The Poo-Poo Tent

The potty training process, to no surprise due to Ella's severe case of stubbornness, has been a fairly lengthy process for us. After waiting for the "signs" (ie: does child show interest in the toilet? does child go long lengths of time without wetting the diaper? does child show discomfort wearing a dirty diaper?, etc), we decided to push for the potty training about, oh, months ago...I think we've lost track. So then, after repeated failed attempts, we consulted the books, hoping for an answer to our dilemma:

Suggestion #1: Using child's baby doll, show the child how the baby doll goes to the potty, "flushes", and washes hands. Child will then want to actually show her baby doll how it's done by actually using the potty.
Outcome #1: Ella: "Yeah baby! Yeah Kate! You did it! Now, let's put you back in a diaper. Oooh, stinky poopy. Mommy! Kate has a poopy diaper! Mommy, Ella changed Kate's diaper!"

Suggestion #2: Encourage your child to take interest when mother or father uses the bathroom.
Outcome #2: Absolutely no bathroom privacy for mother or father.

Suggestion #3: Children LOVE new things! Buy your child a new potty and new underwear. Make a big deal of it and praise them on the new gifts.
Outcome #3: New underwear continued to build up in the drawer, unused and unworn. First purchased potty began collecting dust (literally), and second potty got thrown on the floor and preempted a tantrum.

Suggestion #4: Allow your child to mess or wet their underwear. The feeling of soiled underwear will be too much of a discomfort so they will learn that it's better to go in the potty.
Outcome #4: Setting the scene....it's around 10am and Ella is off playing with her toys. She's awfully quiet. Erika grows suspicious and approaches her. The smell is almost unbearable. Erika: "Ella, did you go poo-poo in your underwear?" Ella: "No." Erika: "Um, yes. I can see it and smell it." Ella: "No." Erika: "Ella, isn't it yucky to be in dirty underwear?" Ella: "No." (nonchalantly) Erika: "Does it feel good to be sitting and playing in a dirty pair of underwear?" Ella: "Yes."

Suggestion #5: Bribe them. Find the one thing that will work and will get them to go.
Outcome #5: Candy? No. A trip to Target (she loves it)? No. (Apparently doesn't love it that much). A new water table? No. Hmmmm.


Given that each child is different and some are perhaps more strong-willed than others (Ella can be the poster child for this personality trait), we believe that it takes an even more strong-willed set of parents in addition to a very creative grandmother to get the job done. We knew the time had to come to really push it and luckily last night when Nanni was over, she had the absolutely brilliant idea of the poo-poo tent. Erika had been upstairs with Ella for 30 minutes (yes, 30 minutes) and still no poop when she was relieved by Nanni so she could get dinner fixed. Within 10 minutes, Erika hears applause and praise from upstairs - Ella had pooped! And the trick: the poo-poo tent. Thinking that Ella needed a little privacy (since she normally hides in the corner or ducks under the table to poop), Nanni created a tent around her and Ella with the shower curtain. Within seconds, voila! And since last night, we took Ella under the poo-poo tent for not one, not two, but three poops today! Hallelujah, she just might be potty trained! And, we went out twice today and no mess!

So, our suggestion: poo-poo tent.
Our outcome: You guessed it!


Three feet under under the poo-poo tent: Ella, Mommy, and "Kate"


Success!

Music Class

Today marked our last music class before Erika head's off to "work" on May 10th. We've enjoyed our Thursday morning outing for the past year and it's been amazing to see how Ella has progressed in her confidence and singing since we started when she was just about one year old! Now, she'll walk up to Ms. Beth to request a song or chime in with a animal for "Old McDonald Had a Farm." And, when the teacher plays songs on her violin, Ella is able to recognize the song. For the last class of the session, Ms. Beth brought out the parachute which all the kids love and after some singing and dancing with it, she let the kids sit on it for the remainder of the class. Here are a few of Ella's favorite songs (don't know all the exact titles!):

1. ABC's
2. I'm a Little Acorn Round
3. Row, Row, Row Your Boat
4. Itsy Bitsy Spider
5. The Old Gray Cat
6. Five Monkey's Sitting in a Tree
7. Open and Shut Them
8. All the Fish are Swimming in the Water
9. Ba-ba Black Sheep
10. Jack and Jill went up the hill

Now I Know My ABC's

Recently, Ella has really gotten into singing and we think it's definitely reflective of the fact that her confidence in her vocabulary is increasing. Her confidence started when she began "reading" books out loud, especially to Caroline. She might say the first sentence coherently and then the rest of the page sounded like a bunch of vowels and consonants strung poorly together but reflecting the changes of pitch, etc. But now, while she continues the reading (which is also improving thanks to 1. her imagination and 2. her ability to memorize her favorite books), she's picked up singing to her repertoire. This morning, she was heard singing the entire "Twinkle Twinkle" song to Caroline and totally mimicking the way Erika sings it to Caroline, using the hand motions and all. And today at lunch (probably inspired from music class this morning), she sang the "entire" (ok, so she might have missed a couple letters in there!) ABC song. She's totally into letters these days and takes great pride in letter recognition!





