A Successful Day!

Potty training for Carter officially began today! This morning Carter wore a diaper all morning. He sat down on the potty and peed quite a few times, but a few times in his diaper as well. We ran a few errands and he even peed on a public potty with me just holding him on. He took a good nap today for once and after nap I decided it was time to try underwear. He peed in them pretty good within about 15 minutes of putting them on. I explained to him that when he had to pee he had to tell mommy and we'd run to the potty, otherwise his underwear would get wet. I made a point to put him on the potty every 30 to 45 minutes after that and he peed almost every time I put him on, with dry underwear all evening. I was most impressed when he came running up to me after dinner and said, "mama po" (interpret as "mama potty"). I took him to the potty and found a little wet spot on his underwear. He had started to pee, then stopped and went to the potty! Hopefully we'll have just as much success tomorrow with a full day of underwear and maybe I'll even be able to snap a picture or two of him on the potty.

Ah the Monkey

The kids and I went to Build-a-Bear today to get Teah's bear (Pacibear) a fancy dress for one of her pretend birthday parties that she throws :) We had a gift certificate, so a fancy dress for Pacibear it was. Teah picked out a very cute bear-sized white and pink dress with sequins, but poor Carter was left-out. Since there was a special going on, I decided to finally let Carter pick out his own bear with some clothes. Trying to get a 2 year old to decide on one thing was interesting. Every time I asked him if he wanted one and showed it to him, he would say yes and grab it, but the next one I showed him he would throw that one out and grab it. I was starting to think that he didn't have a favorite when he picked the one he wanted and wouldn't budge. It was a monkey! He knew exactly what to do with the shell of the monkey and wasted no time picking out a heart and handing him over to get stuffed. Then the process of picking out clothes happened, much the same as the original process. I was thinking of getting some jammies, but Carter wasn't interested. When I suggested a soccer outfit I was met with emphatic noddings of the head and uh huhs, so a soccer monkey it was! I asked Carter what he wanted to name his monkey and everytime he says, "Ah Ah Ah Ah" - 4 everytime. So, the latest addition to our household is Ahah Ahah Hilliard - the soccer playing monkey. He comes complete with soccer jersey, soccer shorts, shin guards, soccer cleats, and a soccer ball. Maybe when we buy Carter some new big boy underwear tomorrow Ah (his nickname, since 4 Ahs is a little much :) will go to the bear store and get some of his own. He has already had to sit on the potty before Carter does. Here are some pics of Carter and his new friend:

Carter and The Potty

For the past few weeks I have been trying to gauge Carter's interest in the potty. First, I checked out every potty book from the library and he is mostly obsessed with them all. Numerous potty books talk about the little boys getting a new potty as a present, so the next step was for me to go out and get him his own potty. He sat on his potty yesterday and nothing happened, but this morning I decided to give it my best try by having him drink a whole cup of juice and then putting him on the potty in front of a TV show 20 minutes later :) I was able to get him to sit through 2 kids shows on the potty (= 40 minutes) and there was a tiny bit of pee in there afterwards. I made a big deal of it of course, but he let the rest out when on put his diaper on. Later that afternoon he took off his diaper and wanted to sit on the big potty upstairs - to my surprise, he sat down and started peeing! 5 minutes later he wanted to take off his diaper and sit on his little potty and he peed some more. We made a huge deal out of it and dumped it into the big potty. He immediately wanted to sit on it again and pee again, but didn't have any left in there. I told him that he needed to drink to make more pee, so he took one drink of his juice and sat down again, thinking something would come out after one drink!

I have suggested that he wear underwear before and he has always been adamant against them - wanting his diaper. I tried a casual suggestion for underwear again after his pee and he said yes. So, he wore underwear for an hour before bed and did great, mostly because I sat him on the potty after dinner and he peed again. He definitely knows how to let it out on command now and I'm so impressed with him. He only owns one pair of underwear right now, so tomorrow we're going to go shopping for big boy underwear and give them a try. Now I'll find out if he knows how to hold it! He's only 2 1/4 yrs old, so I'm surprised to be really trying to potty train, but I figure if he's interested then I might as well see where it takes us!

A Big Boy Bed!

Carter has officially been sleeping in his big boy bed for over a week now and is doing great! I decided to make the move because he had gotten very good at climbing out of his crib. When he first climbed out of his crib 6 months ago, I freaked out and bought a big boy bed, only to find that he wasn't ready for the move and that he stopped climbing out of his crib after only 4 attempts. So, he's been sleeping nicely in his crib since then, staying in and having no interest in his big boy bed, until he started climbing out again about a month ago. This time, he mastered the skill and was climbing out all the time. I was nervous about making the move after the last attempt, but it worked really well this time! We took the crib out of his room over a week ago and haven't looked back. As you can see in the pictures, I tried to make his toddler bed as "crib-like" as possible for a smooth transition. There's only a small space between the rail and the bed near the foot board and I still have tied the bumper around it so that it seemed familiar to him. Sometimes he gets out of bed and plays in his room, but he has only fallen asleep on the floor once and generally climbs back into bed when he's tired. What a big boy!

Bounceland

The kids and I ventured to Bounceland yesterday since it was pouring rain and was also right next to an errand I had to run. Bounceland is basically a big building with a really large space that has a bunch of those inflatable bouncy things in it for the kids. One section has three bouncers made just for the younger kids. We spent all afternoon there, stopping to have lunch at their little cafe and then bouncing some more. The kids had a blast! They loved the little bouncer that looked like a train and had an "obstacle course" inside of it. I really loved the fact that they played together the whole time. Every time one of them would decide to move to a different bouncer, the other would follow. There were a few bouncy items for the older kids and we did try those out. Mostly some really big inflatable slides that the kids could climb up, but then I would have to climb up with them and help them go down the really big slide. Good thing I'm a big kid myself :) Here are some pics of the excursion: