Two Years!

Here's our big boy on the morning of his birthday party. Dad went to the store and got him some balloons. Mom gave him a haircut and put him in a new shirt from Grandma. Isn't he adorable? His birthday was the 20th, but we planned his party for the 22nd so we waited until that day to tell him it was his birthday.

Eating his birthday breakfast of waffles and orange juice

We opened two big gifts that morning, one of which came from Kevin's parents. He absolutely LOVED it! He kept saying, "Baa" "Hup" for ball, hoop.

It's the perfect height for a slam dunk! This hoop can be raised too as he grows. Thanks, Nana and Papa!

The evening of the party: We had a nacho bar for dinner. Mikey invited his best friends, Grace (4) and Gordon (2) who belong to my friend Katie, and Taylor (3) who belongs to my friends Cassa and Sean.

There's Katie with her kids

The kids eating dinner -- I think everyone ate more dessert than they did dinner, but oh well. The adults really enjoyed the nachos :)

We made Mikey some birthday brownies

After we sang Happy Birthday to him, I told him to blow out the candles

Cassa times this picture really well -- Mikey never blows on anything very hard, like when I tell him to blow on his food because it's hot, it's like barely a whisper. You can see the candle on the right is sort of being blown, but I had to help him after about three unsuccessful attempts. I love this picture of him, though. So cute!

Eating the brownies and ice cream

Opening presents -- the tractor was from Gordon, who LOVES tractors. It's funny because every time Mikey plays with his tractor, he says "Gordy" "tacka" because he remembers that Gordon gave it to him.

He got some puzzles from Grace and Taylor. This kid loves puzzles. He likes his alphabet too. He has probably done this puzzle five or more times every day since we got it. He can get pretty far on it by himself, and can even pick up several pieces and correctly identify which letters they are without help. I'm pretty impressed. The puzzle Taylor got him was a floor puzzle, jigsaw style. We put it together on the porch last week and he had a lot of fun with it. Thanks for all the fun presents, friends! Mikey also got a new movie from his aunt and uncle, with a birthday card signed by his cousins. We had a fun day. I can't believe my little guy is two.

Ginny even smiled for the camera. After she got her nap in, she enjoyed the party too. Unfortunately, she has been sick with a little cough the past several days, and I think it came on that night. She was a little fussy earlier in the evening. My friends were great to help me out with holding her while I was doing party stuff. Cassa's husband Sean is holding her in this picture. And I have to thank Cassa too for taking almost all of the pictures from that night. I love my friends.

"I'm TWO!"

Potty Party!

So, as promised, I am doing a post about Mikey's one-day potty training. It was a smashing success, but if you had asked me at the end of day one, I might have told you I was a nervous wreck and wasn't sure that Mikey was ready for potty training. By the middle of day three, a switch seemed to flip in Mikey's brain and he has been a potty pro ever since!

I made the decision after talking to a few of my friends who potty trained their kids early to just tackle the project in one weekend. Kevin doesn't work Fridays, so we did the potty party on a Friday, and by Sunday afternoon, I knew we would have smooth sailing from then on. This was not a spur-of-the-moment decision, mind you. I have been preparing Mikey to "toilet independently" since he could sit up on his own. I got him his first potty chair when he was probably 8 months old. He has been learning to be comfortable on the toilet for well over a year, and had pretty much mastered bowel control before I started the potty party.

The other preparation (that I didn't really plan, but once I started reading potty training books I realized was so helpful) was allowing Mikey to model us, to watch us use the toilet, and to participate with us like helping us flush and close the toilet lid afterward. We also taught him how to use the adult toilet with an adapter seat, or with us holding him up a few months before this.

The two books I used in my research were Potty Train Your Child In Just One Day by Teri Crane and Toilet Training In Less Than A Day by Azrin and Foxx. That second book is from the 70s, but it had some helpful tips that I used which were not in the first book. Anyway, the first book teaches the philosophy that your child's potty learning experience should be fun, and what better way to do that than throw a party? Teri Crane has ten or twelve party themes to choose from, with suggestions for activities and decorations, and even treat recipes. We did a "choo-choo" themed party because Mikey is into them right now (since Nana and Papa got him a choo-choo for Christmas).

Anyway, here are some of our supplies that made the day a success... If you're thinking of potty training your little one, I highly recommend these books, and talking to friends who have had success too. If I knew it would go that well, I might have done it a month or two sooner! A friend of mine said that 22 months is a really good age since developmentally, kids are eager to please their parents, and they want to emulate everything we do. Plus, they usually cannot talk back or ask for their diapers again because they're too young.

This is the doll we used to teach Mikey about wearing big boy underpants, the difference between wet and dry, and consequences of going potty or poop in your pants. I made those Spiderman underwear for the doll the night before, and just stapled them on him because I was too lazy to sew anything. I knew I'd be throwing the fake underwear away after one day anyway.

The doll's name is Pablo -- he's a character from the cartoon The Backyardigans. Mikey absolutely LOVED him. He was so excited when he woke up the morning of his potty party and got to take Pablo ("PaBo") with him everywhere he went. They were little buddies from the start!

These are the presents we got Mikey for his graduation party that Friday evening. We did a ceremonial throwing away of his diapers and danced around the house singing, "Dry Pants! Dry Pants! Mikey is a big boy! No more diapers! Mikey is a big boy!" Then we let him open his toy train, his 4-pack of puzzles (one of which was trains), and his Thomas the train pillow pet.

