Just a few more words on Emily’s potty training. I couldn’t be more pleased with Emily’s progress. We tried to go full action potty training and after day three and a lot of crying everytime she sat on the potty, we took a break. I just didn’t want her to hate the potty and she definately wasn’t enjoying the process.

Our new approach was to remind her that when she needed to go she needed to tell Mommy or Daddy. And then when it looked like she was trying to communicate something we would ask if she needed to go potty. This approach only produced 1-2 successful trips to the potty each day.

Then the day before yesterday we made four successful trips and no diaper changes after her nap. Yesterday followed with three successes. I guess one trick to potty training is figuring out what is the best reward motivator. Emily asked to watch Diego as her reward yesterday. I told her that she could watch one Diego episode as a reward, but couldn’t watch another Diego as a reward until she ‘poopied in the potty’. After that successful trip to the potty she always asked to watch Diego and I would repeat the rewards system. She surprised me today, while she was on the potty I went to fetch a fresh dry diaper and she poopied in the potty. She was very calm about it like she did it every day. I was so proud of her! We postponed her nap and she watched her Diego episode to celebrate.

When I was reading about the training process, I found several references to the fact that I would be learning about how Emily learns and deals with situations. So what I have learned about Emily so far is: she likes to be in control, she likes a little privacy at times when doing things for herself (espcially the first time), she learns quick, and her wanting to do something is the best motivator for her.

The girls were hanging out on Daddy’s lap and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to snap some photos. As usual, we couldn’t get Emily to look at the camera although she is willing to say cheese.

Emily still loves her sister and doesn’t seem to be very jealous of my giving Julia attention. This day she was giving Julia much more attention than her Daddy, but I caught the moment that she allowed Robby to love on her a little.

Julia is growing quickly, I have noticed that she is outgrowing 0-3 month clothes when they are one piece outfits. She is long enough to be stretching them a lot. We think that Julia is caring more weight than Emily did at her age. She just seems more pudgy, although you can’t call either of our kids pudgy. She is moving well – she has her rigid pose, where she can stand on her own because of holding her body and legs tightly. She has continued her crunches and leg lifts. She is also listing to the side in a movement that will become a roll over soon. She loves to watch people and smiles when we look and talk to her. She calms down when Emily comes into view.

Julia is still getting me up in the middle of the night once most nights and twice every once an a while. On rare occasions she holds off and gives me six hours, but I can count that on one hand. It is also not predictable. I try to brace myself for what she is going to do, but she doesn’t do the same schedule more than two nights in a row. The earliest she has gone to bed is 10:30 pm and the latest is 2:30 am, she can wake up from 6:30 am to 10 am. This morning she woke up just after Robby went to work and wasn’t interested in going back to sleep. We laid in bed and played and watched some TV.

Emily has been asking to ‘Help Mama’ at almost everything I do. She will climb up and get Julia a fresh diaper or fetch wipes. Today I asked her to bring me one tissue, she went and pulled two out of the box and managed to put one back in and brought the one to me. She also wants to load and unload the dishwasher. I caught her trying to pick up Julia to bring her to me for a feeding. It was really sweet, but not so safe for Julia.

Another antic that she has added just recently is to ask to ‘Sing’. This can mean to literally sing, but also to dance, or just to listen to music. Before this she has enjoyed these activities, but didn’t ask for them by name. Along with singing games she has started playing hide & seek with her Daddy while Mommy finishes dinner and playing Simon-says with Emily making the movements. She finds the last really funny and giggles as we imitate her. This evening she delighted herself with spinning around until she was so dizzy she fell down, then she would get up and do it again and again. She also figured out how to lay on the ottoman, scoot off head first, do a modified headstand, and then sometimes flip over and other times just fall off. The last thing for this post is her climbing out of her crib. She still is sleeping in her crib and we are not taking her out until we need her to be out or she climbs out. She has started to throw her leg over the top edge while I’m in the room and the side is down. Today I asked her if she had enough guts to go ahead and climb out, she looked at me and said ‘Help’.

Julia treated her Mommy with a new trick that she discovered. She discovered that while laying in Mommy’s arms that she could lift her head and shoulders up. She did it over and over again for about 10 minutes. I was excited for her that she was able to move in a new way, but I wished that her self-discovery didn’t happen at two in the morning. She was excited about it and it took another hour for her to settle down and go to sleep. They change so quickly!

This morning when we woke up, we looked out the window and saw snow falling. This is a rare treat for us. I was all for getting our kids up and making them look out the window immediately and then following that with going out and playing in it. Reason won out and I didn’t make Julia spend much time looking out the window and we fed Emily breakfast before going out. Unfortunately, by the time we did get out the door, the snow was beginning to melt. There was enough snow for Robby to teach Emily how to make a snowball, or at least a snow clump. Throwing the snow clump consisted of smushing it against someone else. The other favorite game was to get snow on your shoes and then stomping it off on the driveway.

It appears that Julia spent the outside play time with her eyes covered by her hat. Oh well, I guess Mommy should look in a mirror after putting the hat on her. She didn’t seem to mind the hat/eye covering.

A photo of Emily and one of her new favorite foods. The popcorn bowl started off on Robby’s lap and Emily took it from him. Popcorn is yummy!

Emily went for her two year doctor checkup. We read our ‘Corduroy Goes to the Doctor’ book before we went to remind her of what was going to happen. She was weighed on the big girl standing scale! That was a fun change for her. Also, no more shots for her until she enters kindergarten—nobody in this household is complaining about that. The doctor spotted two more teeth coming in. And he had a willing assistant in positioning the stethoscope.

The doctor was very pleased with the growth spurt she has had. She has bounded from the 10th to the 50th percentile in weight and from the 50th to the 75th percentile in height. Which translates to about 5 lbs in 6 months and also 2 inches taller in 6 months. I have noticed that she is growing through clothing sizes a little faster. At 2 years, she is 26 lbs and 34-1/2 inches long. Her head measures 18-1/4 inches round. We are not scheduled for another well visit until she turns three years old.