Photo Friday: Decking in Progress

Homemade hand print decorations, tangled lights, garland, the hardy decorations that survived Christmas past.... These halls are being decked.


And as a bonus, Elliot is working on giving us the best Christmas present ever!

Heart Chart Success

I’ll just stick to my theme. Since I can’t seem to upload pictures right now, I’ll add one more post that is better without pictures.

We seem to have turned a corner on the potty training issue. We have been diaper free since January, only using pull-ups at bedtime. Some weeks have been more successful than others, and some days created a bulging load of tiny laundry. In late February, though, we instituted the Heart Chart, and that seems to have done the trick.

We tried several other methods.

Seat treats (usually an M&M or gummy bear) failed because she just kept forcing herself to go until she was full of treats and then she didn’t run in there when she really had to go.

A star chart (adding a star for each success) seemed to work for a bit. We even started adding stars for hand washing, as an extra incentive. Then, after she got 5 stars, she would get to go somewhere fun. Ultimately this failed, because it took to long to get to the treat. If she had a couple of bad days, but was just one star away from a treat, she might end up getting rewarded for one random success amid a string of messes. She just didn’t associate the stars with good potty habits.

The Heart Chart seems to provide the right combination of instant gratification, benign punishment, and reward.

I drew three hearts on one piece of paper and cut three hearts the same size out of a separate sheet. I taped the chart to the wall and clipped the hearts, along with a box of conversation hearts, to the chart. Each success was rewarded with a conversation heart, and she was able to tape a cut-out heart to the chart. Then, when she filled all three hearts, she could pick whether we went to the park, the Children’s museum, or just had a little ice cream.

I realize this is just a combination of the seat treat and star chart. But I added a twist. Every time she had an accident, we removed a heart. This was good for Joe and I, because instead of asking her “why” or reminding her about potty etiquette, we were able to say, “Shoot, that means you lost a heart… and we really want to go to the museum after nap.” It was good for her too, because visually loosing a star had as much impact as putting it on. After a few days, she was able to end each day with three hearts. Off to the museum we went!



We try to keep the rewards coming by making them a bit smaller and easier to fit into our regular schedule. Soon, though, she won’t need the incentive, or the punishment, that the Heart Chart offers.

I think the parents that claim their 18-month-old just decided to use the potty and never had an accident again have blissfully forgotten how it is to parent a young child. Or maybe they just never had a lazy day when they forgot to prompt their kid in time. Who knows.

I know we’ll still have accidents and setbacks, but she has ended the day in the same pants she started in for more than a week. That’s progress. I do know I’ll probably be interrupting playtime with “it’s time to use the potty” for years to come. What a funny thing to have to teach someone!

Awh, Poop

I’ve never been very squeamish, and motherhood is notoriously a dirty job. Armed with both of these facts, however, I am still more than a little surprised to find myself in this place of complete immunity to all things gross.

I (along with most fellow parents) am completely unphased by the grossness of my constantly erupting baby. In fact, when we brought Elliot home, I was completely nostalgic about that sour cream fragrance that mingles with the baby powder scent of newborns. I suppose not all parents of newborns are quite so immune, given that half of all babies under three months have “acid reflux” (formerly known as spit-up) and pediatricians (responding to incentives from pharmaceutical companies and demands of parents) are increasingly offering Zantac and Prylosec to treat the “problem.”

I have been less than sympathetic when other adults react to Elliot’s little displays with disgust or compare her to Stan on South Park. That is, until I reminisce about the good old days when my shirts were stain free (well, unless I had coffee) and my perfume was more “wildflowers” than “dairy case.” I can hardly blame others for finding a palm full of regurgitated milk less than endearing.

As the title implies, spit up is not nearly the grossest aspect of parenting. I won’t even go into my post traumatic stress syndrome caused by a recent mommy-daughter bath and a couple of horrifying public displays of evacuation (PDE’s?). We’re in the trenches over here, making fantastic strides in potty training punctuated by seriously offensive steps backward, plus we are transitioning Elliot to solid foods (which means giving up the easy infant diapers).

You want one last gross thought…. The Special Potty, also known as the public restroom. Ugh. Every place we go, the bookstore, the library, the mall, even the zoo, Maya wants to use the Special Potty. She even refuses to pee before we go, knowing that an exciting new toilet is awaiting her.

I used to eat a bunch of salty popcorn with the hope that dehydration would keep me out of the zoo bathroom. Now I’m in there cheering as Maya clings to her perch on the edge of that nasty potty. When you’re three-feet-tall hovering just isn’t an option.

