First selfies

You were playing starfall on my phone and started taking pictures.

Here are the ones that weren't a close up of your finger print.

Potty training day 4

This morning was rough. Now we are deep down in the trenches of potty training.

First, he peed a big puddle on my bedroom floor after I asked him 3 times to try to go in the toilet.

Then while I was in my bathroom putting on makeup Nolan was in his bathroom flooding it.

Luckily I have a water vacuum. 

I emptied it 4 times to clean it all up. Then I got a towel for the rest the floor once the majority was gone. He had clogged the toilet with toilet paper and continued to flush it spilling toilet water all over the floor.

Why I thought I had time to put on makeup I don't know.

I was pretty deflated after that, so I resorted to the TV while I cleaned everything up and finished getting myself ready. I did so well staying away from TV up until today, but I had no problem with it at this point.

Then we set up the trusty 'shock blankets' and camped out in the living room for the rest of the day.

Again.

Even though it was a rough start. He is doing so well and I think by tomorrow if he will be able to keep underwear on all day, I will pretty much count him as trained. 

I will still have to prompt him to go (probably for the rest of his life) but I am so excited about how well he has done. 

Four days is nothing to complain about. Hard work but totally worth it.

Potty training day 3

This day I felt confident enough to take Nolan out to different potties and see how he would do on them. 

Would he be scared of the public restroom automatic flushers? Or refuse to sit on a foreign toilet?

We went to the high school where my mom works (to say hi to grandma) and he did great. He didn't pee but I think the auto flusher flushed that toilet about 3 times before he got off and he wasn't even phased.

Then we went to my mom's house, John's office, and the elementary school. 

He peed in two different toilets and I think he was saving his pee for this place because he peed twice here and nowhere else.

The toilet in Brooklyn's kindergarten class room is miniature. Even the door handle to the door is low for little sizes to open it.

He was so excited to go pee in this toilet. He did everything himself. Opened the door... 

washed and dried his hands...etc. 

I was so excited for him and I think he was feeling pretty proud of himself too.

The next toilet we need to try out is the one at the public library. That thing is a miniature size too.

Potty training day 2

I don't have any pictures for day two...but I was right. 

The work of training started first thing in the morning.

I decided to move the hang out from the living room to the dining room/kitchen just to mix things up a bit and while I was getting things situated Nolan popped some pretty big turds on the carpet right in front of the front door.

I couldn't bring myself to take pictures of that.

I was amazed at how calm and cool I was this time. I definitely felt more prepared mentally and emotionally.

Plus I wanted to have some learning opportunities for him (which is what I looked at these as, instead of accidents). I wanted to be able to teach him that when he feels that 'poop feeling, he needs to run to the potty. So later when he's outside playing, hopefully, he will remember and run inside (since we haven't gone outside at all yet).

We stayed home all day at the potty or the blanket the first two days. 

I had to prep myself mentally for that too. Talk about cabin fever.

I found myself adjusting my responses to his behavior, (based on how many accidents he had and when he had them) from naked (shirt only) to pants (no underwear) back to naked, back to pants (aka commando) and then underwear back to commando. It really helped my sanity and reacting positively to his accidents to be able to say to myself ok he's not ready for pants yet, we'll go back to no pants for a while again.

I was completely amazed at how this time I used no praise or bribery or scolding or anything like that.

In the past I used sticker charts, candy, spankings. It is so sad how inexperienced and poorly prepared I was for potty training in the past. I used happy dance parties when they stayed dry and traumatizing cold showers when they pooped in their underwear.

This time there were no happy dances and no tears. Just expectations and a champion two year old who met them.

I would challenge him to go on the potty and he would run and sit down for me. If he went I would say "I feel so happy when you go potty on the toilet." "Thank you for peeing in the toilet." 

He would smile and say "You are welcome." Then I would ask him how he felt and he would beam again and say "Good." If he didn't go I would say "Thank you for trying" and then say "We can try again in a little while."

I had no anxiety about it at all. Which was the opposite from the past. Before it was nothing but planned and lived anxiety for months.

Sometimes I would tell him "I am so proud of you. You should be proud of yourself too for peeing in the toilet all by yourself."

We would eat candy and snacks and drink drinks all morning and smile and laugh. The treats and snacks were never tied to his behavior on the potty. 

Although I made sure not to say "Now you get a treat for going pee," or "You can't have a candy unless you go," or ANYTHING like that. I did make sure to say "Yum..... I want a candy" to draw his attention to it after he went successfully. Sometimes he would say "Me too." Or I would say "Do you want one too?" and he would either say yes or no. So we defiantly got rewarded it just wasn't verbally acossiated with the behavior.

I did give a lot of high fives and tell him "Good job" sometimes. But for the most part I tried to stay as objective and neutral in my verbal observations as I could.

I am still so amazed at how well he is doing so far. We did pants today and he got the commando down pretty good but I think I'll keep him naked for a bit longer just to give him a really good foundation of confidence.

Potty training day 1

Finally time to potty train Nolan.

I tried to train him back in January but the night that we started he got a high fever that lasted for the next three days.

I decided to wait a couple months and I prepped myself by doing a training session from the experts.
I did the training through the Positive Parenting Solution. I highly, highly recommend it. It was worth every penny for me just for the potty training course alone.

It helped so much. Ever time I have potty trained in the past, (my three older children) I have not been mentally or emotionally ready to do it and I'm sad to say they are probably scared in some way from the trauma of it all. I know I was.

This time I was determined to do it right. Without trauma, without heart ache or pain.

I knew that was doable because my sister did it twice with her two oldest.

