The Linda Family

Less than two weeks ago Bekah started “practicing” on the petty. I assumed it was some fluke and her interest would disappear just as quickly as it had appeared.

I am happy to report that as of now she still loves the potty. When she wakes up in the morning she asks to go potty. If I let her run around in a shirt or a dress she will go on her own! I have not been brave enough to try underpants around the house yet. I guess that needs to be our next step…

She has asked several times (while in a diaper) to go potty, but she is not a fan of (and will not use) full sized toilets. When I put a kid sized seat on the full sized toilet she will use it.

While this is certainly not a thrilling and riveting topic, I wanted to make sure to document it, so that we remember the final weeks/months of baby-hood….

That was Bekah’s first 4-word sentence.  She put that one together all by herself!

Last Sunday we were heading out of ‘church’ and she fell down and smacked her face on the grass.  We had church at someone’s home, complete with a pool party, baptisms, and child dedications.  Bekah had a blast swimming in the pool.  She even went as far as to demand that she be left alone to swim.  We put her in some swimmy arms and she had a blast.  Bouncing up and down, taking in a little water and spitting it out.  It was hilarious.  On the way out she was running and her foot hit a small depression in the lawn and she went DOWN.  It was not pretty.

She was, of course, just fine, but after she calmed down she asked for some ice.  I took an empty sippy cup and put some ice in it for her and handed it to her in the back seat.  She sat there chomping away on ice cubes for the drive home.  A few minutes into the drive we hear a VERY clear, “I eat ice cube!” from the back seat.  Wes and I just looked at each other, in shock.

I’m not sure we’re ready for two fully verbal little girls.  Our house is about to get a LOT noisier!  Oh boy…

Two days ago I was posting about Bekah’s interest in the potty, and that we might be at the early stages of potty training.  I am in utter shock, but she has been consistent!  She wakes up saying poo poo, and then she pees in the potty.  We’ve been letting her run around without a diaper, and she is GOING ON HER OWN!!!  No messes on the floor.

Yesterday I put her diaper on her at nap time, and then I went out for a few hours.  When I got home I was shocked to see her diaper free.  I just figured Wes wouldn’t want to deal with it.  He told me that she had not done anything since I left.  Her diaper was dry, no mess on the floor, etc.  Apparently she had been telling him she had to go, he’d go in with her, and there’d be nothing.  So he stopped following her.  I came home to find pee in the toilet!  Hew had no idea she had gone.

She did ask for a diaper yesterday to poop, but she’s 18 months old.  I’m ok with that.  We ended up using 2 – 3 diapers yesterday, and she used the potty the rest of the time!!  I think life is about to get complicated trying to coordinate TWO little girls who need to go potty!  Of course there’s always the possibility that she will regress and decide she’s really not ready, and while I like the idea of being diaper free, that is ok too.

How is she growing up so fast?!

Today Bekah woke up and asked for Ashleigh and Daddy as usual. Once we got through Ashleigh is sleeping and Daddy is at work, she said, ‘poo poo’. Ok, let’s go downstairs and go potty.

She sat on the potty, nothing happened, so she got up and started to play. A few minutes later she is crossing her legs and starting to freak out. So, I put her on the potty and she peed! Yay! As I was telling her what a great job she was doing she stopped and got up to look. She then started to walk away, until she realized she wasn’t done. She started crossing her legs and whining again, so I put her back on. MORE pee! Yay!

We took the inside from the potty to the bathroom, flushed it, washed it, and talked about what a great job she did. I then grabbed one of the packs of silly bands from the box in the dining room and gave her one. Oh she was SO proud. She went right back and sat down to try again.

I bought a huge package of silly bands on woot.com at the beginning of the month. They were SUPER cheap. $2.99 for six packages of 12. Shipping was $5, so I bought 3 sets. $14 later I had 216 silly bands. Ashleigh was SO excited when we got home from a long day and I handed her a package and thanked her for being so helpful and well behaved while we were out. Score 1 for mommy!

