Smiling Mom

A few weeks ago a doll sho­wed up at my door to review.  Need­less to say, I was thri­lled that it hap­pe­ned to appear at my house the very day that Dr. Rabitz tur­ned to eClaire and said, “eClaire, you must stop suc­king your thumb today.”

Since this blog has basi­cally tur­ned into a photo jour­nal lately…I thought I’d just con­ti­nue the theme for one more post.

“Yes Mom.  I will rise to the occasion.”

The cha­llenge: Five naps and bed­ti­mes without suc­king her thumb.

The result?: Suc­cess!!  eClaire suc­cess­fully put her­self to sleep 10 dif­fe­rent times without suc­king her thumb.  Unfor­tu­na­tely for us, her going to sleep rou­tine which use to take less that 2.5 seconds exten­ded itself to a little more than an hour each night.  Sigh.  All good things must come to an end.

eClaire’s End of Thumb Suc­king Ceremony

“Look at me, Mommy, I did it!!  I don’t suck my thumb any­more. AND I can ‘fake smile’ with the best of them!”

The anti­ci­pa­tion is killing her as Daddy takes the new doll out of it’s box.

Sweet suc­cess.

A proud Daddy with his daugh­ter and her doll.  (Notice the real smile that’s now on eClaire’s face?  Precious..)

I’d like to say that this has been 100% suc­cess­ful, but in all honesty it has not.  eClaire still often sneaks her thumb at night,  Old habits die slowly.  This daugh­ter of mine crea­ted a blis­ter on her fin­ger in utero because she was suc­king on it even then.

But the suc­cess?  Both we and eClaire now know she’s not com­ple­tely depen­dant on her thumb for sleep.  Armed with this know­ledge, I hope that quit­ting the thumb once and for all is just around the corner!

I often won­der if I’m alone, dif­fe­rent, suck in a sec­ret rea­lity TV show.  I mean, really, how many kids can be so inte­res­ted by their pri­vate areas to make up songs about them, regularly?!

My daugh­ter does.

In the car going over a bumpy road: My ba-gina is ti-i-i-i-ckling meee meee mee eeeee!

Sit­ting with a glass of water bet­ween her legs:  Ohh, ohh, ohh it is cold, cold, cold.  My ba-gin-a is cold, cold, cold.

And that’s only my daugh­ter.  Let’s not even talk about all the new things my son has lear­ned about himself.…

Son:  gig­gle gig­gle, look Mom, my wie­ner (new favo­rite word) is stic­king out of my undies!!  That’s funny!!

Yes, Son, that’s funny.

Not.

As I may have casually men­tio­ned yes­ter­day, my daugh­ter is out of dia­pers. Ohh hahaha whot wehew!

Excuse me while I regroup.

OK, I’m good.

So as I was saying. Dia­pers are soo yes­ter­day. Big girl pan­ties, are in the now.

eClaire began her potty trai­ning jour­ney just before the flu from hell hit our house and all but disa­bled her for nearly two weeks. During that time eClaire didn’t have energy to sit up, let alone try to potty on the toi­let. And let’s not talk about the effects that flu had on her bowels.… Yes. Let’s just say that we skip­ped pull ups all together and went straight back to diapers.

Square one, again.

Once she hea­led from the flu, we were ready to being our dia­per free jour­ney again. Key word in the last sen­tence, we. As in Hubs and me. We, as in NOT eClaire. She was at the point where she still cried every time she too­ted, (that’s lingo for gas in our house).

Now let’s just say that my dear daugh­ter has a remar­ka­ble stub­born streak. I have no idea where she gets it from. coughHUBBY­cough It couldn’t pos­sibly me! No!! I’m so willing to bend. cough­NOT­cough

Since we requi­red she wear undies during the day­time, she deci­ded to stop poo­ping. Like for four days. Oh my good­ness, you should have seen the size of her belly. And you can thank the Lord that you weren’t around to expe­rience her whiny, crying out­bursts during those days. She was un-com-fort-able! Oy, that belly!!

On a side note, it’s inc­re­di­ble how that child of mine can hold her pee ALL DAY LONG and only pee in her pullup during the night. INc­re­dI­BLE. But I digress…

So come nap time I inform ask eClaire that she would if she would be going go potty on the toi­let before we put her pull ups on.

And then the hys­te­ri­cal tan­trum began. Since I’m not one to back down from a tan­trum, I thought Game On what a lear­ning moment. Today I will BREAK HER eClaire will have the oppor­tu­nity to potty on the toi­let!! She will become Potty Trai­ned TODAY.

But…I got weak in the knees. I couldn’t do it. I nee­ded reinforcements.

Hubby came to the rescue.

He imple­men­ted Ope­ra­tion Potty Tan­trum.

Hubby went into the bath­room and sat on the floor rea­ding his maga­zine all the while totally igno­ring eClaire with the occa­sio­nal, “Sit down honey. You can get up once you’ve gone potty.”

A.N.G.R.Y SCREAM. MAD MAD TANTRUM A.N.G.R.Y SCREAM.

For like 15 minu­tes Hubby sat on that ground igno­ring her tan­trum, like the ama­zingly Super­nanny–trai­ned hus­band that he is, as I paced outside the door, pull up in hand and screa­ming “UNCLE!!”.

“It’s OK Honey. You can get up as soon as you pee.” (Remem­ber, she hasn’t poo­ped in FOUR DAYS)

“AHHHHHHHHHH WAAAA BLAAAA Grunt, Grunt, Grunt WAAAAA BLAAAA AHHHH”

“Daddy, I just poo­ped! WAAAAA!!”

“Great job honey, now go potty.” Hubby sat there for a few more moments until eClaire reluc­tantly went potty, got her off the toi­let and prai­sed the bajee­zus out of her. We all did the super happy (paten­ted) Smi­ling Family Potty Dance* and sent her off to nap.

And that, my friends, is how eClaire became potty trained.

From that moment on eClaire has hap­pily gone to the bath­room on her own accord.

I am diaper-free and filled with glee!

Ope­ra­tion Potty Tan­trum com­plete, thanks to Hubby

*No, there will not be a video clip included!

And.…now you don’t.

Um, ya. Did you notice that?? NO CHANGING PAD!!! And the DIAPER BAG is GONE!!!

Time’s a chan­ging in the Smi­ling hou­sehold folks. Times a changing!!