Someday my life won’t be so full of bodily functions, and I’ll regain my sense of decorum. Until then, I’ll just record as many stories and pictures as possible for use as high school blackmail!

On Hanging in There

Maya is currently upstairs, tucked neatly into her toddler bed, dreaming about the new kitty she wants to give Anakin (our giant housecat) for his birthday.

This may seem mundane to you, but I’m out of breath from turning cartwheels in my basement.

While pregnant last summer, I began the tradition of napping with Maya daily. I was exhausted from the whole building-a-human-being thing, and we both love to snuggle. It just seemed like a great idea.

Then Elliot was born and the logistics have been all wrong ever since. At least once a week (usually more), they are not synchronized in their napping needs. Maya simply can’t fall asleep with a chattering (or crying) baby in the room with her, and Elliot just isn’t ready for a set schedule.

For a week and a half I have required Maya to nap in her own room. She piles her bed full of books and hangs out in there contentedly for the entire two hours of “nap time.” But she doesn’t sleep.

This means I have an overtired, crazy kid for the rest of the day. Potty training has suffered, table manners have suffered…. Elliot and I have suffered.

I was just about to give up. In fact, I told Joe last night that I’m just going to give in and lay down with her for naps (never-mind the fact that I covet the idea of a two-hour span of time with at least one, likely both girls sleeping!).

He told me to hang in there just a few more days.

And today she was asleep within half an hour. Woo hoo.

The transition away from diapers was the same story. We had one awful, really messy week. Then, just as we both about threw in the towel, she started cooperating. Don’t get me wrong. Potty training is ongoing. From here on out, though, she’s trying really hard and we’re down to one kid in diapers.

I actually don’t remember much about my pre-baby life (probably a self-defense mechanism to keep me from obsessing about weekends away, copious sleep, and happy hours), but I’m almost sure that all of those old clichés (darkest before dawn, battening down the hatches, tomorrow is another day…?) apply to life beyond kids as well.

Hooray for naptime. New York Times here I come!

Maya wanted to hold Elliot. She looks concerned doesn't she?

They play together so much now (well, they've started to interact, anyway)!

How Dance Party Saved My Sanity

Instituting “Dance Party” was the best parenting decision I ever made.

It began when Maya was a newborn. She was inclined to fuss a bit in the afternoons, so I bought an old Wilson Phillips CD and jammed out to Hold On with her…. She loved it. When she was three months old, I discovered the Broadway station on my television, and songs from Wicked, Singing in the Rain, and Oklahoma became our favorites. Then Maya found a Mother Goose Rocks album at the library. She became obsessed with its less than inspiring adaptations of mediocre pop songs, and so she was left to dance alone for a year or so.

Now, I have overcome my luddism and embraced iTunes. The resulting Dance Party play list is full of high-energy childrens' songs like “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” (which spell check shockingly corrected for me!), a pop version of “Zip a Dee Do Da,” and several 80s tunes that Maya has fallen in love with (“Manic Monday” and “How Will I know” were added to today’s repertoire).

On a truly manic Monday, when I can’t help but kick myself repeatedly for relaxing Maya’s basic daily rituals over the weekend, Dance Party gets us through.

Even Maya can sense when it is time to dance. At 10:00 this morning, after the third accident in a row and a huge hot chocolate spill, she just looked at me with a very serious expression and said, “Let’s dance.”

She was downstairs with her tutu on before I could say, “Excellent idea.” She even helped me spread out Elliot’s blanket, plug the speakers into the computer, and pick the first song! "Zip a dee do da" did our day start getting better. At first, Maya simply ran around and around our new cushioned ottoman (replacing the hard-edged coffee tabled seemed critical for dance party safety). After a bit, she grabbed her xylophone and started plucking out a few notes to complement our music. She even two-stepped with me. All the while, we both jumped around and sang at the top of our lungs, and Elliot squealed along with us.

I’m sure you’ve all heard the old advice (or forward?) that singing in the shower always puts you in a better mood. Dance Party is that multiplied by one hundred. We’ve done this at least once a day since the mercury plunged below 20 degrees (today it’s about 20 below!). I highly recommend this morale-boosting, heart-healthy solution for everyone else who may be suffering from the Midwest-winter blues. And most of you will get to pick your own songs… so enjoy it!

Disclaimer: 5 hours after my original post I feel obligated to remind you that Dance Party is indeed a great morale boost, but it in no way reduces the maniacal qualities of life that require the morale boost. Dance Party simply prepared me to deal with the next three accidents in a row and the next major dark beverage spill with a bit more grace!