I love my daughter Neelah. She melts my heart with her smile, eyelashes and blonde curls. Have I mentioned that she is also the bain of my existence? But having said that, today she and I have reached a cease fire. In accordance to potty-training that is. I decided today, after some great encouragement from a friend, to go cold turkey. NO MORE DIAPERS FOR NEELAH.
The last 3 months Neelah has been pooping 5 or 6 times a day. Just a nuggett here, a nuggett there. Although small, they are quite foul smelling as most poops are and so I end up changing her diaper many, many times a day. I cannot afford her diaper changes. I figure that the cost of each diaper is aproximately 0.30 each. Times that by 5 times a day, seven days a week, 4.5 weeks a month...I am spending about $45 a month on Neelah's diapers!! Not to mention the cost of wipes!
In the last 6 months we have tried potty training. It hasn't worked. Just to give you a few examples of why I gave up...
1. She pooped on the table while we had guests over for dinner...and while we were EATING
2. She peed off the balcony and down onto the family room floor and couch
3. She has been known to touch the poop and smear it where ever
I don't list these things to someday embarrass her down the road...although they will. I just need some self assurance that I gave up for good reasons.
Today, I changed yet another nuggett diaper and then didn't replace it. I left her bare-bottomed and she cried in protest for about 20 min. Then she went about her playing. Unlike the other times, she didn't pee on the carpet right away. She held it until dinner. We were sitting at the table and she announces that she "doesn't want to get pee-pee on the chair." So we run into the bathroom to her little potty. She didn't scream and cry. She PEED!!
We congratulated and praised her to no end and I gave her a popsicle even though she didn't eat her dinner. Needless to say, she peed in the potty 3 times more tonight before going to bed. We did have a slight mishap with "toot poop" in her panties but we talked about it and are going from there. I am optimistic. Did I mention she didn't scream when she sat on the potty???!!!
Neelah and I are bonding over pee-pee and poo-poo. It might be the happiest day of my life!
Today is gorgeous! Bright white snow glittering against a blue sky. Blinding. But we welcome it after the last week of snow. It started last Friday and aside from one afternoon of sun, snowed ever since. Yesterday we endured a record breaking blizzard here and I feel so blessed to say that we didn't loose power once!
The following pictures were taken during that first snowstorm that in total dumped 26inches on us. We took the kids out while Eric and Tyler were trying to keep up with the shoveling. (the operative word there is "trying") Savvy wouldn't step one foot in the snow, she just sat and watched while the others played. She was a little upset by the fact that she couldn't ride the trike in the snow.
Finn lost his boots in the snow at least 10 times.
The kids have a roomy snow cave to play in and a slide made from the 7 foot snow drift. Its a winter wonderland!
