Wednesday, July 21, 2010

"All the single ladies"

I have to rely on my friends to send me pictures of my daughter (Thanks - Cathy!) Kelsi went to her first "by herself" bday party this week. Her friend Sloan turned 2 and had a really cute Dora themed party. Kelsi and her 2 yr old gal pals partied hard!

They played "house".



Chilled.

And got their dance on. As a party favor, Sloan's mommy made tutu's for all the girls and they danced around. When I saw this picture, all I could think of was the song "all the single ladies". It looks like Sloan's older brothers wanted in on the action too! She also pranced around for Daddy when he got home.





Lilies
I have WAITED and WAITED and WAITED for my lilies to open. I almost gave up hope and chalked it up to the fact that I can't keep ANYTHING alive....when....they finally opened around the 4th of July. They are my favorite flowers and they make me SO happy. We have yellow, pink, white with purple centers and white with pink centers. What beauties!











Friday, July 16, 2010

Potty Training - Take 1
I wasn't going to document this, but then I thought - hey - this is MY journal and what I write may be beneficial someday OR it just might make me laugh (probably the latter). Just skip this post...just me babbling about not being able to control things (one of my many faults).
So, I decided to finally stop being selfish and cleared my whole day and started the potty training process with Kelsi. A couple weeks ago she had helped pick out some underwear that she liked and the morning of, I wrapped them up and let her open them. She was SOO excited and wanted to put them on right away. I rolled back our area rug (SOOOO much easier to clean up on hardwood than a rug) and we went and sat on our leather entry bench and started to read books (while Kelsi chugged away on juice). Halfway through the books she started to fidget and got off the bench, I hesitated a little too long and she had an accident. I gasped a bit and quickly picked her up and said "No, Kelsi, we go peepee in the potty" and then I put her on her elmo potty and she went a TINY bit more. She got a sticker on her chart and a M&M.I told her it was OK, but that when she needed to go she should tell me and we would sit on the potty. She said "Oh, okay!" I rinsed out her panties and ran upstairs to throw them in the laundry when Kelsi yelled "MOMMY...I'M WET!!!" I ran back to see she had another accident at the foot of the stairs. Again, I picked her up and put her on the potty, but she must have got it all out, because she was DONE. We read LOTS of more books in the bathroom while she sat on the potty, but no more peepee.
She really wanted to watch her favorite show "Ni Hao Kailan" and so I told her she could watch it while she sat on the potty. She did and still no peepee.
THEN we had a snack (and more juice of course) and after we were done, we went back to the potty and had her sit on it while we sang EVERY song I could think of (still no peepee). We went back into the living room and watched the DVD "Potty Power" that someone let me borrow. She liked it and when it was over, we tried the potty again and still NOTHING. She wanted to watch Kailan again and I told her not until she went potty. At this point it had been 1.5 hours since her last accident and she had 4 glasses of juice. She started to whine and cry that she "didn't like her potty". While she was still crying, I put her on the potty again and tried to be as soothing yet excited as I could be, but she just whined and whined and cried and cried. She calmed down when I took her off the potty and just a few minutes later she ERUPTED in screams. She cried so hard she was hyperventilating and started to not make ANY sense. She first said "I have to go potty, I want to sit on my potty" Which she did for 2 seconds and stood up screaming looking REALLY confused. Then the insanity really broke loose.
"I want you to change my bum!!" (Picture each word separated by 3 seconds of trying to catch her breath from screaming). I gave up and said she could wear her pull ups. I put one on her but she continued to scream and ask me to change her bum. She said it hurt and she had an owie. When I asked her where it hurt, she told me "my bum". She sobbed that she "wanted to go home", "wanted to go to sleepy", "wanted to sleep in Daddy's bed", "wanted to sit on the counter", "wanted to lay on the floor". This insanity went on for 40 minutes.
The thought occurred to me that she might be constipated because I had only ever seen her this upset a few months ago when she was in fact constipated (and even that only lasted 15 minutes or so). I felt SO bad that she was in so much pain and I kept telling her that she was a good girl and she could go "poopoo" in her pull up and it was OK. FINALLY after I could think of NOTHING else to do to help her I asked her if she wanted me to say a prayer. She sobbed that she did and folded her arms. I just asked Heavenly Father that Kelsi would feel better and ended it quickly. No sooner had we said "amen" that Kelsi looked at me and SMILED and said "I'm happy mommy!" She stood up and said "I wont potty on the floor, or on the couch or on the piano...just on the bench" (where we were sitting when we prayed). I realized that she MUST have pooped, so I checked her bum and she had PEED. BIG time. Like she had been holding it the WHOLE time (which she was). She held it for a total of just over 2 hours and 40 minutes of it she was in a lot of pain and just wouldn't let it out because......?????????????? I DONT KNOW!! I don't know if I scared her, if she was just confused and it was normal. If she just isn't quite ready. I just don't know.
She was super happy after that, ate lunch, took a nap. When she woke up she told me when she was pooping and once when she was going "peepee", but she didn't want to go in the potty.

Since Kelsi is afraid of EVERYTHING, I was worried that I was pushing her too far and she would develop ANOTHER irrational phobia. So, we were done for the day. I took today off from training because I was so stressed out about it yesterday, but may give it another shot this weekend. I tried bribing with M&M's & she has a sticker chart - but they didn't seem to help. I may have her teach her doll to go potty or try naked potty training (her, not me of course) :) We were going to try it with a friend, but her friend ended up having to start early so she may have it down before we can get the two of them together. I know it will happen eventually. Maybe I will wait until after my trip to CA. Maybe I will make my mom or older and wiser sister do it for me. HINT HINT!

Thursday, July 15, 2010


This summer...so far

I have been a horrible picture taker lately. I used to keep my camera with me at all times, but...not so much anymore. This July it FINALLY became summer in Northern Idaho. Kelsi has been able to chill at the splash pad (not pictured), beach on the lake (not pictured again), at the pool at the Kroc center (nope, so pic) and out on the boat (again....NOT PICTURED). BOO to me.


We took a mini family "vacay" to Clarkston to visit friends over the 4th weekend. The night of the 3rd a bunch of us got together to roast s'mores and let the kids go crazy with the fireworks. WORST NIGHT EVER FOR KELSI. She HATED the fireworks and screamed for an hour straight before we just took her home. She kept saying "I hate the noise! I want to cover my eyes!" So, on the 4th, we decided to put her to bed and lay low...it was a GREAT decision.


We had a BBQ with friends that was SO much fun (no pics of course). I will just have to keep the pictures in my memory. I was able to have my favorite mexican food and see some of my favorite people, so overall it was a great trip! I DID snap a few pics of the cute kiddos of course.



Can you all tell wha't happening in this picture? Kelsi won't come up because of the plants. Grant is showing her it's nothing to be afraid of.

We took a family walk at the river. These two little ones used to get pushed up and down this stretch when they were itty bitty's and their mama's used to walk this stretch when they were pregnant with them! Now they are running ahead. Time is FLYING.

I gotta find some places like this in CDA. They just threw rocks into the river FOREVER.

This activity also kept them entertained FOREVER.


I am going to try REALLY hard to be better about pictures. Summer is flying by. I can't believe it's half over already.

In other news, I took my first real shot at potty training Kelsi today.....all I can say is that girl has bladder CONTROL!!! (not in a good way) More about this topic another day.