Potty Re-training Day 9-11

Have still been putting on the nappy for Baby O at night. She still wakes up with a wet nappy so have not dared try to go nappy-less yet.

Today we went to a friends house with pull-up pants on but she still did her shee-shee in the toilet. Yay!! After her afternoon nap, my in-laws arrived and the next few days was again back on a mixture of panties at home and nappies outside (which was most of the time).

Next week is a long holiday and we will be back in our hometown. Expecting on and off nappy days again. Hmm... guess going completely nappy-less will take a little longer as I have cleverly chosen these few weeks with the maximum disruption to our routine to start potty training off! Nevertheless, I am still really proud of the progress we have made even with all these disruptions in the way! Way to go, girl!

Potty Re-training Day 8

Hmm.. Baby O managed to shee-shee in the potty today but... she poo-ed in her pants as she did not want to poo in the potty. Then she had a loooong nap. More than three hours to be precised and I found her all wet in her pee.... Other than that, I guess she still did very well overall!

Potty Re-training Day 7

Today is actually the day we tried to put on training pants again after Baby O's grandparents left. Surprisingly Baby O was willing to do so. Again I had to remind her to tell me if she needs a wee so that she will not wet her 'trains' (on the pants). The morning was slow until after some water intake in the late morning. She actually told me that she wanted to shee-shee in the potty and she did! In fact, she did all her pee in the potty as well as the toilet when we were upstairs without the potty! So proud of her. I even left her in her training pants during nap time this time.

We were out post-nap so the pull-up pants went back on again. Overall, still chuffed that we had a zero accident first half of the day.

Potty Re-training Day 2-6

Baby O's grandparents arrived yesterday. I know we are supposed to potty train when there are not much changes to baby/toddler's routine but there is just not much time left with! With all the going outs, and just one day of training, I did not take the risk and got her back on pull-up pants (and nappies) from the time her grandparents arrived till yesterday when they left. Even when at home when we asked if she wants to shee-shee in the potty, she just went 'No'. Hrmph....

Potty Re-training Day 1

There's so much to prepare before the arrival of our little prince! One would have thought that having a second one would be much easier but...

Anyway, one of the 'projects' we have to embark on is Mission Potty Train! We have tried to potty train Baby O before with well, no success and I am determined to get it out of the way before little di-di arrives (and to achieve my Act of Green pledge from last year!). A friend who knows that I am trying to train Baby O has very generously loaned me tonnes of these re-usable training pants. (She has four boys. That explains the colours and the trains...) Since we were running out of nappies, I used it as an excuse to start training her. I told her that we had no more nappies but I got her some 'new panties' and they have trains on them! That kinda got her excited to wear them. 

So she had on 'panties' and I reminded her what felt like every five minutes or so that she had to shee-shee (slang for pee) in the potty so that she doesn't wet the trains on her panties. We had about four accidents in maybe two hours. Baby O must have forgotten that she was without nappies. 

I left the potty in the living room for easier access and during one of those times when she wanted to sit and wee, I gave her a little book and read together and waited and then... she did it! You should have seen her beaming face. I praised her and we gave each other high-fives. We were both so proud.

She even did a poo while I was cooking lunch! She told me she wanted to shee-shee again so we got her 'panty' off. While sitting there, she said she was gonna pang-sai (slang for poo) instead! She got a little panicky but I told her to sit there and wait for me and she finished before I could get to her. I again showered her with praises and high-fives and made a big fuss of what she had done while she kept asking me to quickly wash the potty. Haha...

Anyway, I didn't dare to attempt to let her continue to be nappy-less during nap time so I dug out some pull-up pants for her before nap time. When she saw them, she went 'Yay!!! Nappy!!!'. That was hilarious. I didn't want her to think that we still have nappies so I pretended to take out a pack of swim nappies and told her that those were swim nappies. Then I quickly hid the pull-up nappy pants together with the pile of training pants. When I changed her into the pull-up pants, she then said that she wanted to go swimming as she thought that I was wearing a swim nappy for her. Hmm... Mental note: Can't lie to toddler anymore.

These all happened before Baby O's grandparents arrived for the week..... Now, what next?

Unsettled

I was just thinking this afternoon while Baby O and I were snuggled together about to have a nap... that I am feeling more settled now after slightly over a year in Penang...

Then, it struck me that things will change again as the little one will be arriving very soon in November!!

So I tried to think of when was the last time I felt settled and somehow that felt like a reeaaally looong time ago! Let's have a look at all the major changes in my life...

2004 - we got engaged and started planning for the big day
2005 - I changed jobs a few months after the big day
2006 - we moved into our own home
2007 - moved halfway across the world to the UK
2008 - relocated to another state for job's sake
2009 - became a mother for the very first time and left the UK
2010 - relocated to Penang
2011 - unsure of what to expect when the prince makes his royal appearance end of the year!

Wow... yeah... thaaaaaat loooong ago! I thank God that through everything, He has provided the support that we needed and has never stopped blessing us. So even though I have not been feeling entirely settled, I am truly and wonderfully blessed!

My Budding Artist

One of the activities Baby O loves is to draw and paint. We started her off with non-toxic Crayola mini chunky crayons since she was maybe about 18 months old? Can't remember now... she was also introduced to water colour painting which she totally loves! I also managed to buy her a box of non-toxic water-based marker pens sometime early this year and she is hooked to them! She started drawing dots and lines initially and progressed to circles just before her second birthday. Soon after that, she totally impressed me by drawing faces! She starts by drawing a circle, then place two dots as the eyes, some squiggles on the sides as ears and a line for the mouth. Sometimes the line is upturn and we get a smiley face. Other times it is downturn and we appear to have a sad face. 

A sad face

She just loves drawing these faces and can spend a looong time 'perfecting' her faces!

Practice makes perfect!

There were only so many pieces of recycled paper that I could find so I had to get her one of these magnetic drawing boards. Got this one at a bargain from Toys R Us! Original retail price was about RM39. It was on promotion for about RM28. I had a RM20 voucher so I paid only RM8+ for this! This Mama loves a bargain!

Limitless creations

And when she had enough of faces, she even attempted to write her own name!! Which I found really amazing for a two year old!!!! Although you will probably think what is that?!? ;-)

Way to go girl!