Little Mommy

Alyssa loves taking care of the little kids, and she always looks out for John. This morning, Alyssa came in my room and woke me up while I was still in snooze-button mode. I got up and made her some toast and chocolate milk, and then I got in the shower. A few minutes later, who should appear in the bathroom doorway but Alyssa...AND John. John sleeps in a toddler bed now, but he doesn't know how to open doors yet, so obviously Alyssa had gone in to get him up all by herself. They were happy, so I finished my shower. By the time I got out, John had a sippy cup of water (Alyssa must have retrieved it from his bedroom for him) and some crackers which Alyssa had gotten from the package on the kitchen counter. It was so sweet, and Alyssa and John were both so proud of themselves for their accomplishments.

Pardon our dust

Finally...here begins the process of transferring our old webpage over here. Not sure what will happen to the dates of all this stuff, but I'll do my best to bring things over in order. Once I get done with that, I'll fill you all in on the latest happenings with the kids...

The fun continues....

Potty training is all but complete now. I'm amazed at how quickly Alyssa caught on. I feel like we really didn't have to "train" her much. She just didn't like getting those underpants wet (and she refused to wear a diaper), so after about 2 days, she figured it out herself. She has the pee thing totally under control now.

But poop...that's another story. It's agonizing! We think she's holding it in which is making her constipated and making it difficult to go. So when it's time to go in the potty, she asks to go, but when we get to the bathroom, she starts crying hysterically and won't sit down. So I tell her that if she doesn't sit down and try, she has to put on a diaper. So she does one of two things...

1) She sits down for a couple minutes, screaming and standing up every time she feels like she's going to start going, then finally when I agree that she can have her big girl pants back, she goes back to playing for about 90 seconds, then starts crying and says she is pooping and needs to go sit on the potty. Thus starts the cycle all over again. This can happen up to 15 times in a 45 minute period, until either the urge to go passes or she ends up going on the floor or in her underpants. It's torture. Or...

2) When she asks to go but then cries and refuses to sit down, I literally WRESTLE a diaper/pull-up onto her while being beaten and kicked. This literally takes about 5 minutes, because she is frantically pulling and tearing at it the whole time, and I'm usually in tears by the end. Then I have to restrain her for a couple more minutes as she tries to rip the diaper/pull-up off and screams and writhes violently. I have seriously considered duct tape before, but I'd have to have 8 arms to get her taped up. She's strong and quick! Once she has accepted that the diaper is on for good, sometimes she will eventually poop in the diaper.

We are totally at our wits end over this. We cannot keep spending hours at a time going back and forth to the bathroom with a screaming child. We are losing our minds!!! She absolutely refuses to go back to diapers, and she's big enough that there's not much we can do to keep them on her if she doesn't want them, so that's not really an option. If any of you reading this have been down this road before, PLEASE share your advice!!!

Adventures in Potty Training

I thought Alyssa would be 12 by the time she decided to start potty training. She has been deathly afraid of sitting on the potty chair for months. But what self-respecting 2-year-old girl could resist the allure of brand new, flashy, brightly-colored Dora underpants with little ruffles at the waistband? So the day after Meijer's big Fruit of the Loom sale, off we went into the frightening but very exciting world pf potty training.



For Alyssa, wearing "big girl pants" is her sole motivation. The rule is that if she doesn't sit on the potty, then she has to wear a diaper. And it has worked beautifully! In less than 2 weeks, she is now accident-free most days and even keeps her diaper dry at naps more often than not! We're still not totally on top of the poop issue, and we haven't been brave enough to let her wear the big girl pants out in public yet, but we're well on our way! She even asked to go potty at Outback Steakhouse with no prompting at all last week.



As I'm sure he will do many times in his life, John is trying to follow in big sister's footsteps. John immediately took an interest in the potty chair too, and he has gone in it several times, though he is clearly not ready for actual potty training. But he demands to use the potty all the time, and he SCREAMS if I deny him this special privilege. This has led to much violence between the kids, as we only have one potty chair, and when you add in the fact that Jacob (one of my bonus kids) is also recently potty trained, there is often lots of conflict over whose turn it is, and I often feel like I spend half the day in the bathroom. So I let Alyssa pick out another potty online. She insisted on a pink potty for her, and she agreed that John and Jacob could have the blue potty that we already had. The pink potty arrived this week, and the kids couldn't be happier! These pictures of Alyssa and Jacob from this morning are just too cute for words!!!

Our new family blog

Hi everyone! We'll use this blog to keep our family and friends posted on our latest family news. I'm in the process of transferring our info. over from our old website, because the kids are getting too old to keep that one. :) So please bear with me while I get everything up and running!

-Erika (& Jeff, Alyssa, and John)

Can I just take a shower?

This morning, I made the mistake of trying to take a shower while Alyssa was drifting off to sleep in her bassinet. I should have known it wouldn't work. She hates to lay anywhere except her swing or bouncy seat (or someone's arms, of course). She started crying, and by the time I could get out of the shower and get to her, there was a big tear rolling down her cheek. Poor Alyssa! Thankfully, she had tired herself out so much that all I had to do was pick her up and walk with her for a minute or two, and she was sleeping like a rock.

Our big brown cat, Lucinda, is totally in love with Alyssa. She came up and licked her on the head while she was eating this morning. It was very sweet. But then later she tried to kiss her right on the mouth (searching for milk perhaps?), and that was just too gross...I had to launch Lucinda off the bed. Poor Lucinda!

New adventures

Alyssa has been sleeping well the last few nights. Mommy even managed to get an astounding 7 1/2 hours of sleep herself Thursday night! (They weren't consecutive hours, but it's still really impressive!)

Alyssa got to see her first IU basketball game with the Cooks tonight. Despite Alyssa'a best cheering in her new IU outfit, they lost. But thankfully, it's the last IU game she'll ever see that is coached by Mike Davis. ;)

She also got to meet her cousins Elliot and Anthony tonight. Elliot seemed to think she was okay, but he refused to trade in his little brother for her.

Mommy and Daddy went on their first date since Alyssa'a arrival (lunch at Red Lobster) while Alyssa stayed with Nana and Pop Scheck for a couple hours. She slept the whole time except for while she was getting her diaper changed.