Samantha's first blog

pamelamyers | January 30, 2013

Well, she did it!  Sam is officially diaper free (except at night)!  I am so proud of Sam and how well she has done. We decided it was time for her to finally ditch the diapers a few weeks ago. She was ready, both physically and emotionally, and with pre-school starting in the fall, she really had to be ready to go. She knows how to use the potty, and really loves her underpants (which she started asking to wear over her diapers). It was just laziness on both my part and hers that have held up the potty training. I wanted to make sure that I had a good amount of time home with her to really focus because it wouldn’t have been fair to her to try to get her to use the potty successfully when we had her running around all over the place doing errands, shopping, etc.  Not working on Fridays and Mondays really helps because I have a nice long 4-day stretch to be with her.

As I posted before, January 19 was the official start. I told her the night before we began that tomorrow was “no more diapers time” and she was going to use the potty every single time.  I put her in some cloth training pants and asked her if she needed to go about every half hour. I thought she was going to kill me! I heard so many “noooooooos!” that is was funny.  I did learn one thing — Sam has a very strong bladder because she can really hold it!  She only had 2 accidents each on the first 2 days and that was it.  And both times, she was able to stop herself and run to the potty to finish up.  She did everything on the potty in the first few days too, which was great, because I have heard and read that peeing is the easy part but not so much the other. My little girl is a potty champ!

To give her an incentive, I drew a chart for each day and for every successful time she made pee she got to draw a smiley face and for every successful poo she got to draw a star. Accidents were sad faces, but we had so few of those! It really did help her because she was so excited to draw her smiley faces that I didn’t even have to reward her any other way. Every day she got to see the big long line of them and she was so proud of herself. Before we were even out of the bathroom she would say, “I can draw my smiley face now?” with such glee. I had planned on giving her some sort of reward at the end of every day that the smiley faces outnumbered the sad faces, but it wasn’t even necessary. Here is a pic of her chart. You can pretty much tell which smileys I drew and which ones she wanted to do herself.

I did give in and buy her a huge Hello Kitty she has been eying in the Build a Bear store and made sure she knew it was her present for being such a very big girl.

For about a week, other than to my mom’s house while I went to work, no one took Sam out of the house. My mom was the first one to take her out and Sam did wonderfully.  No accidents at all. She is really great at making sure she tells us when she has to go, even in restaurants and stores.

It is hard to believe that I am saying goodbye to diapers.  She is wearing a Pull Up at night, but even those seem mostly dry, so I don’t know how long that will last. It seems weird to go all day long and not have to check diapers. I do have to start having a better eye for where all the bathrooms are when we are out! One more proof that my baby is gone. But on the upside, her cute, tiny little butt looks even tinier and cuter running around in her pants without a padded diaper over it!

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pamelamyers | January 25, 2013

Sam is getting so creative with her art.  You can really see the progress from her original scribbles and lines to what she can do now. Here are a few things she did recently that I just love.

In this one, she first drew the sun, on the top of the page. That is by far the best one she ever did. Usually, she just draws a circle, without the rays. Next, she drew a house (the square on the right side). I asked her to draw the person who lives in the house, and she drew the figure on the bottom. I think that is pretty good.  I have read that kids her age usually draw people as heads with legs coming out, so she is right on target. Next, I asked her to draw a tree next to the house and she drew the round shape on the left. She said it was a bush. The last thing she drew was the tiny figure on the far right.  I asked her what it was, and she said, “a mouse!” like, duh, Mommy, of course it is.

This one she made out of Silly Putty. It was supposed to be a magnifying glass.  I think it’s a pretty good likeness!

A few days later, Sam made this bird, completely on her own, out of a strand of beads. I am so incredibly shocked at how well she did.  I mean, the bird has a beak, a head, wings, a body!  (The cat toy across his neck is scarf, according to Sam, because he was cold).

It is amazing watching her progress with drawing and art in general. She experiments with colors and lines and textures all the time now. I can’t wait to see how things change as she gets older. I already have such a huge collection of drawings she has done. I don’t know how I am going to store them all, but I just can’t bear to give some of them up!

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pamelamyers | January 19, 2013

Today’s the day – we are ditching the diapers!  Wish us luck!

