The Linda Family

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

Rebekah,

You are such a delight.  You manage to make mommy smile and want to pull her hair out.  Daily.  You have managed the art of standing and have decided it is your favorite activity.  Standing on the couch holding on to the pillows?  Your favorite place to be.  You have tried to move your hands and figure out this cruising thing, but you’re just not quite there yet.  I’m sure it will be very soon.

When you are sitting you are now fully capable of leaning and reaching for whatever it is you want at the moment and then sitting back up.  You are starting to plop yourself onto all fours and sometimes you will stay there, rocking back and forth, trying to figure out what to do next, other times you scream for help because you can not figure out how to get back on your butt.  Maybe you will start to crawl after all?

Today we lowered your crib mattress.  Why?  Because I plopped you in the crib to play, turned around for a moment, and when I looked back, you were on your knees trying to stand up and peer out of the crib.  SO not safe.  Of course the hilarious part came while Daddy was lowering your mattress.  He let you play in the swing while he worked on your crib.  He thought it sounded like the swing was going faster than normal, and when he turned around, you were holding onto the sides of the swing leaning forward and back, making the swing go faster and faster.  Daddy called me upstairs, and after we had a good laugh at your expense, Daddy turned the swing off and let you swing yourself.  We have also learned this week that you are no longer safe in the bouncer.  I plopped you in there so I could do some laundry and when I turned around you were sitting up, leaning over the side of the bouncer reaching for the floor.  Again, not a safe idea.  How are you so big already??

You’re still not sure what you think of table foods.  The only thing you seem to like so far is bread.  You love bread.  If we break it into little pieces you will pick it up and chomp (read: gum) away on it.  I wish you liked something a little more nutritious.  I’m sure we’ll get there.  I just have twinges of mommy guilt over this one.  You should stop stealing my bread and enjoy some banana.

Your personality is becoming stronger and stronger.  You enjoy some time to yourself, but you have no issues letting us know when you have had enough alone time and are in need of some attention and affection.  You are very animated, the faces you come up with are priceless.

You adore your big sister, and all of her toys.  You will gladly flop onto your belly and off the couch for a chance to grab one of her toys.  You feel the same way about Laci.  Getting a good hanful of dog fur is surely worth the tumble to the ground.  Now, when you’re on the floor already you’re not as interested.  You really enjoy trying to crawl on the couch.  It does force me to focus 100% on you while you’re trying to crawl off the couch, but I’d really prefer if you’d try that stuff on the floor.  I think you and I will spend a good chunk of time on Mommy & Daddy’s bed next week while Ashleigh is at school.  Maybe that will help you figure it out.

Keep growing and learning little one.  We all love watching you as you grow.

Love,

Mommy

Here are a few photos of you from this month.

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Last week Bekah went in for her 6 month check-up. We’re a few weeks late, but life is busy!

Bekah scored excellently on the 6 month assessment. She is physically doing everything she should be, aside from beginning to crawl. I discussed my slight concern with this fact and the pediatrician took a look at her. His statement was something along the lines of, ‘well no wonder she doesn’t want to crawl, look at her! She’s ready to walk!’. Yikes! She is following in big sister’s foot steps. We also discussed Bekah’s milk issues and he doesn’t think any further testing is necessary. We have ‘tested’ by eliminating dairy from my diet and re-introducing it when I cave and need some cheese or something. We will give it 6 months before we re-introduce it. We also need to be cautious with the introduction of solid foods as kids with intolerances for one food are more likely to have other allergies as well.  We’lll follow her lead with solids, and as she becomes more interested we’ll offer her more options.  As of right now, she much prefers the spoon to the food on the spoon and that is perfectly fine.

I know you’re itching for her stats– My big girl weighed in at 16lbs 11 0z and measured 26 inches tall.  This is a gain of 1 lb and 1 1/2 inches in the past 2 months.  This puts her just above the 50th percentile curve for both height and weight, which is where she started.  Her head circumference puts her in the 75th percentile, but she comes by that one honestly!  LOL

I’ll hold off on her “new tricks” until next week’s 7 month update.  This kid is growing up way too fast!