Too Potty Trained

**Disclaimer: I am thrilled that Ali is potty trained and these are just minor complaints.

Ali has been officially potty trained since the beginning of August (no accidents). She still wears diapers at night and naps however because I would rather her sleep than worry about that just yet. 

I must say that I am so happy Ali is potty trained and will happily deal with these little annoyances for the major benefit of not having to worry about diapers . . . however . . . she has realized that the potty is a perfect "get out of jail free" card.

If she doesn't want to sit at the table at dinnertime "I have to go potty" and off she goes. To her credit, she always goes and sits on the potty. Whether or not she actually goes is up for debate since she takes care of everything herself (as long as it's just pee). I do think she goes most of the time (and usually bring it out to show us "I peed in the potty - see!"

Recently, she has started using her "potty card" at bedtime - or more precisely - after she has been put in bed. She will start crying and saying "I peed my pull-up!" Again, to her credit, her pull-up has always been a bit wet or she will sit on the potty and go . . . 

We have even started trying to get her to go on the potty before we put her in bed. This sounds like as simple enough idea, but since the beginning of the summer she refuses to sit on the potty if she is prompted and only does it on her own accord, so this sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. Anyway, every few nights she's crying to get out of bed and get a new diaper and sit on the potty. I know some people have great luck putting a potty chair in the child's room but Ali will not get out of bed until someone opens her door (again - not complaining - the fact that she treats her toddler bed as an impenetrable wall when she is alone in her room is wonderful), so even if the potty chair was in her room she would still yell for one of us first.

This has made me say I really only want her potty trained between the hours of 7 am and 7 pm . . . is that too much to ask?

Random side note - in the past few days Ali has started putting her finger up by her mouth and saying "I'm thinking". If I get a picture I will post.

Lots of Learning

First, an update on the toy post from last time.
The next day Ali remembered her airplane minutes after waking up and was so happy to have it back. And . . . the best part is, the lesson seemed to work. Now our pick up your toys conversations go like this:
Me: Ali, it's time to pick up your toys.
Ali sometimes still ignores me but then I follow with: Remember Ali, any toys you pick up you get to keep.
Ali: And the toys mommy picks up she gets to keep. I want my toys.
Then Ali runs and picks them up.

I am also so impressed with how much she has already progressed at preschool. Most days Grace (our wonderful nanny) drops Ali off at preschool so I haven't seen her morning routine at preschool much but it is as follows. The kids arrive and are expected to put their bag on a shelf, get their slippers off another shelf, take their shoes off and put them away on the shelf and put their slippers on. I got to drop Ali off this morning and while she still needed the reminder from the teacher to take her shoes off she did all the rest by herself without additional prompting.
- shoes off, socks in shoes
- slippers off shelf
- shoes put on shelf
- slippers put on

This morning when she got her slippers on she said "teacher I got them on myself."

Hard Lessons

We have been working on getting Ali to pick up her toys when she is done playing with them. We have also been working on "enforceable statements" so instead of "Ali please pick up your toys" I say "Ali you get to keep any toys you pick up". Then if Ali doesn't pick up her toys I pick them up and put them away and she can't play with them the next time she wants to.

Until last night Ali had done a pretty good job of picking up her toys most days and she hadn't missed any that she had refused to pick up. However, last night she refused to pick up any of the toys she had been playing with including one or her favorites - her airplane. I picked them up and I all the toys from last night on the stairs behind the gate.

This morning she got up and noticed her airplane on the stairs.
A: My airplane! I need it!
Me: That's so sad Ali. Remember I told you last night you could keep any toys you picked up? Well, you told me you didn't want to and I should do it so I picked them up and put them away.

Ali turned away and I could see her fighting back tears. Then she turned back to me for a hug. Poor thing was quite upset but she didn't want to let it show. I hugged her and told her the airplane would be back tomorrow and next time maybe she could put it away so she could keep it.

Broke my heart but hopefully she will remember this and put her toys away herself next time . . .

In Her Genes

I bought Ali a purple plastic recorder at the toy store yesterday. It is instantly her favorite toy. She walks around the house playing it and singing. Sometimes it's "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", sometimes she makes up her own songs.
I'm not surprised, I used to do the same thing with a 1/4 size violin when I was her age, music is in her genes. I am pleased however, I look forward to sharing my love of music with her.