We woke up all ready knowing it was going to be a long day. Michael worked late and then was going to dinner with a friend afterwards, so I had the kids to entertain for around 12 hours. Granted, there are meals and naps in there, but still--that's a long time to be patient and engaging.
Emerald and I are still struggling through potty training. The other night, Michael and I found her poop all over her bedroom. It's been...kind of a battle. But she seems to be doing better, and I think I have stumbled upon a method that is working for us:
When we put her in panties, she still soils them as if they were diapers without even blinking an eye. I tried a variety of methods, including letting her pick out special panties (tinkerbell) and making her throw them away if she messed them up (I always snuck out and salvaged them, but she doesn't need to know that); made her help clean them up; we tried training pants, her own potty, a Dora potty seat that sits on the big potty. We tried rewards of toys, money, stickers, and candy...nothing was working.
Needless to say, I was beginning to feel like a failure. Even Michael worried she wasn't going to get it, saying, "Look on the bright side--soon, you will be able to logically explain it to her, since she will be 14".
Frustrated and out of ideas, I am ashamed to say I took it out on Emerald one day--when she brought me her pretty pink princess pull-up and asked me to change her because she had peed, I got very annoyed. I took off the wet pull-up, but did not put a new one on her, telling her that if she needed to go potty, she needed to tell mommy or just tee-tee on her pretty princess skirt.
My hope in doing this was that she would feel how yucky it was to go on herself and then panties would work; what I did not consider was how much of a fashionista Emerald tends to be, and how much she loves her pretty clothes. She didn't have an accident for three days when I was letting her choose her outfits, but leaving her without undergarments. Finally, success!
Fast forward to yesterday--Emerald is doing better. Not fully trained obviously; it is not practical or feasible for us to take her out or to other people's houses without a pull-up on, which has been setting her back a bit. But I reintroduced the rewards program:
For just sitting on the potty, she gets one small sticker on her sticker sheet for the day.
For pee-peeing in the potty, she gets one big sticker on her sticker sheet, plus she gets to pick out a piece of candy from the (Halloween and Easter--ewww, lol) candy bowl, and she gets a new "toy".
You know those cheap little capsules you drop in water and they dissolve and reveal a animal-shaped sponge inside? They come 18 for $1 at Dollar Tree, and Emerald adores putting on little sponge puppet shows for me and Gabriel. Plus, if she gets tired of them as puppets, we put them to use as part of our finger painting projects, leaving little barn animal imprints on the page.
For poo-pooing in the potty--which has only happened twice ever--she gets the big sticker and Daddy brings her home something special (French fries from McDonalds, a happy meal, a new Barbie, a trip to the park...kind of a grab bag). Usually I let her help decide what Daddy will bring her, because only she knows what will be really motivating for the day.
So, she has been putting almost all her pee in the potty, and is sitting several times a day besides, trying to go. She is making awesome progress, and yesterday, she only had one accident.
That whole long odyssey was actually to say: Emerald's special princess Dora potty seat only fits on the toilet in Michael's bathroom. We have a Jack-and-Jill bathroom set up, with what is essentially two half baths (toilets and sinks) that are connected in the middle by a third little room with a bathtub/shower. The potty in my bathroom has an elongated seat, meaning that Emerald's potty seat slides around on it and scares her. So we have to put it on Michael's potty with the round seat, because it was made to fit on those.
I had a revelation then:
Boy bathrooms are horribly nasty.
I am supposedly still in charge of cleaning this little room. On the one hand, it makes sense, because Michael is never home to do it himself, and because I clean my bathroom and the room with the bathtub--logically, it should fall to me. But I don't even ever use it. So unfortunately, it fell into a bit of chaos. Being a bit of a pregnant sissy, I couldn't even go into that room without getting incredibly ill, and lifting Emerald on and off the potty was all but an impossibility. Have I mentioned that she weighs a respectable 42 lbs? I can't heft her under any circumstance.
All brings us around to--when I got up yesterday, I cleaned like I always do, but I started with the three rooms of the bathrooms, and got them so that I can stand to help Emerald in a boy bathroom. I also got the living room straightened, the dishes done, the laundry changed over...the way I do it is to do all the hard work in the morning when I have the most energy, and then spend a great deal of time outside with the kids, finger painting, drawing with chalk, playing on the swing and slide, playing in the water hose, and generally getting good air and exercise.
Unfortunately, because I was cleaning so hard, I failed to notice a text from Michael that said I should take the kids out in the morning, since the weather forecast for the afternoon was a bit bleak. Very windy with fire warnings. Crap! I have wasted most of the morning all ready!
With very little preamble (unlike this story), I usher the kids outside. Normally, for the first 15-30 minutes, all either of them want to do is be pushed on the swings and enjoy the day; because of this, I multi-task and either read aloud or sing. Ben Reilly can now hear my voice, which means that I want to start communicating with him, and Emerald and Gabriel seem to enjoy my singing and reading as well, regardless of what it is, so it's kind of a win all around.
Unfortunately, I am just feeling too down dreading the upcoming day to sing or read, which just makes me sadder. Plus, the kids are frustrated with me because Gabriel wants to be able to paint and Emerald wants to turn on the water hose to fill up the water play table, but we have an ECI appointment that morning and I don't want them getting too dirty right before it.
