Strong-willed, spirited, precocious… all of those describe my Little Bear. I guess it worked for me in the case of potty training (no accidents today!) but boy does she have a mind of her own. Maybe it’s because her daddy is a lawyer. Anyway, tonight, before dinner, she wanted me to help her take the tops off of her markers. Of course, it had to be in a specific order and they had to be set “right there” (a new favorite phrase).
On second thought, she does sound like my kid…
Before winter vacation started, I told myself that I’d give potty training two good weeks and if it didn’t work, I’d try again during the summer. Teaching gives me these built in times to change behavior, see, and I figured I was ready to give it my best shot. Little Bear was showing some signs of “readiness” like understanding when her diaper needed to be changed, waking up dry from naps, and understanding what a <strikethrough>bribe</strikethrough> incentive means. Other “signs,” like being able to pull up her own pants, not quite.
Monday (12/19) rolled around and we took off the diapers for good. We bought several kinds of panties. Target brand definitely fit her little bottom best (Wal-Mart, while cheaper, were quite saggy) but we ended up liking the good old Gerber trainers the most. They are padded, which made me feel better, but since her accidents were… all or nothing, as it were, I don’t know if the extra material made any actual difference.
My first plan of attack (and this was basically based on my intuition and no internet reading, which is totally out of character for me) was to get her on the potty as much as possible. We bought two Baby Bjorn potty chairs off Craigslist mostly because I liked the look of them and they didn’t play any tunes when she peed. That’s creepy, in my opinion.
As a side note, I’m not sure what’s different about a potty that plays tunes and me jumping around and singing inane potty songs whenever she peed so I’ll get back to you on that.
Getting her to sit took a combination of me reading lots of books in a very animated manner; feeding her chocolate chips, mini cookies, and All Natural fruit snacks (see how I put “All Natural” in there to make myself feel better. I mean, they were all natural, but I probably didn’t need to add that here); dancing and singing all of her favorite songs, including Happy Birthday to everyone and everything we could name such as Mama, Papa, Elmo, bear, monkey, cat, toes, and panties; getting out the iPhone, and watching movies on Netflix streaming. In all seriousness, I did feel a little bad about the last one. We really try to limit TV around here and it killed me to have her watch hours of movies just to try and trick her into forgetting long enough to actually pee in the right spot. Friends did suggest loading her up on juice but, while I gave in on the movies, I wasn’t willing to go there. She hasn’t had any (juice) yet at all and I wanted to wait until as late as possible for that. In short, I bribed her to sit there and then, when something happened, threw a giant freaking party.
But, like any aspect of parenting, there are grey areas here. Do you reward for “trying,” or only when something comes out? Does #2 net more of a treat than #1? Do you turn the movie off as soon as she goes or let her watch a little more so she doesn’t start holding it in? I, in the worst parenting form possible, basically did a combination of everything and wasn’t consistent at all.
The first week was pretty touch and go. There ratio of accidents to successes was high. That is, she missed the potty a lot. I felt a bit defeated but had resolved to give it the full two weeks so we kept on trucking. I had also resolved to spend the first week at home and not running errands. Well, that didn’t work for two reasons. A) It was the week before Christmas and I had last minute stuff to pick up, and B) I was going stir crazy. But we picked up an Elmo potty seat (just in case) and some plastic pants and… much to my surprise, she was able to travel out and about and stay dry the whole time! I have to add here that she was only peeing, like, 3 times a day which freaked me out enough (toddler with a uti!) to call my ped who assured me that it was normal.
Long story short, thanks to lots and lots of Gnomeo and Juliet and the never ending patience of Papa and our entire family over the Christmas holidays, something seemed to click. She started “going” more during the day, #1 turned into #s 1 and 2, and the accidents were fewer and farther between. I feel like we should have a sign up in our house: “__ days without an accident” because that’s how it feels.
So I go back to school tomorrow. It will basically be LB’s first day without me in two weeks. Part of me is afraid that she’s going to revert back to the diapers in protest of the change. But she acts like such a pro now. Even sits on the adult potty, sans seat, and just… goes.
Either way, I’m proud of what she’s accomplished. Even if it means I have to sing Happy Birthday to her panties.
I suppose it’s normal at this point in the year to take stock of life. What has passed, what lies ahead. It’s been a big year for us. Little Bear has grown into such a curious, independent, caring person and we, well, we’ve just been along for the ride. Here’s to another year gone and an even better one yet to come!
(via Instagram)
Here’s a few quick shots of me being a terrible parent, I mean, Lily being a wonderful reindeer. It’s amazing how much things have changed in year. Auld Lang Syne!
“But the place which you have selected for your camp, though never so rough and grim, begins at once to have its attractions, and becomes a very centre of civilization to you: "Home is home, be it never so homely."
~Henry David Thoreau
Little Bear and her papa in her new tent. One of my favorite (Photoshopped) images from Christmas.
Merry Christmas from all of us at “The Life of a Little Bear!” Thanks for reading, whoever you are!
Little Bear has been growing and changing so much every day that sometimes it’s hard to keep up. It’s also hard to document everything, so I’m going to post a few updates here in hopes that I can catch everyone up.
- She has tons of words now: mama, papa, night-night, hi, bye, yeah (most of the time it comes out “da.” though), no-no, wow (“wawh”), more, book, cook, banana, bath, shoes, button (belly button), baby, Boppa (her name for my dad), sometimes Apa (other grandpa), Yo Gabba Gabba (“Badabadabajai”), bubbles, woof, quack, bus, moo, oink (except she snorts), burger, mine, her name, bear, blanket (“black”), brush teeth, bread, fish, milk, that, water, poop, toot… I think that’s all. Oh, and tonight she came up with “oops,” “house,” and “choo choo.” while we were playing trains. That’s about 40, I think.
- Little Bear is great at pointing things out in books now. She only has to hear things once or twice to pick them up, and while she can’t always repeat the word back to us, she remembers the things. One of her favorite books, “yuck,” has a salamander in it that she can find every time!
- Lately, it seems that she’s been hitting her terrible twos early. She gets so mad when she can’t do something herself but heaven help you if you try to assist her. She’s been especially grumpy when I get home from work but warms up again within a half an hour so it doesn’t totally rip my heart to shreds.
I had more to write, but as usual, I’m too tired to think straight. So I’ll leave you with this, and with a picture from a year ago, and one from this week. Look how much she’s grown!
