Poop Scoop

Today Cammi went POO in the potty!!! It was awesome. She was sitting on her little potty before her nap, and she'd already gone pee pee. She said, "Mommy, I want to go poop. I want to do it on the big potty." So, I put her on the big potty and ran downstairs for a potty book she wanted me to read to her. When I came back up, less than a minute later, she had pooped A LOT in the big potty. She had the biggest smile on her face. It was AWESOME!!! We just keep moving in the right direction, and it is very exciting. I'm trying really hard not to get ahead of myself, or of her. I don't want to push too hard and regress back to no potty use. We have come too far. Today marks a week of using the potty consistently. She's only had one accident, and had one wet diapee. I am really so very proud of her. I knew that once she got it that she would really GET it. I hope and pray that we keep on a straight path here, and that in a month or so we have it down, so we can work on nighttime dryness.

Sleep Wonders

So recently, we've had quite a tough time getting Cameran down to bed at night. She is WAY more clingy at night than she has ever been. I never have any problem at nap time getting her down for nap. We follow our routine and then I snuggle with her for a couple of minutes, and then I tell her that it's time to sleep and that I love her. After that she is like, okay mommy. She talks to herself for awhile and then she falls asleep. No fight. No requests for 10,000 things. No getting out of bed. She really is so great at nap time. Bedtime is such a different story. She gets clingy and wants us to snuggle in the bed with her for long periods of time. When we say we have to go downstairs she hangs on to us for dear life. She knows that she is not allowed out of her bed. She never gets out with me, but when Brad tries to leave the room she holds on to him for dear life and will get out of bed. She carries on and melts quickly. I cannot figure it out. It's the oddest thing.

Still doing great on the potty front. Still going potty and doing it proudly. I am crazy proud of her.

Success

I am so excited at all the success that we are finally having with Cameran and the potty. Yay! Since last Thursday she has gone pee pee in the potty at least two times each day. Yesterday, and today, she's gone 4 times, most of them prompted by her own self. She says to me, "Mommy can I put my pee pee in the potty?" I say yes and then she gets a smile on her face and goes potty. It's awesome! Finally, the light bulb has turned on in her little head. And I have to say, it's so much nicer to not have to change diapers constantly. Now all we need to work on and conquer is going poop in the potty and eventually the night time dryness.

small victories

I want to thank all of you first, who have been logging in lots of prayers for Cameran and I on the potty front. They are being heard and I think God is having pity on me. LOL. I think I have finally flipped a switch in Cam's brain. I was desperate on Thursday because she was regressing again. She'd already peed on the floor in her playhouse twice in two days, and I was getting really frustrated. She gets lots of performance anxiety, so she was backing away from the potty. I put her little potty in her playhouse, right were she had peed on the floor. Perhaps that was a place she felt safe, and not so anxious. So she sat on the potty, and sat, and sat, and sat. I tried everything I could think of to help her to not be scared, and to remember how easy it was the times in the past several days she had gone potty successfully. I recently checked out this video at the library, called "potty power." I really was going to try ANYTHING I could. She loves the video! Sometimes we watch it 3 times in a row, and she'll sit on the potty the whole time. It really hypes up every single aspect of using the potty, from sitting on the potty, to flushing, to washing hands, etc. This is really good because it's hyping her up for all things potty. So anyway, there we were, and I was just pulling things out of the air. Finally I said, "You know what is exciting to me about the potty?" she said what...I said, "putting your pee pee from your potty into the big potty and flushing!" Crazy enough that got her really excited. Then we talked about all the other things. I told her that she could put a sticker on the calendar for the times she goes potty. That seemed to really excite her. Which in the past has not excited her at all. The more stickers we've put the more she's loved it. And then I remembered something we had that she loves...and it seemed to be the clincher....tattoos. Every time that she goes pee pee in the potty, she gets a sticker on the calendar, a tattoo anywhere she wants, and a toy from the potty bag. It may be too much, but it's working! The funny thing is that she's starting to resemble Kat Von D. LOL. She's gone pee pee in the potty twice a day everyday for the last 4 days! And today she went 3 times.

Today had a lot of great potty moments. Today we ate lunch outside on the front lawn. She looked at me and said, "I need to go potty mommy." We came inside, she sat down on the potty, and dun dun dun...the little musical sound went off and she got a huge smile and that was it. So easy. No fuss. Tonight she would not go on her little potty. We sat there for a good 20 minutes. I had to get tough. No milk, no pull up for bedtime, until she went potty. She knew that I would hold true to my word. We went upstairs, put our jammies on, and she said she wanted to go potty on the big potty. She sat down and several seconds later she was going potty in the big potty! That is HUGE! She has never ever gone potty in the big potty for me or for Brad. So thanks for all your prayers for us. I think she is finally having the light bulb moments and deciding that wearing dry panties, and not having to be changed, is so much better, so much more comfortable, and so much easier than her diapees ever were. Mommy has decided that maybe I'm not as big of a failure as I felt like.

the harder days

Some days are easier than others as a stay at home mom. Today was not one of those easy days. I was so very blessed not to have a cholicy baby, but sometimes I wonder if I have a cholicy toddler. I am certain she is similar to me at this age. She is very sensitive to tone and to inflection. Too much of a harsh one can be very damaging and will send her into a meltdown. The days that she doesn't obey, that she outright goes over the line, and repeatedly defies, it's so hard for me to know what to do because she is so sensitive. I try to put her in time out, I try to be patient, I try to be firm. It get to the point where I begin to feel helpless. She works herself into a frenzy and I wonder....do I go hold her, or do I put her in her bed to calm down, because sometimes she just needs to be held. Today she was very whiny and very melty. It's so hard to find the energy to keep disciplining when you have been listening to the low whiny wail of your 3 year old all day long. I get to a place where i sort of give up and give in. I hate that. I want her to learn to obey. I know she can. The thing is that she does obey at school. Faultlessly. Never any bad reports. I don't know how to make her understand that the rules at school and the rules at home are the same, or very similar. It's the whining though that just makes me want to cut my ears off so i can't hear her. It's that whine that gets way down into your spine and makes your whole back hurt. The kind that makes you feel like your head might explode and then brad will come home and find pieces of me all over the room. He'll say, "I know exactly what happened to her...she blew up because each whine was like a pump of air to her head and eventually her head just exploded." I feel awful for getting to the place, sometimes ,where I wish that I couldn't hear her whine. I often think, "Why don't I have a mute button?" And then I feel bad. Because what a blessing to have a child that can express herself, who doesn't lack a sweet voice that I get to hear tell me, "mommy I love you!", nor lacks the ability to tell me because she is hiding inside and can't come out.