Edison's Birthday Party

We celebrated Edison's birthday today. We had a train-themed party, so I wanted to make a train cake. I started the cake yesterday--I basically just baked two sheet cakes, and then cut them and stacked them to form an engine and train cars. I couldn't really begin decorating it until the kids went to bed, so it was pretty late when I started the frosting. I chose to make a butter cream frosting, because that's what I used on Ginger's birthday cake, and it was delicious! When I began to frost the cake, it became clear to me that I had made a poor decision when choosing the frosting recipe. As I was frosting the cake, the frosting began to melt in the frosting bag! Frosting began to ooze out onto the cake...it was very frustrating. I did the best that I could, and just left the cake half-frosted for the night. I dreaded continuing to frost the cake, and so I put it off to the last second and even "laster" second. I was still finishing up the cake as the guests were arriving at the party today. It turned out great (but as you can see, there were still a few unfrosted patches in the harder to reach areas).

Edison took a short nap before everyone got here, so he was refreshed, and ready to greet everyone! He was so excited to play with all of his friends! He showed off his amazing dancing skills, and chowed down on the yummy food. When we put him in his high chair to sing to him and give him the cake, he seemed REALLY confused about all of the attention. But once we put a piece of cake in front of him, he had the best time with the colorful icing! I don't think he ate a bite of cake--just frosting!

He even tried to lick off the bib!

Before all of the guests left, Edison was cranky and went to bed without opening his presents. But I think that he had a really good time, and partied hard!

Ginger was so wound up after everyone left that it took us a few hours to get her to go to bed! She was doing somersaults, and jumping up and down, and singing and screaming, and making up fake words like "heinzez". She started calling everything a "heinzez". Hopefully she sleeps long tonight. (Hopefully we all get to sleep long tonight, but that's wishful thinking).

HAPPY BIRTHDAY EDISON! WE LOVE YOU!

A Year of Edison

Edison turned 1 year-old on Tuesday, March 8th. It has been a great year! We love him so much! And it is so much fun watching him grow, and being able to see his personality come through as he becomes able to do more things. Here are some pictures of him over the past year:

He was VERY purple when he was first born...this picture doesn't quite capture it.

This was from when he was still a bump on a log, but a cute one.

He always liked to try to figure out how things work (his hands have always been really coordinated for someone his size).

"Hmmm...who IS that?"

He's already working out!

Sitting up. We were so excited when he finally sat up! (He actually started to sit, crawl and hold his bottle all in the same week. We almost didn't recognize him!)

On the move (he's going after the camera.)

Still going after the camera.

Blue steel?

I think that he may have been chasing a bird, and it just flew away.

He and Mia must have some kind of unspoken agreement--there she is eating his food again! (she's reaching under his tray this time)

We can't believe how fast the time flew!

Potty Training Ginger

A few weeks ago the thought of potty training Ginger absolutely terrified me! I had no idea what to expect. I heard some horror stories about children peeing in front of their parents just to make them upset. Some people said that the process takes months, while others told me that they were able to potty-train their child in a day or two. As I read different methods of potty training, I became more confused because they suggest different things. Which one really works? I decided to just pick on and go with it : "Toilet Training in Less than a Day" by Dr. Azrin and Dr. Foxx. (Why make the process longer than it needs to be, right?) Below are some excerpts from my journal about how it actually went. It's long, but if any of you are going to be potty training soon, it may help to read it and realize that potty-training won't go as smoothly as you might expect, but it is possible to do in a relatively short period of time (it took us 6 days).

You can tell that Ginger is really enjoying the treats that come with potty training!

Potty Training Ginger: Day 1
I finally decided this morning that I was just going to do it--potty train Ginger, I mean. I have been planning to do this for months, and I would set up a time to do it, and inevitably something would come up, and I couldn't. So today was the day. I didn't care if I still had to have Edison around. My mom said that she had her kids around sometimes for potty training. And Edison still takes a long morning nap. So my plan was to use the Dr. Foxx method: "Toilet training in less than a day". In the book, it even says that some older kids are potty trained in 1.5 hours! Edison sleeps for at least that long, I will have no problems doing this!
So we started with making a smoothie (she is supposed to drink lots so that she needs to pee lots). Ginger loves smoothies, she will usually drink two large glasses of smoothies. So I thought that this would be a fun way to start. Well, she didn't drink that much, maybe half of a glass. 