Emerald resigns herself to naming ants as she squishes them one by one, and Gabriel settles in to eat the dead ants and some chalk he found laying around. Without no fight, we turn inside dejectedly to await our appointment.
When we get in, I make Emerald sit on the potty. That was when everything imploded--
About that time, I start getting texts that require effort and thought and response on my part, but Emerald is starting to call for me "Mommy! I need help!!" so I run in there to celebrate joyously because Emerald peed in the potty--hurray!!
Naked from the waist down and still needing help cleaning up, Emerald runs to the living room and the doorbell rings. I think (since it is about that time) that it is Tammy, so I throw open the door and say, "Come on..." and freeze because standing on my porch is not Tammy, but two complete strangers.
I stand gawking like a moron for a moment, long enough for Emerald (who is still bottomless) to run to the door and yelling "I peepeed in the potty!! Oh, Hello! Come in!!" to the two women standing there; they politely tell me they are going door-to-door sharing their religion, though I did not catch the exact faith they were peddling. They quickly hand Gabriel a pamphlet and get the heck out of there as fast as they can manage.
But the torrent does not slow down--moving to dress Emerald, the phone rings with a call from the nurse that I have been waiting for. Crap!
You see, a couple of days ago, the weather changed in Lubbock, which means that Emerald, Gabriel, and I all got sinus headaches and runny noses. The problem is, Gabriel is on augmentin, citrazine, singulair, and a nasal spray of nasonex. There is no earthly good reason that he should have a runny nose, weather changes or otherwise.
Well, the nurse disagrees. Which frustrates me endlessly--I mean, we have him on all these medications to prevent him from getting sick any more, but it's okay (according to them) for him to get sick anyway? That's crap!
I dress Emerald while listening to the nurse telling me to up his dosage of Citrazine and that if I suspect an infection to take him to the PCP. Okay--what do I need to look for, how will I know if it is just a runny nose or if it is another infection? She informs me that only a doctor can determine that.
Great! So why not just say "yeah, probably not a bad idea to take him to the doctor" instead of all that blah blah?!?!
I get off the phone frustrated with her, but the doorbell rings again.
Deciding to handle this visitor at my door like an adult, I sneak crouching through the kitchen and peek out the kitchen window to make sure it is Tammy before I haphazardly throw open the door again. She sees me through the window, which is a bit embarrassing, but all the ECI specialists know I am a super odd duck, so it doesn't bother her in the slightest.
The appointment goes well, though Tammy can tell I am distracted and a little frazzled. Gabriel wants mostly to read his books while we discuss my concerns about separation anxiety that Gabe might experience when I go to stay in the hospital, as well as how we are going to handle the adjustment for Gabe when the new baby gets here. Quiet visit, but I need some quiet time.
As soon as she leaves, my phone rings again--goodnight, but I am starting to feel harassed. Luckily, it is the director for the daycare that I applied at. I am hoping to get a job there so that I can have a discount on the children's attendance, as well as maybe a little extra money every month to help Michael out. I think he would like that. Erica was calling to set up an interview for me, so wish me luck on that front. I am really not holding my breath because I know there are tons of more qualified people that need jobs, but nothing ventured...
Lunch time, finally--Michael comes home with a refill on Gabriel's augmentin, and we get a quiet little mini break of watching Man vs Food and eating food that is probably a bad idea, plus finalize plans for that night.
During lunch, Gabriel dumped a cup full of liquid all over the kitchen floor. He got really freaked out and didn't want to be in trouble, so he tried to go to Michael to soothe him, but slipped and fell in on the slippery tile instead. He really cracked his head hard, I heard it from the other room. No blood, no bump, so I knew he was probably just sporting a splitting headache and feeling quite frightened, so I cuddle him until he starts calming down. Michael is still quite shaken because he hasn't had much first-hand experience with Gabriel's reckless side.
Gabriel fell asleep the minute I laid him down, which actually makes me a little nervous, but he was very tired all morning and trying to get me to rock him to sleep for a while, so I wasn't going to take it too seriously.
All in all, both kids slept about two hours, which is weird for Emerald. Not so weird for Gabriel, but Emerald has been forgoing nap time all together the last several days.
After nap was our second ECI appointment--this time, it was speech therapy. Gabriel wanted absolutely nothing to do with Cassie this time, even to get marshmallows, but they got a little back and forth in. She talked to me about possibly getting Gabriel into an ECI playgroup with some of the other kids in the program this summer.
Dinner was to spoil the kids--we made pizza, chicken nuggets, and cheetos. Nothing healthy in sight, but I wanted them to eat well and sleep well because I was worn out. No such luck--they picked and ended up eating most of it, but making a very big mess along the way.
Bath was sedate but long lived--I let them splash for over an hour, draining away the gross water and refilling it occasionally. They really enjoyed relaxing.
Then we just got dressed and laid down in the living room watching Bambi waiting for Michael to get home. The kids weren't going to go to sleep without seeing him, or wouldn't stay asleep with him coming back in, so I figured it would be okay as long as they were relaxing.
Whew! That was too much talking for one post. I am going to go take a break--big, long, exhausting day yesterday, but it is looking like today might be better!!
~Andie~
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