So this likely won't appeal to everyone who reads this blog, but it does catch you up on what's been going on in my life the past few weeks...potty training Rosemary. And there are no pictures with this post. I hope that one day Rosemary will thank us for that. :-)
With the new baby's arrival quickly approaching and the many signs of readiness that Rosemary had started to show, we decided that it was time to start working on this skill. So true to form, I started asking friends who had been through the process for advice, checked out several books from the library, did some internet research, bought a potty seat and 14 pairs of princess and Elmo underpants, picked up some "reward" snacks, and prepared to start the ordeal.
One of the books that a friend from MOPS had recommended to me was
Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day. I read through the book one evening and, in theory, everything it said made perfect sense. I knew that some of the techniques just were not going to work for us (it recommends throwing a pretty elaborate "Potty Party"...complete with decorations and props) but most of what it suggested really seemed like it would work. I figured a day might be a stretch, but give us a week and we'll be good. So I picked a Monday to start and start we did.
As soon as the potty chair came out of the box, I was pretty certain that Rosemary was not going to follow the scenarios from the book like I had expected. The book recommends spending a morning potty training a doll and then moving on to the child in the afternoon. The idea being that the child sees the doll and then mimics the behavior. Rosemary was just way too excited about the potty chair and knew exactly what it was for. I opened the box in the living room and she immediately took off her pants ready to sit herself. We did a few trials with the doll, but she wanted to be the one on the chair...at least at first.
That day was much more exhausting than I anticipated...especially since there were no successes and sometimes quite a bit of resistance. The moment Jonathan walked in the door that night I said, I am so glad you're home...can we go out to dinner? I really do try not to unload on him right away when he gets home from work, but that day was tough. And Jonathan, being the exceptional husband that he is, immediately said yes and took us out for pizza.
Anyway, here we are now, a week and a half later and Rosemary is starting to regularly use the potty. Now, it's not voluntary quite yet, but today I think she used the potty eight times with no accidents while in her underpants...that's four times more than yesterday and about seven times more than the day before. One of the eight times today was completely on her own as Jonathan and I were still at the dinner table. Praise God! Not completely trained by any means, but she is well on her way and certainly major progress since we started.
So here are a few of the things that I have learned so far about potty training in the last week and a half:
1. No one technique will work...we had to find ways to make it work for us in our family. Now I think I knew that, but I really wanted to believe that Rosemary would be potty trained in a day. I mean, think of the mommy bragging rights! :-) Yet another reason I should have known it wouldn't work because I could always use a lesson in humility. Between home, church, and general daily activities, we have to be more creative and more importantly, more patient in the training. I really thought it was something that we were going to have to back off of and try again in a few weeks.
2. Pull-ups are not the way to go to potty train. Since we spend half of our day at the church, I switched Rosemary to pull-ups rather than underpants when we started training because I didn't think that Harvest would really enjoy having a toddler pee all over the church (and I knew that I wouldn't enjoy cleaning it up either). I'd heard from multiple people not to go back to diapers once the training starts. The problem with the pull-up is that I don't think Rosemary notices much of a difference from diaper to pull-up...other than the pull-up has a picture of Ariel on it (which she loves). My mom and some other moms from our small group recommended training pants. So I started putting her in training pants at the house in the afternoons, spending a lot of time on the porch or outside (thankfully we've had some very nice weather days), and cleaning up accidents...but we also started having potty successes after that too.
3. It's more tiring than I expected. I really try not to blame my exhaustion on the pregnancy because I don't think it's that. What I've felt this week hasn't been physical exhaustion so much as emotional for some reason. Rosemary has been quite resistant at times to sitting on the potty every 30 minutes and I can't say that I blame her. I'm not sure that she understood why we were doing it. She's used diapers for two years and suddenly we're now asking her to give that up? Rosemary never was one to get overly upset about a dirty diaper so I think the reasoning to switch made no sense to her.
4. Regular discipline has been harder. This is probably just me, but I have found it to be generally harder to discipline Rosemary these past 11 days, partly because some of her actions have been a result of resistance to training. Hopefully we're getting past that, but it hasn't been fun.
5. Talking to other moms helps so much...no matter what age their kids are. I learned that everyone has a different story. My mom and Jonathan's mom have encouraged me, MOPS moms encouraged me on Monday, and my small group moms encouraged me the last few Wednesday nights. I don't think it's coincidental that Rosemary made the greatest strides after prayers about the training were lifted up in our Wednesday night small groups.
6. My vocabularly has changed drastically. If I had a nickel for everytime I said "pee" or "poop" these last few days, we could probably pay off our house. But there is something so funny about hearing Rosemary say "my pann-ies."
Well, this was certainly longer than I expected it to be but I guess I needed to get it down. We have some pictures to post from Jonathan's trip to New York that we'll get up soon in what I'm fairly certain will be a much shorter post.
Not only did we dye eggs, we also dyed fingers!
Some of our finished products. 
We ate lunch the first day at a local college restaurant called Retros, near the College of William and Mary, with Jonathan's coworker Dee (on the left), her husband Leo, Toby (another coworker) and his wife Christy. Christy and I used to share a very small office when we worked for Housing.
After canoeing, Charles, Schuyler, and Emma went swimming in the springs. It was nice that day, but I think the water still was pretty cold.
That night, we saw just how many people the hot tub could hold.
And we celebrated everyone's birthday.
This weekend we traveled to Tallahassee for the Tri-state Christian Convention. We had some free time on Friday morning so we drove around the FSU campus, found Jonathan's parent's first home, and toured the state capital. We went all the way to the top of the building. The weather was foggy and wet, so we couldn't see very far, but it was still pretty fun to do.
That evening, after dinner at Conestoga's and a bath, Rosemary had a few presents to open. I think her favorite is the princess nightgown that she's wearing in the picture below...she's worn it the past three nights to bed...including the slippers.
The butterfly cakes.
My mom found this little butterfly outfit and it was perfect for Rosemary's party. We opened gifts in the garage again this year. Our house doesn't quite have a room that accommodates 25 people so we were very happy that the weather was nice!
Rosemary and Caitlyn enjoyed the musical instruments.
Next, we headed to Groveland to spend a few days with Jonathan's family. We celebrated Christmas Eve morning. The brothers all wore the same color shirts by chance.
Rosemary very much enjoyed the boxes...I don't think this one was even from one of her gifts.
We opened presents with my parents on Christmas morning.
This is a chef set that Rosemary received from someone in Jonathan's office.
And a priceless expression.
On our way home, we met up with our friends Steve, Becky, and their daughter, Abby, for a character breakfast at the Grand Floridian. The girls did great and the food was so good. Rosemary liked seeing Tigger, but didn't want to be up there without her dad.
Hi, Pooh! (This was one of the few characters that she actually knows)
Meeting Alice in Wonderland.
Afterwards, we took the girls outside to get some pictures. Not the easiest thing to do with a 15 month old and a 23 month old.