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pamelamyers | January 15, 2013

I was getting Sam dressed the other day and she picked out her shirt, as always. Sam always likes to pick out her clothes. Usually, she does pretty well, picking things that are coordinated. Some days she picks the craziest combinations and I let her wear them anyway because, honestly, who cares? The only thing I insist on is that her clothes are weather appropriate. Anyway, she picked out an orange (surprise!) shirt with Tinkerbell on it that says Happy Halloween. My aunt sent her the shirt a long time ago and she loves it. Not only shirt, but also Tinkerbell, because she loves fairies. She seems to call them all tooth fairies, but whatever. I told her that I should maybe get her another fairy shirt, one that did not say Halloween on it. She started saying that for Halloween, she was not going to be a frog, that I was going to be frog, and this was apparently hysterically funny. After all the giggling was done, I asked her what she was going to be and she told me she was going to be a fairy. I think she would be an adorable fairy, but we will see what happens come September or so. Although, with Sam and her elephant-like memory, she will not forget this conversation and I will be buying a fairy costume. We will see!

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pamelamyers | January 11, 2013

Today we went to visit what will be Sam’s pre-school this coming September. We chose a place close to our home that has a great reputation from everyone I asked. It was a bittersweet day. It was exciting seeing the place where she will go to learn and grow and be such a big girl, but sad seeing the place that gives us evidence that she is not a baby anymore. I can’t believe my little girl will be in pre-school this fall. So soon after she starts, kindergarten will be right around the corner, then actual school. She will only be going for three 2.5 hour days at first, then the year after, five 2.5 hour days, then finally, when she goes to kindergarten, five half days. At this point, I think it is enough. Sam is still so attached to us, which I love, but I also know needs to change. She needs to be more independent, less afraid to be on her own. It is hard to let go of her. I am so proud of her growing up, but at the same time, since she is my only little one, I want her to stay just as she is for as long as she can.

We didn’t tell her where we were going until we got to the school. It is really right around the corner from our house, at St. Matthew’s Lutheran church, which is nice because it is within walking distance, but on today, we drove. Once we got there, she was very clingy, as I expected. She asked me to hold her almost the whole time. But I do think she liked seeing what the other kids were doing in class, and she definitely liked the playground. At one point, the director of the school had to speak to another parent, and Sam noticed the huge board where all the kids crafts were displayed. There was a wall of construction paper snowmen and she couldn’t stop talking about them. We explained to her that when she goes to the school she can do things like that too. She didn’t say much, but that in and of itself is a huge improvement over the last time I tried to talk to her about school. I mentioned, at the time, that she will love school and that she will do all kinds of crafts and I was promptly told that, “I can do crafts at my house.”

We stayed for about 45 minutes and tried to find out everything we could. The pre-school works closely with the kindergarten to make sure the kids are prepared, which is important to us and I think Mark and I had all of our questions answered. It was so cute seeing all the little ones doing their thing in class, but it was hard to imagine Sam standing there in the not to distant future. When we were done our tour and satisfied with what we saw we left and Sam was very quiet on the way home. I think she was trying to process what she had seen, and what it meant when we told her that it would be her school in the fall. It is hard for her to understand that she doesn’t have to go right now since I really think she doesn’t understand the concept of time in the sense of days, weeks, and months. But we did explain to her that she was going to go there, but not right now, just sometime soon, and she was ok.

Later in the night, Sam asked me if she could go and see her school again.  Hmmm.  Well, how about that? Maybe it won’t be so bad after all.  Yeah…right. Who am I kidding? The first few days are going to be horrible. The tears, the wailing, the anguish. Well, from me anyway. 🙂 But honestly, I am fully prepared that she is going to be a mess when we drop her off those first few days (hopefully, only days). She is never left with anyone other than family so it will be hard for her. But it is necessary too. The last question on the pre-school questionnaire asked what we hope she gets out of her pre-school experience. I answered in the best way I could. My hopes for her are that she learns, she makes friends, she becomes more independent, and that she is happy. That is all I ever wanted for my girl. And I will do whatever I have to to make sure it happens, despite a few tears, from either Sam or her mommy.

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