We had already put her in her big girl panties (training pants), and said "buy buy" to diapers. Now it was time to teach her new doll how to potty. She loved it! She loved feeding the doll, and helping her go potty. Well the next step in the method is to get the doll's panty wet so that Ginger could feel that the doll was wet ("oh no!") and needed to practice going potty. The only problem was, dolly's panties were already wet from water leaking out onto them. So I tried to dry them a little, but it was hard to do that without Ginger noticing. So dolly didn't really help Ginger to feel the difference between wet and dry--but Ginger already knows what it wet and dry mean, so that wasn't much of an issue. But we helped dolly practice. (meanwhile I'm asking Ginger if her pants are dry, and giving her salty treat and drink rewards for staying dry...she of course was really into the salty treats, and didn't care so much about drinking. "Oh, doesn't this make you so thirsty!?" I would say, "No. More treats!")
 
So, next I thought it was about time we had her sit on the potty. Ginger had a hard time lowering her underwear, and an even harder time pulling them back up, but by the end of the day she had it down pretty well. Sort of.  I had her sit for about 10 minutes, but then Ginger wanted to play with Dolly again, so we went and taught Dolly some more. Then we read some potty books. Meanwhile I'm giving her treats for having dry pants, and trying to give her juice or water or fruit punch. Again, she wasn't that into the drinks. And we'd go practice going to the potty. And she started to be very hyper and disobedient (no doubt because of the junk food).
 
Well, two hours went by, and Ginger didn't go potty (not even an accident), and Edison woke up from his nap. I sat him in his chair and gave him some snacks while I kept my eye on Ginger. I tried to keep her drinking and thinking about going potty. Edison really loved the potty book, and so when he was done eating he wanted me to read it to him. Then he brought me other books for me to show him (he mostly just wanted me to hold the books in place so that he could turn the pages easier). But when I did this, Ginger would run away and get into mischief. It was really hard to keep an eye on Ginger, and stay focused on training with Edison around...I started to really regret choosing today to potty train. But there's no going back now.
 
Edison eventually got fussy enough that I ran upstairs to put him to bed. In the 2 minutes that I was upstairs, Ginger had made her way to the basement, and I walked in on her just as she was finishing peeing. I was actually a little relieved that I could finally do some training! So I had her practice going to the potty 10 times from different places in the house. She actually really enjoyed practicing until about the 6th time. Then she didn't like it, but we practiced and we cleaned up the mess, and she changed her panties. That must've been around 2:30, and Ginger was tired. So I just decided that we'd resume training again when she woke up (it would be a while before she'd have to pee again anyway). She put a pull-up on (she was actually really sad that she had to take off her big girl underwear, but I was so exhausted from the morning that I didn't want to have to take apart her bed yet).
 
Edison woke up not long after that, and so I didn't get much of a break. But he was crabby and ready to go back to sleep when Ginger woke up. I ran up as soon as I heard movement upstairs and ran her down to the bathroom--she hadn't peed in the pull-up! I was about to pull her pull-up down and have her sit, when Edison came barging into the bathroom, and closed the potty chair lid, and so I picked him up and put him out of the bathroom. By the time I came back, Ginger had peed in her pull-up. Argh!

And, well, that was my last opportunity to do any training all day. I continued to give her drinks, and slowed down on the treats because she was getting to be too rowdy. But we still praised her for her dry pants, and reminded her that if she needs to go, she needs to go on the potty. She never went. Brandon got home from work, and praised her for being such a big girl. Time goes by, and she still doesn't go. So, we went through our nighttime routine (Ginger still pretty wired), and put her to bed...with a pull-up. I know, shouldn't put her in a pull-up, but it's just more stress-free this way. 
So much for training in less than a day! We'll see how tomorrow goes.



Potty Training Ginger: Day 2
So, today was a little inconsistent for Ginger's potty training. But I think that it went fairly well. I went to a photography workshop in the morning (again, I know that I'm supposed to be fully devoted to potty training for the next few days, but there are just some things that cannot be rescheduled). So, I put Brandon in charge. I had him read over the new philosophy that we'd be trying: "3 Day Potty Training" by Lora Jensen. The new philosophy basically says: remind your child often to tell you when they need to go potty, watch them like a hawk, and when they start to poo or pee whisk them off to the bathroom and sit them on the potty, have them drink lots so that there are lots of opportunities to learn to go, after about 12 "hits" of pee in the potty they should have a good understanding of how their body works, and know that going to the potty is expected of them and praised. I'm leaving a lot of it out, but that's the gist of it. 