During lunch today, instead of EATING her peanut butter and honey sandwich, she decided to give her herself a "tattoo" with the peanut butter. All during lunch, "look mommy! Ella has a tattoo! Almost dry! Look at my tattoo!" God willing she never gives herself a REAL tattoo up her arm!



So after we cleaned up her tattoos, she decided to draw the letter "E" on her arm...again in the peanut butter....which should have been on her sandwich....which she should have been eating. Needless to say, she was pretty proud of the "E" and so was mommy!



And, here's a video of Ella singing her ABCs!

Toothy Grin

Not just one, but TWO teeth have started making their appearance! We figured Caroline had started to teethe a bit since she was drooling and really enjoying chewing on her toys but who would have thought they would peak through so soon! And since they've just started to come through, she'll have to flash you a big smile in order to see those bottom two teeth!

Candy Weekend

If you want to get on Ella's good side offer her some Pez candy. Or jelly beans. Or tootsie rolls. Or chocolate eggs. She has officially developed her sweet tooth and if she had it her way, she'd munch on Easter candy for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. She was caught this morning stuffing several jelly beans in her mouth and proudly shaking the empty plastic egg. Onto the next candy-filled egg! We're surprised she's still napping.

And finally, we had some beautiful weather for Easter and we took full advantage of it by spending as much time outside as possible. After Ella and Tim celebrated her friend Jack's 2nd birthday (Happy Birthday!), we headed to a neighborhood Easter egg hunt to get the Easter weekend started....thus began the beginning of the candy infatuation. On Sunday, we spent the morning eating more candy (oh, and a great breakfast thanks to chef Tim) and then headed to Easter mass. Later that day, we headed to Erika's parents house with some family friends and enjoyed Easter dinner..and more candy. So while Ella spent the weekend in sugar la-la land, Caroline is safe from the sugar overload, for now at least. She's been busy expanding her food repertoire but we're weary to break out the peas again...What she does like though are rides in the playground swing, putting anything and everything in her mouth, and her big sister Ella. She continues to laugh and laugh and laugh at Ella and it's really the sweetest thing. . . Easter candy can't compete with that!

On the flip side though, when either of the girls was sleeping, Erika locked herself in the basement and typed away at one of the last three papers she has to finish before finally (yeah!) completing her course requirements for her program. The first of them was finished last night around midnight so almost there......

After all the eggs were found, the kids were presented with neighborhood awards; here they all listening for the next name to be called

Caroline was very content in the swing while all the big kids chomped on candy

Tim sneaks up on Caroline who was busy figuring out how to take her hat off

So bright! Our eyes weren't used to the SUN!

I found one!

Looks like the Easter bunny found Caroline and Ella's rooms

And looks like Ella found the candy.....

Caroline was just content with a basket full of empty eggs and a stuff animal duck

After much coaxing, Ella was finally convinced to put down the candy (well sort of, what's that in her hand?) and give her sister a hug for an Easter morning picture. Can you tell she's totally not into it and can't smile because she's got a mouth-full of jelly beans?

Family shot after mass

Easter egg hunt with Jane at Nanni and Opah's

Eating candy again...to no surprise. At least she can manage a smile for this one! Erika ordered the matching dresses from Etsy (LOVE that site!)

When not on mom duty, she's on school duty. Working on her last clinical theory paper....now just two policy papers left. Gulp.

Carlson Update

Look at me! I'm six months!

