Potty Training (aka Big Girls Part 3)

To say that I prepared for this transition would be an understatement. Yes, I get it, no baby goes off to university wearing diapers. HOWEVER, this transition was going to be a big one and since I had already maximized my stress levels on the career front, I figured the entire family would benefit from as smooth of a transition as possible for this one! 

After much research and mommy chats with trusted friends we decided on a "plan of attack" that went something like this. Put your family on lock down for at least four days in a row, kids are naked from the waist down, potties were in the living room and we watched a lot of Disney flicks. All joking aside, our March Break did end up a lot like this, let me fill you in on how it happened!

The Warm Up
First the girls received their very own potty from Auntie Monique! Complete with their own roll of toilet paper, this birthday present was just what the girls need to get the conversation going! Lots of potty books (Thanks Elmo!) and some great videos (thanks to one of my students, Eoghan!) Check out Listen to Your Body (Go in the Potty). The girls and I would sing and dance this song on many occasions. I must have watched this video at least 100 times.

The Countdown
This is where it got serious. No more fun and games, we were counting it down! With March Break fast approaching, it was time to start making the girls aware of just how quickly their world was about to get rocked! LOL 

 

We started a countdown right on their bedroom door! 17 days until the fun would begin. Each night the girls and I would take a heart off the door and count to see how many hearts/days were left until all the diapers were gone! For our own amusement and also because this was when we could commit to at least four days in a row at home with no interruptions, we scheduled to start potty training on St. Patrick's Day!

The Party
Nothing raises the stakes about a situation like a party! Celebrating the beginning of potty training with an underwear party was an idea I heard from another friend Mom! So party we did! Grandma, Nana, and Papa were all invited over for dinner and a big celebration complete with presents! The girls opened gift after gift all of underwear!! Frozen, Strawberry Shortcake, fun designs, how could you not be motivated to try to potty?

 

 The girls were excited to open their underwear, even if they didn't want to wear it! Hahaha!

Mommy and Daddy brought back an appropriate gift from Vegas!

 

Here Molly shows off her new Potty Training shirt!

Game On!
Tuesday, March 17th, 2015...Potty Training Day 1. I almost felt like this was a Parenting Boot Camp. Survive the next few days potty training twins and you can survive anything!! The girls were great, we cheered in the morning, took the sign completely down, turned up the heat in our house and removed the girls' clothing from the waste down! The potties were in the living room so the girls could easily use them and then the real fun began. Nothing could have prepared me for the "hyper-awareness" I was about to experience. Every toe curl, facial strain or shaking knees I was instantly questioning "Do you need to go pee-pee?"By 11am I was certain is was nearing supper time, LOL.  We spent time time sitting on the potty, playing near the potty and having lots and lots of accidents. The first successful potty attempt brought on many cheers and much relief as well as a well earned Frozen jelly bean for Molly. Well that certainly got their attention. Frozen jelly beans exist? They most certainly do and I'm not sure if it was their great taste or the dislike of warm urine running down their leg but wouldn't you know it, the girls started getting the hang of it. 

Day 1 Hanging on the Potty while watching Disney Movies (Snow White, Tangled, Frozen)

In fact, most of Day 1 was spent hanging out ON or NEAR the potty, to get the "feel" for it!

BUT, it was St. Patrick's Day, so a visit from Auntie Moe resulted in come awesome stickers, flashing mugs, hair clips and a few Irish Car Bombs from Mommy and Daddy. Yes, it was a long day, but a fun one, and while we did spend a lot of time cleaning up accidents during the first portion of the day, we did have a lot of time to potty like a rock star!

Most of Day 1 was spent in some form of dress resembling this outfit! (Thank you Tiff!)

Sometimes a few party favours can make all the difference!

Day 2 Shenanigans!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Growing a bit tired of the whole potty training thing!

 While Day 2 was a bit easier on Mommy and Daddy, the girls were growing a bit tired of keeping their butts planted on their potties. The girls spent most of their time naked from waist down and we did A LOT of crafts and watched a lot of Disney: Tangled, Frozen, Cinderella, 101 Dalmatians, and Snow White to name a few! The girls were also a big fan of Cars!

Doing crafts to pass the time!