I got everything ready and started (again) the day after Easter. I told Nolan the night before that "Tomorrow we are saying bye bye to the diaper."

He had had plenty of prep talk from me and his siblings and motivation from his cousin who is about 9 months older then him (already going on the toilet) so he was pretty ready.

I am realizing that in all reality that (meaning the child truly being ready or not) will make or break the entire experience. It was night and day different for mother and child this time around because he was so ready...and I was too (finally).

About a month or so ago we started practicing pulling pants up and down. I showed him a video on YouTube of an old sesame Street episode where the kid practices putting on his own clothes.

So we started with that and everyday I would have him try to put his pants on by himself and he got better and better at it.

When he had the pants down good I had him do his shirt. That was tough at first but he got it too.

He had some good victories with those so he was in a good spot self-esteem-wise to start doing other hard things like sit on a toilet and go potty.

He was scared of the big whole and falling in so I went to the store and bought a potty seat insert and some underwear.

He was excited to use that potty seat. I showed him how back here and he did great getting his stool, then positioning the insert and pulling down his pants. He just didn't have the control quite yet to stop his stream and run to the toilet.

My sister told me that when her kids showed signs of being ready to potty train but then had difficulty when she tried to train them, she would stop and wait about two months and try again and it would be easy as pie the second time.

So that is just what I did.

This time we just took the pants and everything from the waist down off. I learned that form the training I did. I felt like it was training me how to potty train him which I had never had before. In the past it was just a bunch of different people saying what they did.

So as you can see in the pictures below, I found some big 'shock blankets' that belong in the truck in case if an emergency....two huge thick fleece/wool blankets....and laid them out on the living room floor.



We pretty much camped out there all day.

We had lots of supplies ready.

Drinks: chocolate milk, drink boxes, water bottles.

Snacks: 3 kinds of crackers, and a big bag full of Easter candy.

Paper towels, tissues, garbage sack, wraps and carpet cleaner.

And lots of games, puzzles, books and toys to play with.

I didn't have to deal with cleaning 5 to 6 pairs of pants and underwear in one morning thanks to this method (which was a God send) why didn't I think of that before?

With this method, if he mastered going potty naked (which means he goes on his own or with prompting) then he could wear pants without underwear (commando). (again I don't have to deal with cleaning out underwear).

If he had problems with that he went back to naked.

If he mastered commando, then the next step was to master foreign toilets, then night training and then he could wear underwear.

The first thing in the morning he pooped and peed in the toilet right away.

I couldn't believe it.

I wasn't aloud to ask him of he needed to go. I could only prompt challenge or give a choice.

He did the best if I challenged him.

In fact one of the times I said 'You can't beat me to the bathroom," he ran so fast he smacked his head on the door way pretty hard (so I wrapped it up for him). I told him we had to slow down after that.

We had so much fun hanging out together, reading books, doing puzzles, playing play dough, and watching Fantasia clips on Youtube.

He only had one accident on the blue blanket and it keeps the pee from absorbing like a champ...not quite as good as plastic but good enough for how soft it was.

We took a nap together. All that playing and peeing in the toilet was tiring.

He did super for his nap too. We just put the soft fleece blanket on the bed while we napped and he did great.

I went to bed scared. The day went so well and he did so good I couldn't help but think 'OK the honey moon period of potty training is over....no more beginners luck....get ready for the real work!'

See you luck! See you later!

Dear Nolan,

Every day since school started this year (2015-2016) when the older kids leave for school you tell them goodbye and I love you. At the beginning of the school year, you used to get upset and sometimes quite upset if they didn't say goodbye or I love you back. A couple times you chased after them on their bikes, trying to get them to say it back to you.

Then you started adding in good luck, and instead of saying goodbye you would say see you later. It became a ritual every time they left that went, "Goodbye, good luck, see you later." I don't know where you picked up the good luck part but it was thoughtful I thought. This little saying became so routine that you began saying it so quickly it evolved into this, "Bye, love you, see you luck, see you later." You mixed the 'good luck' with the 'see you' and got 'see you luck.' It became so endearing to use that now instead of you waiting for us to say I love you back, we wait for you to say this to us anytime any of us leave anywhere.

Today you went with me to the school to read books with Brendan in his class. We had to stop at the office first for Brooklyn to get a late slip because her brothers left her on their bike and she didn't want to ride her bike to school alone. So she came with us, late. Anytime we have gone into the office with the kids to get late slips this year (which as been probably 4 or 5, more than I like to admit) you have thrown a fit if you didn't get one too. A little pink piece of paper that has your name and the date on it. You of course never needed one but the Secretary in the office, Mrs. Griffeths always lets you have one too. For some reason getting a late slip is so exciting for you.
Jason forgot to take his viola to school so we brought it with us and after getting the late slip we went back out to the car to get it. On our way back in the school, you were holding my hand and out of nowhere (without any prompt or discussion), you looked up at me and said: "Mom the lady in the late slip room is really nice."

I was really impressed with the level of awareness that you had and also with your ability to sense and then verbalize such gratuitous feelings. I could tell that you really appreciated how she made you feel when she gave you a late slip each time and validated you in that act. I couldn't believe that as a two-year-old you were so aware and articulate in that awareness.

Daily I am impressed with your compassion, kindness and love for others around you. Later when we went to pick up the kids for lunch I ran into the office to tell Mrs. Griffeths what you said about her. She laughed and smiled and said that made her day. It made my day too!

Love,

Mom

Zodiac Sign

Nolan is the

Snake: Smart, charming, good-looking, kind