Life, and All That Surrounds It

Recently we've been in a Mommy mood. And by recently I mean the past two months. Hannah wants Mommy to make her breakfast, Mommy to put on her jacket, Mommy to help with her boots, Mommy to do bedtime. Pretty much if there is any activity that requires parental help and we're both around, Mommy wins.

I don't take it personally. When it's just Hannah and me together she is perfectly happy letting me help with everything. But as soon as Mommy gets home, we immediately switch back into Mommy mode.

Tonight was very typical of this. The three of us met at Panera for dinner and then Jeanne had a meeting to go to. Hannah and I went to the grocery store where she got to push her own cart, we came home and put the groceries away, we played for half an hour, and we started bath time. We had a great time and she behaved wonderfully. But as soon as Mommy came home during bath time, Hannah immediately switched and wanted Jeanne to help get her a snack, brush her teeth, and do bedtime.

So I just try to enjoy the times she does let me help and I enjoy the downtime while Mommy has to do all the work. And I have a feeling that this phase will pass, and during her teenage years she and Mommy might not be quite such good friends.

Some photos from the past weeks:

Posted by Pete at 8:21 PM | Comments (0)

Picture a 2 1/2 year old stopping in the middle of what she is doing, scrunching up her face and when we ask her if she needs to use the potty answering (in a strained voice) "no, I poop right here". That was Hannah until the past two weeks. She would say it anywhere: on the playground, in a store, in the living room, wherever she happened to be when the urge came on. She would poop and explain to us that she wasn't interested in quickly trying to get somewhere else (e.g. a bathroom) but would just do her business "right here". It was hilarious. I'm disappointed I never captured it on video.

However the past two weeks have been different, and she is quickly becoming a potty master.

Disclaimer: even though I usually shy away from potty talk, this post will be a little more detailed than usual. So to those of you who have never changed a diaper or don't plan to in the next decade: you are not my target audience of this post. Sorry.

I don't know enough about child development or child psychology to know why, but I do know that all of a sudden a switch flipped and she was ready for potty training. We got her fun new Dora pull-ups and the rule was she wasn't supposed to "pee on Dora". She seemed to like the pull-ups because they were more comfortable than the diapers and she could take them on and off (which is the whole point).

Jeanne created a poster of a toilet with a cover and each time Hannah went to the potty (and wiped and washed her hands) she got to lift up the cover on the poster and add a sticker. It's gotten to the point where she would go potty out at a restaurant and then remember hours later when we got home that she was owed a sticker.

At first she would take off her pants and pull-up but we would then help her on the potty and watch her go (with the requisite excitement at the tiniest bit of urine) and then help her get dressed again. But she quickly realized that when Mommy and Daddy go potty they get to go in all alone and close the door. So that is what she does now too.

She protests vehemently if we try to follow her into the bathroom. And we don't want to argue and distract her from her goal. She brings her stool over to the wall and turns on the light. Then moves the stool to the toilet so she can pull down her pants and her pull-up and climb up on the potty. I'm fearful that the climb and 180 degree turn with pants around her ankles is going to result in a nasty fall someday, but so far she's been careful.

If she pees she wipes, flushes and gets her pants back on and comes out. We usually have to remind her to go back and wash her hands before she earns a sticker (I can't figure out why hand washing isn't as much fun, especially when we got her fun soap). But when she poops (or does "poo-poos" as she calls it) she runs out to get us so we can all look in the toilet and admire her work. Usually it's an itty-bitty piece of poop (which again elicits excitement from all) but sometimes she has a real bowel movement.

She can now go much of a day with a dry pull-up as long as we consistently ask her if she needs to go. She stills wears a diaper for nap and bed time but she can sometimes make it from morning to nap and then nap to night with a dry pull-up. We have about 75 diapers in the closet and my guess is we won't have to buy more than one or two more packages.