 Even though the girls were getting a bit of cabin fever, they really started to get the hang of the whole potty business! We had a few funny incidents that will forever be ingrained in my memory from over-the-top celebrations to what we found in the potty to one of the girls claiming "they were all done" as they ran around the kitchen with a poop hanging from their little butt. I wouldn't lie, by the end of Day 2 I was slightly wondering if perhaps we had made the right decision. I was tracking potty business using the pee/poop/accident ratio thanks to my friend Beth. This at least let us realize we were making progress over the first few days. By Friday the girls were accident free and had started wearing underwear during the day. On the weekend we started adding pants, which brought on a few occurrences of the girls sitting on the potty to use it (AWESOME) only to pee right through their underwear and pants (NOT AWESOME). Thankfully the girls REALLY didn't enjoy this sensation and the they quickly mastered either telling us they had to go potty and asking for help or pulling down their own pants and underwear. By the end of March Break the girls were celebrating the season opening of the Avondale Dairy Bar with a milkshake...and they were fully dressed!

Abigail

Molly

 

 

 When Monday morning came and March Break was over, it was the first time I've ever been happy to see a return to work, LOL. It was such a relief to be able to relax and not worry about my girls bodily functions!! (Thank you Grandma and Papa for taking over!!!) 

It has just been over two weeks since the girls have said goodbye to diapers. We still use a pull-up for naps and bedtime, but we just refer to it as "big girl underwear" or "sleeping underwear". The girls are virtually accident free and have really impressed us. We passed another big milestone yesterday when after SEVEN tries at the Kilt n' Clover the girls finally used the portable princess potty (it's a folding seat that covers a big toilet). This was a HUGE milestone because previously the girls would refuse to use anything but their own potty. To the point that Molly would only use the red potty and Abigail would only use the green potty! BUT, this little gem which repeated itself today at the Merritton Arena! 

While this milestone was definitely the hardest to achieve, thus far it has been the most rewarding. Bye-bye diaper genie and change tables!! Whoo hoo parenting win!

The Boxing Day Aftermath!

While Christmas Day involved a lot of running around, Boxing Day involved a lot of running around the house for the girls! What to play with next?!?! While Mom and Dad ran around the house cleaning up all the wrapping and other Christmas debris we didn't want the girls getting into! The day started nice early with a Boxing Day tradition in our household....World Juniors! The girls, sporting their Team Canada onesies from Uncle Jamie, joined us for an early morning game of hockey!

Morning bottle while watching the Canada vs Germany game

Next came the toys! Time to try everything out and make the biggest mess possible! (Mommy's point of view!) The girls had a ton of fun playing with the new toys, filled with many shouts of glee and lots of crawling and throwing! Here are some pictures of the fun!

We ended the afternoon by watching the Spengler Cup! Poor girls don't stand a chance, they're going to have to LOVE hockey!!!

Notice the chaos of toys all around!!!

While this concept was not required this year, we got a great time from veteran parents....assemble, add batteries and detach from boxes all of the toys you buy your kids before you wrap them. There is the voice of experience talking! The logic being you'll spend most of Christmas morning and Boxing Day trying to figure out how to put together your kids' toys while they move on and play with something else!!

These Are A Few Of My Favourite Things

Recently I had the pleasure of baby shopping in anticipation of the arrival of my cousin's baby boy! While I was hoping they would have a girl (I could clothe their child forever!!!) we are thrilled to have another cousin close in age, many play dates in our future. The first thing I realized about my shopping experience was that I viewed shopping for baby showers very differently than before I was a mother. Instead of buying something off her registry, I decided to buy her a gift basket filled with a few of my favourite things. Here is the letter I included with her gift to explain my gift choices:

Dear Brittney and Darrin,

Hold onto your hats, shit’s about to get real!! (LOVE THAT BOOK!) *see an earlier blog post! In an effort to help you prepare for when it “gets real”, here are some things the girls received that quickly became our favourite things! (in no particular order)

1. The Diaper Genie: awesome, because when the sh!t happens, this thing makes sure you don’t have to keep smelling it! We love ours, in fact we got two at our shower and just kept them both!

