random thoughts, killing time

tyren is behind me on the couch, watching "little einsteins", hopefully getting sleepy. this is our night time routine for him...he falls asleep on the couch while i work/play on the computer. tonight has been hard to get either one of the kids asleep though. i just had to do the "heavy game" with maeven...she's been in bed for awhile and can't sleep...so she likes me to do this game where i start at her toes and touch toes, shins, thighs, hips, etc...all the way up to her head...while telling her that part is getting very very heavy...she really likes it, i've been doing it with her for years. hopefully it worked to help her get to sleep.

our schedules are all out of wack with the change in time (daylight savings) and just in general we've been sleeping later lately, which means we are up later...and so on. vicious cycle.

tyren, incidentally...is not only mostly potty trained now (woohoo!) , but he's been waking up DRY most mornings! not sure how that happened at the same time...i didn't expect it yet. pretty dang cool. potty treats is what worked for him (for potty training, not the night time thing)...giving him a (non-sweet) treat every time he would go pee or poop...not only that but maeven got a treat for encouraging him to go. so its just worked like magic!

i have always had the theory that if they are later learning something, that they will learn it more quickly...and that's almost always proven to be true with my kids. so i guess i just have to keep reminding myself to relax and things will happen when they happen. i just didn't want to have a 4 or 5yr old in diapers. wouldn't have been the end of the world...but i really wanted him to be done with diapers. i'm so ready to be past the baby phase completely. although i will miss his cute toddler-ness. he's just so darn cute the way he says things and the way he dances around when excited and oh so many things!

and check out the curls again!!

i just can't get over them! LOL! and neither can anyone else, since he gets comments about them still everywhere we go. :) i do hope he gets some length to his hair eventually, though...i have always wanted to have a little boy with long hair...just like daddy's.

anyhoo, here's some recent pics of maeven too:

maeve and one of her best friends, brooke.

hangin' in the hammock

now there's a child on my lap, so i guess my blogging is over.

potty training not going well

i'm so tired of potty training. tyren goes back and forth sooooo much its driving me INSANE. maeven wasn't like this. she was really easy in comparison. i really didn't have to do much with her, in comparison.

i finally broke down and decided to try using rewards (i'm not a big fan of reward systems). we are doing a sticker chart now and he often acts excited about it! but then later he could care less. even talking about him getting a special treat for getting a lot of stickers...doesn't matter.

i am thinking i might go buy some m&ms and see if that helps motivate him. or maybe hershey kisses. give him a kiss every time he goes potty. he does like his chocolate! i just need to get him in the habit...its not going to be something that i have to do forever...just to get him in the habit! because he's fully capable, physically...he just chooses not to do it. *sigh*

i have been trying to take him potty every hour. works ok the first half of the day, second half he won't have it. i think he gets tired of it. absolutely refuses to even just sit and try when i ask. *sigh*

half the time he makes it to the potty fine, half the time he just pees wherever he is. *sigh* its really hit or miss.

pullups are a waste of time. they are just diapers to him. he doesn't care that they can be pulled down to pee. same thing for undies and even pants. he just pees in them. and where he used to make it to the potty great if he was nakey...not anymore. he often will sit and watch himself pee.

this shouldn't really surprise me...he's oppositional about every other thing in his life. he absolutely has to do the opposite of what i want...most every time!!

right now i'm biding my time for this potty watch that i ordered to come in. he is really excited about it...i hope it works!! maybe it will get him to have the control and be more excited about it...because then its HIS watch that tells him to go potty, not ME!

adventures in potty learning

tyren isn't potty trained yet. he's actually pretty good at going on the potty when he WANTS to. and all summer i let him go nakey butt so he could remember to listen to his body and he only had a couple accidents for quite awhile. he really didn't even need me to remind him to go to the potty, as soon as he felt it, he just went, "oh no! i have to go potty!" and ran to the potty. i thought we had it made! i thought for sure in just a matter of a couple months we could say bye-bye forever to diapers.

i spoke too soon. he wouldn't take it to the next step...he can't remember to go to the potty whenever he has anything on his butt. underwear, pullups, diaper, pants...all get peed in equally. he's not yet been able to figure this next stage out.

well i figured he would eventually. and i know he will still. but for some reason, a couple months ago he figured he'd had enough of this potty training garbage and didn't want anything to do with the potty anymore.

so back to diapers because he wasn't even remembering to go to the potty even when he was nakey butt. i didn't really want to go through all the puddles i had with maeven (being naked rarely deterred her from peeing wherever she was, LOL!) and he just was flat out refusing to even think about the potty, so i backed off and gave him a break.

so its been a couple months now of back in diapers...i do bring up the potty a lot, here and there...reminding him that he's a big boy and all that. but no go.

today i just forgot to get him dressed after changing his diaper and he was nakey butt for awhile and went on the potty again! no coaxing from me, he just jumped up (just like before) and ran to the potty when he had to go! pee and poop! woohoo!

ok so i don't know that it will continue...but its a step at least!

i figure he'll eventually just decide he's ready and do it. physically i know he's fully capable. its just a matter of him WANTING to do it!

nakey butt tyren

we got a nakey butt boy here these days! just as i did with maeven, we've taken the nakey butt approach to potty training. seems to be working faster with tyren then it did with maeven! but i think that's because i didn't really start til he was older than she was. he wasn't at ALL interested in using the potty til just recently. he just turned 3 in july and hadn't at all gone potty on the potty til like a month ago. maeven had done it here and there between 2 and 3...didn't perfect it til between 3 and 3 and half years. i had a feeling that this is how it would work with tyren...wait til he's ready...he'll start later, but then he'll learn FAST! and it seems to be working that way! :) took maeven the good part of a year to slowly figure it out...tyren is probably going to be done in just a couple months, if that. (although honestly, i really don't care what it takes...whenever is fine. i'm in no hurry. wasn't with maeven either. i'm pretty casual about potty training.)

so he stays nakey butt all day while we're home and he's doing it! he just goes into the bathroom and uses his little potty whenever he needs to go! he doesn't even tell us he's going! he even dumps the pee himself! (in the sink...not real happy about that...but i'm proud of his initiative!) twice now i've been just walking by the bathroom and noticed him in there on the potty and asked what he was doing and he's said "pooping". he is really gettin it! its really cool!

he's only had 2 pee accidents so far. pretty dang good i think since i seem to recall maeven was peeing on the floor for WEEKS at least half the time before she finally figured it out. tyren is just running in there saying "i have to go pee!" like 20 times a day...and darned if he doesn't pee most every time he runs in there!

yup, i'm one proud mama! i really dreaded this whole thing cuz to be perfectly honest i just really don't enjoy potty training...which is why i just wait til they are ready...its just easier for me to keep them in diapers than to deal with all the accidents. but he was ready, obviously, so he's doing it and he's doing so well now that its really not a big deal for the most part!

so as long as the weather is warm enough, and as long as i think he still needs the extra help of being nakey, i'll just keep him nakey (at least waist-down) and we'll add underwear when i think that he'll be able to deal with the extra step. for now, we're just really proud of how well he's doing!

woohoo! go tyren!!!

poop-scepades

tyren walked up to maeven today and said "yook, maeven, poopyhands!!"
apparently he had his hands down his diaper and was quite impressed...as i was running to get wipes, i hear him comment, on my way out of the room "yooks yike chwatit" (looks like chocolate.

ROFLMAO!!