Poozie's Potty Power

I haven't written a story about how the magic has happened for fear that I might jinx it, but Andrea is a now an offical Potty Superstar, so I'll go for it. :)

My plans started with inviting a little three year old over for Andrea to play with. Kenzie is super cute AND potty trained! I thought since Andrea thinks Kenzie is like the coolest person on earth that she would do whatever she did. So Kenzie showed up with her potty and some potty videos and we went for it.

...It ended with Andrea yelling and swinging at Kenzie and then me putting a diaper on her because I felt bad ruining her playdate with the girl of her dreams. :)

But the next day.... Little Poozie Foo Foo was sitting by the laptop, watching Potty Videos, and thinking in her head.

Down came the good Mommy and she said, "Little Poozie Foo Foo, how about we poo poo, in the pink potty and I will give you chocolate."

:) (Did you sing it? If not, please go back and sing it...)

Poozie said okay. She wanted to sit on her potty!!!!

This all happened at 8:30pm... We stayed up until 11:00pm, watching the Potty Power video, and desperately waiting for pee pees so I could shower her with chocolate. Nothing. :(

But the next day.... Little Poozie Foo Foo woke up and wanted back on the potty! AND this time she made PEE PEES :) Whoo Hooo for Poozie Foo Foo!!

She refused the underwear and ran around in just her dress all day ...good enough for me, baby steps!

Over the next few days she went potty. I even carried the potty in a bag when we went out because in my world stores don't have bathrooms... really. We rode the bike to the store, potty with in the basket. We picked up kids from school, potty was strapped to the backpack. We went to field hockey, potty was in stroller...

After a few days I think it was too much potty for her and she went back to hating the potty.

Being the terrible parent I am I gave her back diapers and was at least satisfied that she wasn't scared to tears of the potty. Here's the thing though... I'm not really a terrible parent. This isn't my first kid and I have zero interest in the unspoken contest of who's kid can be potty trained first. It's a zillion times easier when your kid wants to... and in Europe, with a girl, it's a zillion times easier with diapers. :) So please spare me the, "consistency is the best thing you can have while potty training-blah-blah." :) I've read that book too. It's just that my sanity is worth more.

Then "the incident" happened. She was playing in the living room, where her potty still sat in the corner. She stopped playing and I could tell she had to go potty. She looked at me. She looked at the potty. She looked at me again. She looked back at the potty. Then she PEED in her diaper and went back to playing. It felt like a teenager trick. "Yah, I could do what you want. Yah, I know how to do it. ...but I just don't feel like it right now. So nah-nah on you."

So I took all the diapers and hid them at the top of the closet. From that moment on we have been diaper free. We've pee pee'd in public big pottys. We've pee pee'd at school. We are potty superstars over here! She even woke up dry the last two nights!!!

As a special Poo Poo note: She makes no differentiation between pee pee and poo poo... both go in the potty and she's okay with that. PHEW!

Scotty's been helping....

4 MORE TEETH!

Little Andrea has been watching the rest of us chomp down on food for nine months now... and she wants in on the action!! She decided to pop out FOUR teeth in one day! This brings our grand total to SIX! :) What a big girl. She is 3/4 of a year old, you know.

Her top four teeth have officially come through. -As of today, from biggest to smallest: top right-right, top-right, top-left, top left-left. (That will make sense to me later when I finally get around to translating that page of her Danish baby book.) But her new chompers really did all show up one morning because I had been checking daily for the last week since she has been in a bad mood and you could see the white of them through the gums. Now you can feel them all. :) Now I am afraid of her bite when she is giving me "hugs" into my shoulder.

So she now prefers to feed herself and put those little toofers to use. "Squishy Food" is so beneath her. Big girls eat cooked carrots sticks, broccoli, peeled grapes, banana slices, plum pieces, sweet potato squares, toast, scrambled eggs, and the occasional cookie - her obvious favorite!!

Here she comes!!!

Andrea is taking crawling steps with her arms! ...her feet and lower half never move... but she makes her arms go forward!!







Writing about this would never convey how incredibly cute she is... so here is Poozle thinking about crawling. She's been doing this for two days now. :) I couldn't decide what movie to put on here because each one makes me smile, so I put all three - it's my blog and I can do what I want. :)

You can tell she's concentrating so hard, but then sometimes she gets so excited at the thought of whatever she is trying to get at, that she falls. She often gets stuck and Scotty yells, "She's stuck!!!", which is cute in itself. Scotty gives her a lecture once I have her sitting up again, he tells her she's not very good and that she should just "Stay there or you get stuck."

Her "scooting" makes me happy... it makes everyone happy, everyone in the house cheers her on, even Scotty... But then until I realized that in 54 days I will have this little, MOBILE child on an airplane for 11 hours. 11 hours of trying to contain a little girl who's only concern in the world is what she can can get at to put in her mouth next. Toss in a three year old and you have a party!!