Note: It’s a bit of a pain to first figure out how to get the rings in the first time and the cheapest place to buy the replacement rings is a 3-pack at Costco. We also got you the 1 year warranty for the diaper genie, just in case yours gets a lot of use! LOL

2. The Hooded Towel: super easy to wrap the baby up and cute as heck! The hood rocks because you can towel dry their hair and behind their ears. Never forget behind the ears. We did in the beginning and both girls basically got a yeast infection behind their ears from water staying trapped there.  **Don’t forget I’ll give you my “Whale of Tub” if you need one because we’ll be done with it by the time “he” arrives.

3. The Bath Pitcher: Wasn’t really sure what to call it, but we love this thing for bath time when you need to do the rinse cycle! The flexible part allows you to touch your babies forehead and ensure no water goes in his face.

4.  Zippered PJs: Darrin this one is basically for you. (Shawn hates the button up PJs) I’ve changed enough PJs that I could do it blindfolded, but let’s face it, zippers are way easier than buttons! My Mom was smart and got you some different sizes!

5. Onesies that DON’T go over your head: Darrin this one is also for you. Babies basically live in onesies and sleepers, it’s pretty sweet, except when you have to change them out of one of these outfits. This is one outfit when you LOVE the buttons!

6. Face clothes: to say the girls have over 50 of these would  be no exaggeration! We use them all the time, especially when feeding. Having lots is great because let’s face it, sleeping, eating and showering are all way more important than doing laundry.

7. The Sleep Sheep: A really cute sheep that plays waves, rain, a heartbeat (that sounds totally creepy) and a really weird whale mating sound. However, he comes with a timer that lets him play this white noise for 25 or 45 minutes before turning off. We use the Sleep Sheep as a sleep cue for the girls so they know it’s bedtime. It’s also really good at blocking out noises around the house when they are trying to fall asleep (including one another! Haha)

8. Sophie the Giraffe: This ridiculous toy is THE BEST teething toy around. Not kidding. My girls don’t care for the refrigerator gel ones that get cold, I think they are too big or too hard to hold. The way they chew Sophie, basically everywhere, is really cute. Plus she’s very easy to hold so the girls like to play with her as well use her as a teething ring.

9. Oball Rattle: the first toy the girls were actually able to pick up on their own and play with. Easy for them to play with, it’s soft, makes noise…what’s not to love! This toy is still a favourite for the girls.

10. The Lamaze Giraffe: We have the bird and horse and keep this toy strapped to our stroller for some walking entertainment but the girls love Lamaze toys. They make great sounds and are easy to grab, this toy is also still a favourite of the girls.

11. The Teething Picture Book: hahaha you read Dawn Dais’ book, enough said. I just had to make sure you had one of your own! LOL All joking aside, the girls like to play with because it makes noise and is easy to grab onto!

12. The Bug Teething Ring: You’ll notice a trend with my kids by now, if it’s easy to hold, brightly coloured and they can chew it, we like it!

13. Health Care Stuff: Here are some supplies that friends bought for the girls which turned out to be life savers. The Gripe Water was huge when the girls were under 4 months. Sometimes they would have gas or an upset stomach and nothing we did seemed to cure it. A little gripe water and the girls felt better right away. The Hyland’s teething tablets have been clutch for us. Basically we just put one or two under their tongue and they dissolve right away. Even though it’s just herbal it seems to make a big impact. The Saline Spray was another important item for us as the girls got very stuff up in the winter. This made eating and sleeping very hard for the girls. Although it totally sucks injecting something up their nose (I’ll volunteer to help the first time with this) it is totally worth it and makes them feel so much better! The Johnson wipes are really good for cleaning their hands and face, especially once they start eating solids. The travel pack of bathing supplies is the kind we use with the girls. No cry shampoo is the best!

So sorry that I couldn’t be there. I was really looking forward to it. I know my parents are excited to bring the girls to the shower to see everyone! Hope you enjoy the girls favourite things!!!

Love,

Melissa

Lesson Learned

It took me awhile to finally settle on the title for this blog post as there were many other "telling" titles that fell runner up such as "I Should Try Following My Own Advice (see last blog post)" and "Why The Turkettes Have Attended Mommy's Baseball Game for the First and Last Time". Lesson Learned seemed a good title to sum up my ironic decision to break the girls routine and take them to my double header baseball game last night...days after I blogged about how sacred routines were in my household!