While I was gone, she had a pee accident, and a poo accident. Brandon said that she didn't really have any signs to let him know that she was going to go. When she pooed, he smelled it and took her to the bathroom. She had fun flushing the poop down the toilet, but she didn't have a chance to get any out on the potty. When I got home, Ginger had an accident not long after. She was close enough to the potty, that we were able to get a couple of drops into the bowl. We were SO excited! We cheered, we high-fived, we sang songs, and hugged and kissed! She was so happy about the two drops of pee that go into the potty! And she was so proud that she could finally dump some pee into the toilet and flush it down. We were so proud of her.

I took a chance, and didn't put a pull-up on her when she took a nap (I figured that if she had just peed, it would be a while before she needed to go again...just judging from yesterday). So I set a timer to go off 30 minutes before she normally get up, and when it went off I went up into her room and read while I waited for her to get up. I really do not want to change her sheets if I can help it. 

So, when she got up, we walked downstairs and went to the potty. She sat down for a minute, and didn't go, so she got up, and I kept her close to the bathroom for the next 30 minutes. Nothing. So we went downstairs and played and watched TV. Nothing. We went upstairs because I had to go to the bathroom. So she helped me flush the toilet, and then she didn't want to leave the bathroom. She was standing behind the toilet from where I was standing, so I didn't see her start to pee, but I realized that she was peeing, and helped her sit down ,and she got two BIG drops in the potty! WOW! We were so excited that she knew that she needed to stay in the bathroom at least. It may not seem like much, but it really was a huge step for her. I think that we are making some progress. She may get this by the end of next week. I'm starting to realize how fortunate we would be if we only had to train her for a week.

Ginger had a poop right before bedtime. We were downstairs in the basement, and she went to "hide" behind our couch. I came to see if she needed me to get a toy (she really didn't have any weird facial expressions, just the fact that she was trying to get away from me was a sign I guess). But I smelled it, and picked her up and took her upstairs "Oh, Ginger, you are pooping, we need to go sit on the potty to put the poo in there. We got to the potty, and as I was taking her pants down, I let the poop drop into the potty. "Oh look! Ginger, your poop made it into the potty. Good job!" I think that she knows that it's artificial, but she likes to be praised, so she enjoyed it. 
That was the extent of our accidents/potty training today. We really don't have that much to clean, Ginger just doesn't pee that much. And she really was drinking all day today! Tomorrow, we'll start again. And it will be very interesting to see how church goes. 

Potty Training Ginger: Day 3
I was actually too tired to write a journal entry for Day 3. At church Ginger wore a pull-up. She didn't have any horrible accidents, and she didn't poop at all. I started to get a little nervous that she was going to make herself constipated.


Potty Training Ginger: Day 4
We had a couple of pee accidents in the morning. And Ginger didn't poop at all Yesterday, so she ate melon and oatmeal for breakfast, I was hoping that that would loosen things up a little bit.
 At 10:20am, we had a victory: Ginger was hanging out in the bathroom, and all of a sudden she sat down on the potty. I hurried to tell her, "Ginger, you forgot to pull your pants down". She stood up and pulled her pants down, then sat back down. She got a really distressed look on her face and stood up again. So I talked with her "Ginger, do you have to go poo?" "No." "Do you have poo that wants to come out?" "Yeah." "Ok, lets just sit down until you go poo then." So we did. After about a minute I started to smell it, but I didn't dare believe it yet. I took a peek behind her and sure enough: Poop! Yay! I couldn't believe it! I asked her if she was done, and she kept on telling me "no". She sat for about 3 minutes, and then I could hear her peeing. YAY! We clapped, we sang, we hugged, and Ginger got a big cookie (well, an oreo--a big cookie to her). When she was done eating the cookie, we wiped and she got a good look at her business. "oh that's a BIG poop!" She was so proud of herself! And she was so happy to be able to dump it in the toilet and flush it away.We pulled up her DRY panties, and danced and sang, and called Daddy, and Grandma and Grammy, and by that point she was back to playing. 

Her first time going potty on her toilet!

5:15pm - another victory! She woke up from her nap. I brought her downstairs, and had her sit on the potty, and she went pee after a minute or so of sitting there. I'm so excited! I can see light at the end of the tunnel.

She didn't go for the rest of the night, which made me nervous. Pull-up time!