Potty training had been an area of parenting that I was not looking forward to, but so far she has made it really easy. And since Jeanne gets to deal with her when we're in public (I haven't had to bring her into a public men's room yet) for me it's been easy!

Keep up the great work, Hannah!

(I tried to get some photos but I'm not allowed in the bathroom, so you're just going to have to use your imagination).

Posted by Pete at 8:25 PM | Comments (1)

Hannah cannot tell time. This shouldn't come as much of a surprise and I've clearly known this, but it sometimes surprises me in the ways it manifests itself. I don't live by a rigid schedule and I don't wear a watch (although my cell phone plays the role) but I am always aware of the time in general. Hannah, on the other hand, bases her sense of time on the light outside and when she last slept. This usually works fine, but if her schedule gets off she can get confused very easily.

Last week we were out on Sunday afternoon and she didn't get her regular nap. By five o'clock when we headed home she was tired and fell asleep for the twenty minute drive. When she woke up as we went inside, she saw that it was dark out, knew that she was tired, and figured it must be bed time. Sure enough, she asked to go to bed, and by six o'clock she was out for the night (and slept through the night).

This weekend she fell asleep around 3 for her nap (about an hour later than usual). She had been tired and a little sick (just a typical winter cold) and so slept for three hours. When she woke at six she was so out of it and confused by the time that an hour later she was ready to go back to sleep.

Both times she was clearly off schedule and needed the sleep, but had she been able to read a clock I think she would have realized how early it was and would have stayed up. Too often we need to get to bed early but when we the clock reads eight (or nine or ten, whatever counts as early for each of us) we tend to stay up and find something to do. When you can't read a clock, your internal clock overrides any external sense of time and you end up listening to your body more. It's been a reminder to me that there is something to be said for a simpler way of managing a day and to eat and sleep not when an alarm goes off or a clock says to but simply when it we feel it is time.

And that's my latest excuse why we're always late getting places.

Some photos from the past weeks:

Posted by Pete at 9:14 PM | Comments (0)

We decided that we had no interest in staying up to midnight on New Year's Eve. It's not that we don't like to celebrate the new year, it was just that we knew we'd have a lot more fun if we got to bed early and then celebrated during the day instead. So that's what we did and it worked out great.

We did go out on Thursday night, having dinner at Solly's house for New Year's Eve. Hannah also got to see Annie there and the three of them had a great time running around and playing while the adults got to hang out. We had one mishap when the excitement got the best of them and Annie and Hannah went tumbling to the floor. No one (over the age of 3) clearly saw what happened but Annie came up crying and Hannah came up laughing. She wasn't laughing a moment later when she put her hand to her forehead and pulled away a hand covered in blood. We rushed her to the kitchen sink trying to not a) get blood on their walls, b) get blood on her pretty dress (although it was red) and c) have her start freaking out. While she was upset, she didn't seem in much pain and eventually we stopped the bleeding and calmed her down. It left a pretty good-sized welt on her forehead which was covered up with decreasing sized band-aids in the following days. But kids heal fast and while today she still has a red dot on her forehead it's almost all healed. It was her first experience (definitely won't be her last) with a wound gushing blood and I think she handled it well.

New Year's Day we had friends over for a day of brunch, sledding, hanging out, lunch, and lots of playtime for the kids (and a decided lack of nap time for all). We didn't have a lot of snow, but there was enough for the kids to get out sledding for half an hour. It was the first time this season Hannah had been on a sled and she loved it. Although when she gets pulled back up the hill by Daddy she doesn't appreciate how much work each sledding run can be. In future years she'll realize how big the hill in the meadow behind our house is an how much work it is to get up it.

Our playroom got a good workout with four kids pulling out as many toys as they could find. We've added colorful mats on the floor making it feel even more like a kids room (as if the bunk beds and toys weren't enough) and it was fun to see it put to such good use.

Photos from the weekend:

It was really an incredible 2009 and we're excited about what 2010 has in store. Happy New Year!

Posted by Pete at 8:45 PM | Comments (0)