The abbreviated version of my tale of woes goes something like this: Husband is required to stay at work for a few hours last minute, Mommy finds out ball team is short, Mommy decides to bring girls to ball game (because naturally they'll just be able to fall asleep at the park after their bottle), God-daughter and cousins come to support Mommy's bad decision, first game goes great, teammates get to meet the girls, half way through the second game (approx 1.5 hours past girls usual bedtime) fussiness begins, Mommy leaves ball game early to drive crying twins home (yup, they cried the entire way home) girls sleep immediately once in crib, Mommy regrets poor decision making.

As clearly stated in my previous post, I know my girls need and thrive on their routine. Why I decided to test this well known theory is beyond me!! Lesson learned, routine wins, no more baseball for the Turkettes this season!

Why Routines Are Sacred

For over the past decade my teaching philosophy has been rooted in routines and relationships. These two fundamental aspects of my classroom allow my students to feel confident and comfortable in their learning environment. My students know what they can expect from me and our student-teacher relationship and they know what to expect from my consistent classroom routines. Once the relationships and routines are in place, aside for the minor learning bumps in the road, the rest of year is smooth sailing. While my teaching philosophy often results in me wearing the labels of Type A, hard core, or OCD to name a few, the truth of the matter is, discipline problems are virtually nonexistent in my room. So I'll wear these labels as badges of honour as long as learning takes place in my classroom. Once the Turkettes made their appearance and the "shock" of parenting had subsided a little, I began integrating my teaching philosophy with my parenting philosophy.

Building a relationship with the girls was the easy part. All the love, attention and care they need are joys of parenting. With that being said, we went through quite a period of time when I had NO IDEA what the girls needed. They would cry or fuss and we would helplessly look at one another and attempt to troubleshoot what problem could be. But, very early on we started implementing a routine. Same bedtime everyday, same nap time everyday, same bedtime routine everyday. With the creative, skillful help of my friend Adam Dunn, I tracked the girls sleeping and eating habits on an intense colour-coded excel sheet for all hours of the day. My Type A/OCD was considered to be in overdrive to some. Then a funny thing happened, suddenly patterns started emerging at an alarming rate!! The girls consistently needed a nap around 9am and 1:30pm. They started eating consistently around 7:30am, 11am, 3pm and 6:30pm. They were in bed around 7pm almost on a daily basis. WE HAD A ROUTINE!! The best thing about our routine finally being established was being able to understand what our girls were trying to communicate to us. The fussing or crying was no longer a mystery, instead it was often an indication we were close to bedtime or feeding time. Since we could now understand what the girls were trying to say, the fussing and crying drastically reduced because the girls needs were being met.

Parenting is a funny thing. If it's your first baby (or babies!!) you basically have no idea what you're doing. Sure, pre-baby you have grand ideas of what you THINK you'll be doing, but that was a rude awakening for us as we adjusted to what we were ACTUALLY doing once the girls arrived. With modifications, I was able to adjust my beliefs into a new distorted reality and I now feel fairly confident we know what we're doing. While part of my naive grand plans pre-baby included the concept that the girls would be very portable and would adjust to our social sport-filled lifestyle, the reality is a compromise was met. The girls do get carted around, and passed around for that matter, from friend to friend at all of our social gatherings, but the routine is SACRED. Appointments and plans are made with the girls schedule in mind. Doctors appointments happen after nap time, social gatherings happen after bedtime, car rides are planned during nap times. While this often creates scheduling difficulties for us, or causes us to miss out on a few events, after a few months of trying both a routine and no routine, the routine wins. We have to make some sacrifices here and there because of our girls routine but which parent doesn't? Every day just after 9am I know I can grab a shower, work on my blog, make a few phone calls, and clean up around the house. Every day by 7:30pm I know my little girls will be fast asleep not to be heard from (minus the odd teething incident) until some time after 6:30am in the morning. Am I a slave to my kids routines and schedules? I proudly answer YES, because let's face it, sleeping through the night is just AWESOME!