Follow your imagination, wherever it may lead

I know it's been almost a month since I posted. I guess that since school is out, I forgot that I still was supposed to be blogging. Whoops. Sorry folks.

Anyways, I wanted to share this little story from last night. My preschooler was playing with duplos (that she calls "playgos") before bed as her "one last thing." And she built herself a little car; complete with a person riding on it. So off the car goes around the livingroom furniture on an adventure. And in her sing-songy voice, my daughter is singing, "they are going on an adventure! They are going through the tunnel, off to get ice cream! They are going to get ice cream because she went poopoo in the potty!"

And I think to myself, "is it a good thing or a bad thing that our potty bribes have made it into her imagination play?" Followed by, "now when is she going to follow the good example of her imaginary friends?"


If only, if only.

School's out for Summer!

Today is the last day of preschool before summer. Although as a child I always thought that the last day of school was such an exciting event, I find that I am definitely a parent now. The last day of school is a little bit terrifying. It means I will have both children with me for any errands, grocery store trips, doctor appointments, etc. It means every single day of the week with questions like, "Mom, where are we going today? What are we doing? Can I watch more TV?" as I scramble to come up with activities and also try to find 5 minutes peace (do you remember that book from our childhood? I finally get it now).

     And most of this week I had my grandmother here. I love my grandmother and it was a really huge treat to have her come visit and spend some time with the girls. But, having her here meant that my last week of school was dedicated to her and not to trying to accomplish an entire summer worth of errands and to-dos in a matter of days. 

     Alas, that means that the summer will actually have errands and grocery store runs and whatnot with both my kids in tow. Which already has me thinking, "how do mothers with more than 2 handle it?"

     It also has me very open and willing to start a rotating playgroup with any and all of my other preschooler moms.

Toilet seat

So, today this happened...

My baby was wandering the house, as normal, as I was getting things ready to head out the door. My grandmother is in town, so we were heading out to the toy store. So I was going through the exit routine, which includes going to the bathroom, packing the diaper bag, getting a bottle ready, etc... anyways, after a few moments I noticed that my baby wasn't underfoot - in fact, at that second I heard her cry out in a "I'm kinda stuck, or bored, or kinda want some attention" way. I want make certain that you understand this was NOT a cry of distress or pain.

     And off I went to investigate. Apparently I had lost her back at the bathroom stop on the exit routine. While I had continued on, she had stopped to investigate - normally this means the toilet paper roll. This time though, it meant the actual toilet.

     I found her sitting in the toilet - and I mean IN the toilet. She had climbed inside the toilet and was perched, kinda of squatting with her socks and shoes in the water in the bowl with her hands on the seat and her head peering out from under the lid (granted the lid was more like on her shoulders than the top of her head).

She has never done something like this before. NEVER even close!

     I was in such shock and heard that split second inner chastisement of "bad mommy!" so I quickly pulled the sopping wet child out of the toilet. Then I realized that I really should have taken a photo first. Because as soon as that inner voice was quiet, the laughter began. Absolutely hilarious. So this is a post-toilet seat adventure shot, and I promise that if there is a next time, I'll be sure to snap a quick photo before rescuing the adventurer from her watery predicament.

And thank goodness the toilet was clean!

All she wants to do is walk

My beautiful and adorable 1yr old is now a squirming screaming walker. She's been walking for a while now, but it's gotten to the point where she really doesn't want to do much else. She certainly doesn't want to sit still in my lap or on a changing table.

     I knew this day would come, and she was older than my first daughter was when it started. But man is it frustrating. It makes the diaper changes a fight that's no fun for anyone, and makes car rides and plane trips a bit more tricky. Thankfully we don't have any of those planned for a few months anyway.

     So now that summer is coming, we're going to be spending a huge amount of time outside walking wherever we can until mom (me) gets too hot and demands that we all go inside or to the pool. And until then, I apologize if you are within earshot when I refuse to let her walk around and she screams. 

Diapers over Ice Cream?

Sometimes the logic of a preschooler surpasses adult understanding. No, I am wrong - it seems almost ALWAYS the logic of a preschooler is beyond the comprehension of an adult or parent. Take this for an example...

     We have a running bribe (let's call it what it is, people) that if my preschooler goes poopoo in the potty, then we will all get in the car and head over to the ice cream shop for an ice cream cone. Seems like a pretty awesome incentive to me! However, she doesn't seem very swayed by it.

     In fact, as she was handing me a diaper last night, I reminded her that she could instead choose the potty over the diaper and we could all go get ice cream. She cocked her head to the side as if considering this proposition, and then stated, "nope, I don't like ice cream that much."

     Huh? She LOVES ice cream! I can't believe that the security blanket that is a diaper is so much stronger than having an ice cream cone complete with sprinkles on a warm spring evening. huh? I just don't get it.

In one end and out the other

I think my 1yr old just swallowed a plastic cap. The tiny ones that come on the applesauce pouches - I'm sure you know the ones. Now I'm not entirely positive that she swallowed it, but I can't seem to locate it anywhere else, and seeing as how she loves to put EVERYTHING in her mouth, I'm going to assume she did.

     Perhaps you'll think I'm a bad parent, but as she's not expressing any sort of distress, and it doesn't have pointy edges, I'm going to wait and see if we get a surprise in her diaper here in a few hours/days. Yes, I will admit this is definitely a Mommy Fail event. I'll just try to remind myself that it could have been worse, and we'll hope for the best.

Bye bye bribes

So we've given up on the bribe method with my preschooler. She obviously could care less whether we hold out ice cream or Frozen or stickers as incentives to going #2 in the potty. It just doesn't seem to matter. She looks at me and says, "well, next time I'll use the potty, but I want a diaper now." Doh!

     And since we've been tired of waiting on ice cream, we went Saturday night. Yum. Ha. Then Sunday morning the Easter Bunny brought Frozen on DVD for my daughter. She was very excited - a little confused because she knew she hadn't earned it by going poopoo in the potty, but still excited. And we've watched it at least 5 times in the last 3 days.

     At some point it'll work. And I don't know yet if any of our attempts at different methods will help or hurt or have any affect whatsoever on the timing of when it'll happen. I'm just confident that I know zero adults or even teens who use diapers out of choice, so there is a day coming up sometime in the future where I won't be handed a diaper... at least from her. And about that time I'm sure we'll be starting the whole process over again with her little sister. 

Oh joy.