Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Hurray for Pee Time!

Natalee peed in the potty chair twice today! YAY!!! And she didn't wet her pants or her diaper in between, so we're thinking she really is getting it now. She was so excited about all the attention, she kept going back to the bathroom and sitting down on the potty chair. Then she'd call for me to come see that she was sitting on it. She'd even sit up, clap her hands, and yell "Yay!" for herself. LOL. I'm so proud of her! We bought a little coloring book with a special marker today just for using on the potty chair. It might've helped, having that to encourage her, but I think things finally clicked for her today. We'll have to work on the candy rewards, too, weaning her off of them eventually, but right now, all I can say is, HURRAY! *crossing fingers that she'll still want to pee in the potty chair tomorrow*

Plus we have to get her comfortable with sitting on the big potty chair. She's terrified that she'll fall in when she sits on it. So, it'll be fun getting her adjusted to not peeing in a diaper when we're away from our potty chair. Especially on trips.

Thanks for the baking offer, Steph. I might be calling you for help! We'll see what happens. If I have to, I can bake and freeze the cookies and banana bread without too much of a problem.

.........

...I don't know who's happier tonight, me or Natalee. :p

First comes love, then comes marriage...


...here comes *wink-wink-not-me* with a baby carriage!

So, this is turning out to be the year of weddings. My uncle JM finally married April in March. My mother is remarrying next week, a nice guy named Brian, a Harley-Davidson rider who drives a lumber truck for a living. He has a 19 year old son and a 14 year old son. The 19 year old lives with them and goes to college, and the 14 year old lives with his mom but visits. Mom and Brian have been together for about a year now, I think. He bought her a nice engagement ring, bought her flowers on Mother's Day, takes her out to dinner, etc. I've got my fingers crossed that things will go well for them. He's the only guy she's dated in a while that I don't worry about being around Natalee.

June 14th, my sister Kara is marrying her boyfriend of three years. Trevor's a nice guy. His family is very Mormon, although he's something of a D&D nerd. (I can say that with love, since my own hub was a D&D nerd. And possibly still is.) But Trevor's still in the thick of being a D&D nerd. Which suits Kara fine. If Trevor was completely whitebread Mormon, Kara would've left it at flirting three years ago. So, after long urging, they're getting married. They're holding a small ceremony in Trevor's family's house. Jennifer will be the maid of honor (which is how it should be, since they've been peanut butter and jelly for most of their lives). Kara's friend Danny and I will be her bridesmaids. And Natalee will be her flower girl. And then Trevor's friends will be the groomsmen. They're holding a bigger reception at their ward. I'll be baking banana bread, rolls, and cookies to help cut down food costs. I'll have to negotiate with my grandmother to invade her kitchen with my stand mixer. Hoping I'll be able to turn her head with the idea of fresh breads and cookies and their aromas in her home. I like baking in my kitchen, where I know where everything is, how clean the counters are behind the appliances, if there are bugs, and how much of the ingredients I have on hand. Since I can't bring my kitchen with me, I'll settle with borrowing Gammie's scrupulously clean and spacious kitchen. Plus I know my way around her kitchen since I lived there on breaks during college. So, with a month to go, my mind is full of recipes, where to get Natalee's dress, where are we going to find matching green dresses, has anyone figured out the flowers yet?...etc.

And then, once all the hoopla of Kara's wedding is over, we'll be going to Branson, Missouri the week of July 4th for Pam and Eric's wedding. We've been looking forward to it for a while. We're going to Dolly Parton's Dixie Stampede! dinner theatre. Eric has reserved a luxury suite for us to share at a nice lake front resort. Daniel will be the best man, Matt and Brent the groomsmen. It's going to be great, all of us being able to get together and hang out for a few days, in Branson, in awesome rooms, and for a fantastic reason. There's an amusement park and specialty shops selling hand-crafted items like hand-woven baskets, blown glass, homemade ice cream, and bakeries. (I think I'll be visiting the bakeries.) Matt's parents are coming, too, so if Matt and I want some time together without the tot, they've already offered to take her. They're really excited about the trip. They used to go on vacations every year, but haven't really traveled anywhere in a long time. Plus Mom is doing well enough now that she can. This is the first big trip she's gone on since she was diagnosed with cancer last year. (She's doing really well, by the way.) We're all really excited about having a vacation somewhere else, but it'll be great no matter what just to be hang out with our friends. We always have a good time together, and we haven't gotten to spend much time together since we moved from College Station.

So, lots of good things happening this summer!

Lately, we've been working on Natalee's potty training still. I know we've been 'working' on it forever, but Natalee is a very smart little girl who knows how to hold it until she has a diaper on or she's far enough out of our sight to wet her panties...and the bed or the couch or the rug. But we know she knows how! Last week, she and I had taken a shower, and she was sitting in the tub after I dried her off while I dried off, when she told me "I go poo poo," and pointed to the potty chair. She's done this before without results, but I went ahead and stuck her on her potty chair. She got a look of intense concentration on her face...and then practically filled the bowl with pee. You could have heard my shrieks of joy throughout the apartment building. We made a huge deal of it, bought her new panties with kitties and puppies on them, and told everyone about it. And she hasn't done it again since. And anyone who calls now asks if she's peed in the potty chair again. Argh. One step forward and about four back. It's hard because, yes, I was around to help with Kara and Jennifer's potty training, but my parents spanked my sisters if they wet their pants. We don't spank Natalee. We've started putting her nose in the corner, but it doesn't seem right to do that about something she doesn't really understand. But we might have to rethink how much she understands peeing in the potty chair since she managed to do it last week. I think I'm going to try something else first - I'll find a special toy she only gets to play with on the potty chair to encourage her to stay on it until she pees. If that doesn't work, we might have to start putting her nose in the corner for wet panties...and floors and beds and couches. (When I say bed, I'm not talking bedtime. I mean her jumping up and down on our bed and peeing while she's doing it. Urgh.) We'll see.

In the meantime, I have some wedding presents to shop for, dresses to find, and a toy to buy to encourage toilet training. Busy days ahead.

Natalee is...

baby