Potty Training Ginger: Day 5
It was so hard to wake up this morning. I was not ready to be "on alert" for Ginger's next accident. I needed to take a shower, but Ginger just wouldn't go pee--I knew that she needed to, and I just had to wait for it. I had her sit down to "try" a couple of times for a minute or so, but she wasn't focused on it yet. I had to shower before Brandon left for work, so I put him on Ginger Watch. While I was in the shower, he came running in with her and put her on the toilet. But she had already peed it all out before she got to the potty. Bummer. I just hate missing the opportunities for her to get some pee in the potty. It feels like regression.
  
She never did pee again this morning. I continue to try to give her new things to drink, in different cups, some with straws, some in adult glasses, juice boxes. She's just not that interested in drinking.

5pm - Ginger woke up from her nap early and I was in the basement with Edison. I heard her upstairs and so I ran up as fast as I could, but by the time I was to the stairs to go up to her room, I heard her burst into tears. I knew that she had just had an accident. I opened the door to her room, and she was standing right there by the door, in tears with a puddle of pee at her feet. She had tried to get out, but couldn't open the door (we have the knobs child-proofed so that if she ever decided to get out of her bed and walk around in the middle of the night, she won't open her door and fall down the stairs). I was heart-broken! She was heart-broken! Poor thing! I tried to comfort her, and we changed her underwear.

6pm - Ginger and I were in the basement, and I could tell that she was getting antsy. Ginger finally turned to me and said "Mommy, I have to go poo-poo!" We ran upstairs, and sure enough, she DID have to go poo-poo! What a big girl! She told me that she had to go! Apparently she didn't get it all out the first time, because a few minutes later, she looked at me again with a worried look on her face: "Do you have to go potty?" "YEAH!" "Ok, let's go, let's run run run to the potty!" I was so proud of her for communicating with me!

7:30pm - Brandon was home from work, and I was putting the dinner on the table. He was on the computer, when he realized that he couldn't hear Ginger. He went looking for her, and found her in the bathroom sitting on her potty going pee! All by herself! We were so ecstatic! Just this morning she seemed to not even notice that she was peeing in her pants, and now she stopped playing and walked to the potty all by herself! We could practically hear the Hallelujah chorus playing in the background! So AWESOME!

Tomorrow will be the true test to see if it was just a fluke.


Potty Training Ginger: Day 6
She woke up at 6:30am this morning with a wet pull-up. I was so tired, but I had to be on alert for an accident. A few hours went by, and nothing. I just kept on reminding Ginger to tell me when she needed to go potty. She started to get very whiny and was crying about everything. I knew that she needed to go back to bed, but I was nervous to let her go to bed without going pee first! So, I tried a couple of times to have her sit on the potty, but she'd start to scream and fall on the floor in a tantrum! Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I put her in bed, and put her potty chair in her bedroom with a little bit of toilet paper (and left the door cracked open just in case). She immediately went to sleep.

I decided that I'd lay down too, since Edison was also sleeping. About 30 minutes later I heard "Mommy, I have to go potty!" She didn't say it in an urgent way, just that she wanted to let me know. So, I wondered if I'd find her sitting in the potty chair when I walked into her room. Nope. She was still in bed. But when she saw me, she climbed down and went to the potty chair, pulled her pants down and sat down. Nothing. Then she said, "Let's go downstairs to go potty". So we went downstairs, but she didn't want to sit on her chair, and I didn't force her this time. I was getting Edison dressed, when I heard noise in the bathroom. I walked into the bathroom to see Ginger dumping out her potty bowl into the toilet, and wiping it out with toilet paper. Victory. I knew at that moment that Ginger was basically potty-trained. Yes, she'll still have some accidents, but I'm pretty sure that they'll be in the minority. She knows what she's doing. Later in the afternoon, I found her using her chair again--unprompted by me. 

So, I decided that she was ready to go to the store--we all needed to get out of the house. We went to our local Target. When we walked into the store, I pointed out to her where to bathrooms were, and so if she needed to go potty, she needed to tell me so that we could go to the bathroom. She did great! No accidents. Life can finally go on! (albeit, a little more cautious than before). 

And life HAS gone on, and it it GREAT to not have to change Ginger's diapers. It has been 8 days since "Day 6", and we have had 3 accident-free days, and on the other days she's had one accident (usually in the morning...so now we are extra careful to remind her to go to the potty in the morning). And I've actually stopped using pull-ups at nap time and at night. Two nights ago she woke me up at 3:30am so that she could go potty, and she went right back to bed afterward. We are so proud of her!