Underwear that Mikey helped pick out at the store. His little bum looks so cute in his new underwear!

This was the treat tray I made for the potty party day. We had a dining car on our train (the piano) that had the treat tray for every time his pants were dry, and every time he went potty or poop in the toilet. He loved to look in all the little cups and decide which one he wanted to eat each time.

A bunch of library books and videos with either potty themes or train themes. We needed some things to keep us busy on Friday while we were learning.

The homemade potty charts: The one for Pablo has a picture of him, a toilet, and a pair of underwear. We used this during the morning session when Mikey was teaching Pablo how to use the toilet, and Pablo would get a sticker on his chart whenever his pants were dry, or he used the toilet like a big boy. I added Mikey's potty chart to the wall right above Pablo's for the afternoon portion, when Mikey got to try on his big boy undies and start learning how to keep them dry.

I decorated the bathroom like a sleeper car on the train (again, a suggestion from the Teri Crane book) and Mikey thought it was so fun! It's hard to see, but I drew a choo-choo and a bunch of stars on the mirror with dry-erase pens.

We made the bathtub into a makeshift bed and we would play a game of going to sleep and waking up in there on the potty party day. Mikey loved it.

Here is his new toilet setup. A stool and a seat adapter, so he can climb up onto the toilet totally unassisted. He broke our toilet paper holder a while back... but there are some flushable wipes on the back of the toilet now for him.

(By the way -- I LOVE this toilet seat for boys. It is a Sesame Street one and makes fun noises when you squeeze the one of the handles, but the reason I love it is that it has a flexible splash guard that is really difficult for a child to remove, but doable for an adult. The splash guard is soft enough that it bends when he's scooting himself back onto the seat, or scooting forward to get off, so it's not in the way, but it catches the potty and channels it down into the toilet bowl even if Mikey isn't leaning the way he should. Our old seat adapter had a removable splash guard and he didn't like it. It was hard plastic and he would take it off immediately whenever he sat down, so I'd have to monitor closely to make sure his pee would make it into the toilet.)

The potty charts at the end of day one: Pablo had three stickers on his chart, Mikey had quite a few more, as you can see. On the first day, Mikey was peeing every 15-20 minutes because he never knew about holding it, and we were feeding him tons of fluids. By day two, he stretched it out to about every 20-45 minutes. By day three, he could go 1-2 hours between potties. He is totally independent with the toilet now, except for pulling his undies and pants back up and washing his hands. He also still needs help to wipe after #2. But other than those small tasks, he can do everything himself! We are so proud of our little guy and his achievements! His other big boy milestones as of late are that he no longer sits in a high chair -- he has a toddler chair that pulls up to the table -- and he no longer drinks from sippy cups. He feeds himself independently too, for the most part, using his own plastic utensils.

Before we know it, he's going to be tying his shoes and riding a bike! My next post is going to be all about Mikey and his big 2nd birthday! So I'll get some more pictures of him on here soon :)

They Grow Like Weeds!

 My little Mikey is becoming a big boy all too quickly. He can climb up the bar stools by himself, and has been for a while now. One of his favorite hangouts is on the kitchen island. Here he is enjoying a snack of tortilla chips before dinner one Sunday.

 He also likes to ride around the house on his bike. He sometimes puts his feet on the pedals, but they're too hard to pedal on carpet, so he just scoots around. He's wearing the lid to a penguin toy chest as a hat. I found him like this and just had to take a picture. We think he's pretty cute.

 Ginny is also growing way too fast! She is probably close to 14 or 15 pounds by now... She just turned 4 months old, so I'll be taking her in for a check up and some vaccinations any day now. She has recently (in the last month or so) outgrown her baby bath so she gets to use the big bath with Mikey. He thinks it's pretty fun to have her in there. Sometimes he picks up the bubbles and spreads them on her head or tummy, as if he's helping to wash her. She kicks like crazy in the tub and is getting close to rolling over. Yesterday she rolled on to her side a few times from her back.

 She is such a happy and social baby! She gives the cutest grins to people, and loves to be talked to and cooed at. We sat her in this Bumbo recently and she fills it out quite nicely when she has a cloth diaper on! She can hold her head up pretty well, and is getting stronger with holding her head up and looking around while lying on her tummy. We absolutely adore our sweet little girl.

 Mikey still likes to line things up. One day after he had been coloring by himself, I came back to find his beautifully drawn picture and the crayons all organized in a row. Little moments like this just make me giggle.

His vocabulary is also coming along nicely. In the past few weeks, it has seemed to be growing exponentially! He is in total parrot mode, and loves to repeat anything I say or do. The other day he put three words together for the first time when he saw baby Ginny wearing a hooded sweater. He said, "Baby hat on!" As you can see in the picture, he was riding his bike again with a Halloween trick-or-treat bucket on his head. AND... he's wearing big boy underwear! That's right. This little fella went through an intensive potty training weekend with me. We threw him a potty party and I had my doubts after the first day or two whether he was ready, but he has surpassed our expectations! I'm planning to do another post about our potty party. It was a choo-choo theme, based on suggestions from the book "Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day" by Teri Crane. I highly recommend it. It was a fun experience for him, and definitely made an impact because he is still enjoying his new-found independence as a potty trained big boy. I can't say enough good things about this method, but I'll save it for the next post. :)