Checking in

It's been a while! Unfortunately, the camera shutter hasn't been exercised a lot lately, but the following are a few images of our coming's and going's lately.

An 80's Party we attended.

In case you didn't get enough of Todd's rockin' mustache.

This is what happens when you leave the room for a minute while toddler is painting.

Date Night: Project Re-grease Kitchen Aid. Commenced 5pm. Ended 9pm. Said Kitchen Aid has been functioning on the same grease since the late 80's.

All the old grease cleaned out.

Re-greased and put back together.

Romantic dinner after said Project Kitchen Aid.

Mitch's attempt to dress himself. We're working on it.

Funny little man.

Success!

 

 

Mitchell is celebrating his recent BIG milestone of being potty-trained! He is one happy boy and his mom is relieved that is was quite easy! Some people have asked what method we used, and the following are things that I stuck to:

1. I dedicated three days to staying at home and being 100% focused on potty training. Because it was more successful than I anticipated...we did run a couple errands on the 2nd and 3rd day.
2. The first day I was only focused on getting him to sit on the potty at my direction and stand up at my direction.  I was not looking for results the first day.
3. Mental preparation was super important for me.  I constantly reminded myself to stay positive, be patient, and remind Mitchell of what he can do instead of what he can't do ("you are a big boy and you can pee in the potty!" as opposed to "NO accidents, you make me sooo mad!"
4. I took him to sit on the potty every 30 minutes and sometimes more often than that.

The first day was the hardest and he had like 12 accidents and one success and we celebrated that 1 success big time! The second day was easier, he only had 3 accidents and like 10 successes! The 3rd day he had zero accidents. The only thing that was the hardest was for him to learn to poop in the potty.  He didn't poop for about 6 days because he was nervous about it.  After lots of tries and lots of encouragement and lots of bribing (I told him he could get a new car and ice cream if he pooped!), he has finally overcome that fear!

We still have some hurdles to jump, such as getting his pants up and down on his own...he can kind of do it, but not really. He also needs to learn to go pee on his own at night.  If either one of us wakes up in the night, I usually try to get him to sit on the potty...but as you can imagine he doesn't like that very much! And lastly, he does need to learn to verbalize when he needs to go...he usually just says, "mommy, mommy, mommy!" in a frantic voice.  However, he has verbalized it a few times, so that's great!

Thanks for making potty training very easy Mitchell! Although I do take a lot of the credit because we stuck to it and didn't give up!