When I bought them, I figured giving Ashleigh little rewards for being helpful would encourage good behavior and it would be well worth my $14. I never imagined that Bekah would love them as well!

So, now we’re 3 hours into our day, she has refused to wear a diaper, she has tried to go potty 4 times and has actually gone twice. She has not had an accident! Holy cow!!

I’m not sure I’m ready for potty training with an 18 month old again, but I don’t think it’s my choice to make.

I’m going to hang on to my seat. I think the next 6 months are going to be long ones!

Bekah,

I can hardly believe that you are one (and 3 weeks). How on earth did that happen?! The last year has flown by and you have gone from a full of energy baby in my belly, kicking every chance you had to a little girl who wants to explore every corner of every space at warp speed. You are weighing in at 19lbs 12 oz, and I can’t remember your height. You actually lost a few ounces between your 9 month and 12 month check ups. They tell me that this is normal when babies start walking, so I’m not going to stress it, but lets work on gaining before your 15 month check up, ok?

I have been pretty bad at updating since you started with this mobile thing, so let’s backtrack a bit. On September 15th you started crawling. It seems you have an affinity for your buddy Madison’s house. You broke your water in their driveway, and you started crawling at their house. Not that you weren’t fully mobile BEFORE the crawling, with the crazy cruising skills and your insane ability to go from sitting to all fours to sitting somewhere else, but once you learned that you could REALLY crawl, all bets were off. I’m thankful it took you two months to figure out how to climb the stairs, it made the transition a little easier. On December first you took your first steps, and now you’re running everywhere!

In October we went to Philly with Daddy, he had to go for work. We had great time at the zoo and the Please Touch Museum. You weren’t so excited with the Franklin Institute, but you’ll feel differently in a few years. It really is a cool place. You loved seeing all the cool animals at the zoo, and the please touch museum meant you could crawl and cruise all around and touch EVERYTHING! It was your dream come true. As long as there weren’t big kids to knock you down.

In November we had all of your grandparents and aunts & uncles here for Thanksgiving. It was a full house, but you were so glad to have everyone here to play with you. We spend Christmas Eve with Nana, Aunt Beth, & Uncle Roy and then had a quite Christmas morning here with just the four of us. We loved the look of joy on your face as you learned about opening presents. You get excited SO easily.

After the things had calmed down here we went and spent a whole week with Grandma, Grandpa, Uncle Ted, and Pop-Pop. The week ended with a day in New Jersey with the entire Leifer clan! What a blast. You had fun chasing after the bigger girls. Next year you’ll be able to keep up!

You have an amazing vocabulary for such a little girl. You can say Hi, Bye, Dog, No, Mom, Dad, Ashleigh (pronounced eh-ee), Wow, Yeah, Yum, & Baby. I think there are more, but I can not think of them at the moment. You love to wave and blow kisses, and you cry when Daddy goes to work and Ashleigh goes to school. Of course, the squeals of delight when they come home make up for it.

This week you started taking off your diapers when you have decided they are wet. I pulled out the potty so you can get used to it. So far you like to pee on the floor and put your wet diaper in the potty, but you’ll get there eventually. You still like to eat every 3 – 5 hours at night, and while you tease me with an occasional 6 hour stretch I know it won’t last long, so I’m perfectly willing to feed you when you need it. I’m praying you decide to sleep 8+ hours before you start school.

You are full of passion and spunk. You never fail to voice your opinion, and we always know exactly what you are thinking. Your favorite things are babies, dancing, and your sister. You love to be surrounded by people, but as long as your needs are met (you’re full, with a dry diaper, and warm) you are very happy to play along side other kids for hours. On Sunday nights you see me walk by your room at church and you smile at me, then you turn around and go back to playing. You are very much the social butterfly.

I’m very excited to see the little girl you are turning into. Every day you amaze me in some way, please keep at it! You are learning and exploring your world and I can’t wait to see what you will achieve next!

As always, I love you and can’t get enough of you!

Mommy