Scotty is feeling better, he really wanted to go to bornehaven today to ride bike #3 (the bikes have numbers written on them - Bike #2 is "bad", Bike #4 "is okay", and I haven't heard anything about Bike #1... in case anyone is wondering). I let him go to school, but I know that he'll need the potty before lunch.... so I used my best Danish translator to write a note to his teacher explaining the situation and to watch out! I hope she gets the point. :) I think/hope he'll be fine.

She's Trying!

Go Andrea Go!!!

She isn't happy to just sit anymore... this little girl wants to go.

Little Poozie watches the rest of the herd running around the house and you can just see it in her eyes... SHE WANTS TO RUN!

This stage is difficult though because she isn't happy to just "sit" and play. She tries to crawl and get at things she can't reach, but then she usually falls forward on her head and gets stuck leaning on her face. She understandably does not like this. I sit her back up and the cycle continues. :)

Haircuts, Field Trips, and...

Lots to catch up on = Longest post ever

Haircuts by Mommy
Add "barber" to my long list of job titles. I will not pay $25 to get each of my kids hair cut so I cut all their hair myself ...and sometimes they just look funny for a while. :) Michaela says her hair is too short, I just trimmed the sides and back of Scotty to see how it looked, and Sierra has long bangs that you can't really see because she wears a headband 24 hours a day. Now I can afford to go get my haircut. :)




I told Michaela if she stuck her tongue out I'd put it on here...


Bornehaven Field Trip


Scotty had some of his friends from bornehaven come over. :) At his little preschool the kids go on field trips quite often so Scotty goes somewhere at least every other week, usually with one teacher and two other kids. Sometimes they take a bus somewhere into town, but sometimes they just go to one of the kids houses to play. :) I think this is so cute!

Last week it was Scotty's turn to have his friends come over. I dropped him off at bornehaven and then later that day he rode the bus home with his teacher and they brought two of his friends. Scotty showed everyone his room and all his toys and his video games. (His teacher said we had more toys than the school. ) He thought it was so funny to bring his friends and teacher over. :) We all ate lunch together and then his friends went home on the bus and Scotty stayed with me. I think this is a totally cute idea for preschools.

Scotty and Andrea

Provided that Scotty is in a good mood he now likes Andrea. He holds her hand in the bath when she cries, he picks up toys that she drops, and he even shared his covers with her. He will put the pacifier in her mouth if she cries and will stick his tounge out and "spit" to make her laugh. He even carried her once (with help from mommy)!

However, he has his boundaries. She is NOT allowed to touch his cup of juice...even when it is empty. He does also get mad when she takes one of his toys... but he gives it to her first. He's silly. Scotty says "She looked at my car and I gave it to her." ...as he crying because she has the toy that he gave her. We are learning to trade toys with her.

Yummy Food

Andrea has been eating lots of food lately. Sweet Potatoes, Green Beans, Avacados, Peaches, Plums. She likes eating most everything. At dinner we give her a teething cookie and she enjoys that while I get to eat... then I have to clean her up: her hands, face, hair, arms, belly... I need a bigger bib. :)

Last night I even gave her her first bottle! She chewed on it for the most part, but some of the milk must have fallen in her mouth because it was soon gone. I've decided that since I've been breastfeeding for seven months I'm a superstar, espically by American standards. :) I still will, but she will probably end up getting a bottle at night sometime to help her tummy get more full.

Andrea has also kicked Sierra out of her room. This week I am going to put Andrea in Sierra's roon and Sierra downstairs in Michaela's room on the fold out bed. I'm hoping to get some sleep in the near future. I am beginning to get a little grouchy. I haven't slept all night in about a year now... probably closer to four years though. I can't believe I've been raising kids for 10 years!!

Trip Home

We are still trying to figure out and book the flights to have specific dates. Paul has been gone for the last two weeks (and leaves again next week to Spain)... so we haven't sat down with more than 20 quiet minutes to think. Hopefully we'll have dates tonight!! June, July or August....

The Complete Danish Experience

So. Before we left home Paul and I decided that we needed to experience the Danish lifestyle to it's fullest. ...and how else better to do that than to have a baby here!

As some already know - This August, the sixth, and final member of our "not-so-little" family will arrive in a Danish hospital, delivered by a Danish doctor, and hopefully with the help of some Danish drugs! I can't say the thought doesn't scare me to death, but I guess there isn't much we can do at this point except hope for the best!

I had a doctor's appointment yesterday and the whole process seems a bit similar I guess. Yes, my doctor speaks English. Some words she says are wrong and it makes me smile, but I get the point... They ran all the same tests as I've done before. I go in again tomorrow for a "scan" which could mean ultrasound, but I'm not sure. :) I'll drink lots of water just in case.

Good thing this isn't my first or else I'd already be on a plane home!