Our little C-Lion turned six months a couple of weeks ago (where is the time going?!?!) and the half-year point marked some big moments for her. Not only is she sitting up (like a 9 month old would, according to her doctor), but she had her first taste of food a couple of weeks ago. We won't go so far to say that the rice cereal was a major hit since she seemed to enjoy the novelty of eating instead of the actual taste of it (can't say we blame her). Of course, once we introduced veges and fruits, the rice cereal quickly got pushed to the bottom of the totem pole; she'll tolerate it, but we've found that if we mix half a bit of rice cereal on the spoon with fruit or a vege on the other half, it all goes down quite nicely. So, far, we don't have a picky eating.....with the exception of peas. As her first vegetable, one would think that she has nothing to compare it to (literally, it was the next food after the rice cereal) and someone would have called CPS on us if they saw her reaction. She choked, she cried, she pursed her lips, she turned her head, and finally, she gagged. After that, the peas got thrown out. Maybe next time? She still continues to giggle and laugh (mostly at Ella) although Erika was changing her today and at just random, she started cracking up! Not sure what set her off, but apparently something about changing her diaper was pretty comical! On a different note, she's entered the stranger anxiety phase and will produce a face full of tears if some stranger in the store or out and about tries to engage with her. Totally interesting to see it since she only reacts to people that we don't know, either - it's like she knows intuitively that they are true strangers, not just to her, but to us, too.

But all in all, we've got a very happy and healthy little baby. As of today at her check-up, she weighs 16 lbs 3 oz and is 27 inches long. She did well at the appointment but of course threw a fit when the first of the immunization shots were admistered. Couldn't blame her, those needles are LONG! Ella came along and provided her toddlerisque support - "shh. Caline. You have a booboo. Here's a bandaid." Speaking of, Ella is doing really good - luckily she's outgrowing her tendancy to hit Caroline at every opportunity and her 'time' in timeout has been dwindling. We think she was going through a total and complete "terrible two" phase which, aside from the occasional episodes, seems to be slowing down. Phew! She's become super expressive recently and it's now possible to have conversations with her, which is so nice! Plus, she's starting to take an interest in letters; she can draw the letter E (down, over, over, over) and the letter L. What's most interesting is that she'll recognize the letter E when we're out and about and will point out them out by saying "look mommy! down, over, over, over" on passing trucks, signs, etc. Totally cool. She's recently added the letters S, O, R, H, C, and P to the letters of recognition. Since all this, we've noticed that she's looking at books in a whole new way now. For example, she was thumbing through one of Erika's books the other day and was identifing the first letter at the beginning of each chapter (the ones that are usually bolded and made larger).
Writing all this is a reminder that this blog should be updated more often! So much is changing and we experience some amazing and comical events with our two girls that blogging more often would eliminate this chapter of an update!

Here are some pics!

First taste of solid food....mmmmm....rice cereal

Big Sister Ella helps with the first feeding, too - "MY turn!" Yes, we hear that ALOT!

Looking angelic, a picture that couldn't be missed!

So while Caroline is experiencing new food, Ella is enjoying the fact that all the snow has finally MELTED! Yeah! She LOVES being outside and we find her constantly digging in the dirt, picking up sticks, and just keeping herself busy by making "soup" out of mulch and mud.

We had some beautiful weather this past week and Erika and Caroline were enjoying some outside fun

Waking up in the morning and the first thing she wants to do this time is read "Chica Chica 123!"

Uh oh. Starting to realize that these peas are quite what she thought they were.

Thought we'd try them again, on a different day, but once the crocodile tears sprouted, accompanied with some gagging (very effective), we thought it best to pass [on] the peas, please.

Much better! Sweet potato and summer squash!

Plus, where there is Ella, there is a smile from Caroline!

At the doctors today; clean bill of heath!

Doctor visits are hard work; asleep in the car on the way home.

No, we did not have another little girl. Apparently, Ella decided "Kate" needed some quiet time in Caroline's swing along with some toys.

See ya, Bumbo!

See ya, Bumbo seat. I'm moving on to bigger and better.

It can't be true! We were warned that time flies extra fast with the second baby and they sure were right. At 5 1/2 months, our little Caroline is sitting up! Granted, she's still wobbly and is prone to tipping over the moment she gets distracted with something......or when her sister pushes her over ( Ella is not fond of the new attention her little sister is receiving over her latest accomplishment. Sigh.), but we've even seen her grow stronger in one day of practicing. It's almost like she was capable of sitting up earlier than we prompted her to. But Caroline seems pretty proud of herself and is most likely appreciating the new view on life from her sitting position. And not that we want her to get any older, but we've been looking forward to this moment so that she and Ella can interact a little easier, too. Needless to say, she's still a total doll but hope that she doesn't start crawling anytime soon....we'll have to wipe the dust off the baby gates and get ready for the next phase!

Caroline's first day of sitting up, 2/15/10. We were getting ready for bed and Erika thought she'd "test" Caroline's strength....and to her surprise, voila! Caroline sits up! She looks about as surprised as we were!

The next day, practicing and gaining strength

Probably thinking - Mom! Enough with the pictures already!

Taking a happy break, good thing this pillow was here! Sitting up is tough work!

Back at it....boy, this blue elephant sure is interesting....