmas. I was just waiting for the right moment. I had to do some soul searching before we sat down and opened up the Play-Doh. When I was little, it was a red letter day when you were able to play with Play-Doh at my house. My mom was a bit of a neat freak. We would have to set up the old card table in the garage, and that old card table would have to have a table cloth. Seriously, I think we were able to play with it maybe once every few months. Okay, I will admit it. I inherited that "neat freak" gene from my mom. Andy sometimes calls me the "clutter nazi". I can't help it that I like things orderly and neat. So before I broke the seal on the Play-Doh, I set some ground rules for myself.
1. I will not hyperventilate if Laney mushes all the colors together.
2. I will not fret if some Play-Doh gets in the carpet.
3. I won't disrupt her playtime to swifter up the Play-Doh on the floor.
4. Finally, I will let her use the Play-Doh whenever she wants (within reason).

We had such a fabulous time. She played for over an hour with the Play-Doh and really wasn't that messy. I did have to chuckle, though. She got quite upset when the purple and green Play-Doh got mushed together. I guess the "neat freak" gene lives on. My mother would be so happy. ( :

Here are a few shots of the girls over the last couple of weeks. Like I said before, I am trying my hardest to get Leah to smile while the camera is on.

How Time Flies!

Well, I have decided to join the blogging phenomenon. I figured I could keep everyone up to date on our very exciting lives here in Kankakee. Now, I am not going to promise a post every week, but I do hope to get pictures of the girls on here on a fairly regular basis. I am going to steal a few ideas from friends who blog on a regular basis.

For those of you who don't know, we welcomed our second darling daughter to the family on February 15th. Leah Carol made her first appearance very early that Monday (0110 am). She came out crying and was healthy and happy at 8lbs 8oz which was just slightly smaller than her big sis, Laney. Since she was a routine repeat C-section, we stayed at St. Mary's for 3 days. It was hard being away from Laney that long, but we had a lot of help from Tom and Carol and Dad and Cinda. Laney was able to come up and visit the second day and immediately fell in love with her sister. They are just 3 days shy of being exactly 2 years apart. We made it home Wednesday afternoon and celebrated Laney's 2nd b-day on Thursday. It was a busy week and I was tired, but we have great memories to look back on and cherish. The other day we received our DVD from the hospital. It is so precious. I watched it 2-3 times the first afternoon and sobbed. At Saint Mary's, they give you a digital camera to use during your stay. You take pictures and then they have the pictures set to music and send you the DVD. It is really a nice keepsake. The song for Leah's was "Baby Mine" by Alison Krause. She has the voice of an angel. I will try to put it on here so everyone can see it.

Now, Leah is 4 weeks old and already changing. She is still sleeping quite a bit during the day, but she is very inquisitive about her surroundings when she is awake. Laney is like a little mother hen. She tends to Leah when she fusses and helps me burp her during her feedings. We are all three enjoying our time home together and we only have 3 1/2 weeks before I have to go back to work. Yesterday, Laney says "Mommy no go back to work". I told her she would have to take that up with her Daddy.

As I mentioned Laney just turned two, so we have a few goals to accomplish. One is potty training and the other is breaking the "plug" (pacifier) habit. It is seriously like crack to her. She does not get it at the sitters, but as soon as she walks in the door...."Mommy, pink plug, please". I do admit she gets it more often than she should. My goal was to throw it out March 1st, but I just could not bear to disrupt her world anymore after bringing home a new baby. Ok, I will admit, I did not want to disrupt my world either. So now my new goal is May 1st. I go back to work April 13th and that will get me a few weeks to get her back into a early morning routine.

As for the potty training, I know she is ready because when she poops her pants she goes into the bathroom, gets a diaper and wipes and proceeds to say "Change my diaper,please. Me pooped". I will say she always says please. At least she is polite. So we started sitting on the potty about every hour or so, before meals/bedtime and before we leave the house for an outing. I will keep everyone posted on our progress.

Speaking of outings, having a two year old and newborn makes outings pretty difficult. I swear for our first trip out to Walmart it took me longer to get everyone ready and out the door than our actual outing lasted. It was just me and the girls. All I needed were a few things, shampoo being one of them. So I am strolling down the aisle and put a bottle of kids shampoo in the cart next to Laney. I turn my head for maybe 30 seconds to grab a bottle for me, and Laney has proceeded to open the shampoo and pour it all over herself and the cart.Luckily, Leah was spared. I bit my tongue so the words did not fly and reached into my diaper bag for the wipes. Needless to say, I had no wipes in the bag. I can feel my face deepen to a shade of red that can't be described as all the people in the aisle look at me with pity. Laney says to me with shampoo dripping from her, "Look Momma, me clean the cart and my jeans for you". How could I be mad? She was just trying to help. So I push the cart over a couple of aisles and open a container of wipes and clean up the mess. It was my first adventure with the girls.

This week we have just been enjoying the weather. Friday I am taking the girls to Orland Park to have their pictures taken and visit the girls at work.