Christmas is Coming!

I heralded in the holiday season by taking Christmas pictures. I don't like taking pictures of myself because I end up with the selfie/double chin effect, but I like taking pictures of my kids because it doesn't matter if their faces are booger-smeared or their hair is stringy and sticky, they manage to look cute. Like two little orphans.






As you can see, I'm really excited for Christmas! Just walking around the mall and seeing the twinkling lights and tacky snowman inflatables put a permanent grin on my face. Even the stoic old man dressed up as Santa Claus made me smile. That is one sweet job, one that I aspire to do when I am old and male.

Hope everyone is having fun getting ready for the best season of the year!

Halloween Costumes!

Last year I made my costume. 

I learned my lesson. 

This year I bought a costume. 

Happy Halloween!

She is Jesse from Toy Story. She worships that movie with glazed eyes two or three times a week. 

 

I am aware of how the boots are suppose to work. I am lazy. 

He's just along for the ride. 

Potty Trained!

"Push!" my husband and I cry together in unison. "Don't cross your legs!" I yell out. It's 1 a.m. in the morning and my toddler is crumpled at the foot of our bed, twisting her legs together and clenching her teeth. Poo holding, it's a problem. 

Rosie can usually hold it for 5 or 6 days. The last couple days of the poo strike are the worst because it involves a lot of crying, a lot of poo stripes in the pull-up, and no appetite. Prune juice would be helpful if she didn't have an iron will. So for weeks, we urge Rosie to go poo - on the potty, in her pants, on the kitchen counter, in anyway at all.

One day I read in a blog that poo holding is a result of a bad pooping experience. Maybe it was painful once, and the toddler feels that they can avoid the experience by holding their poo indefinitely. It was then that I realized how scary a bowel movement must be for her.

So it's 1 a.m. and my husband and I are coaching very enthusiastically for Rosie to poop in her pull-up when I get a double revelation:
1. If she's sitting on a potty, maybe she won't be able to twist her legs and hold her poo.
2. Instead of loud coaching, maybe she needs calm reassurances and support. 

I lead Rosie to her pink princess potty and sit her down. When the urge to poo comes, she instinctively tenses up and tries to cross her legs. "It's okay, just keep sitting. Breathe. It will be okay. The poo poo will come out." I tell her. She still tries to fight it, but maybe it's the sitting down, maybe it's my zen approach, but it comes out. Immediately, her face washes over in relief. Even before I am finished cleaning her potty out, she falls asleep on the floor. 

I learned a big lesson that day. I could teach Rosie to go to potty MY WAY and face a lot of set backs, or I could teach Rosie to go potty HER WAY. So for parents reading this, this post isn't about how to teach your kid to go potty but how to find out how your kid wants to learn to go potty. (That was a long sentence).

So with moving forward on Rosie's potty training, I tried to keep an open mind and adjust my methods to fit her. For example, Rosie's biggest problem was that she could never get to the potty in time to pee. She'd be playing, then she'd stand up and look at me. 

"I go pee pee," she'd say with a smile. 

I'd rush her to the bathroom, but then realize that when she said, "I go pee pee," she meant "I go pee pee now." 

As I'd help her change to new pull-ups, I'd tell her, "You need to tell Mommy before you go pee. You need to tell Mommy and then we'll run to the potty together." 

She'd nod, but she didn't truly understand. 

I sat in bed pondering this one night, and in the darkness of the room, the answer glimmered forth. Maybe she needs someone to teach her how to hold it. If she could hold her pee for just 30 seconds, it would give me enough time to get her to a potty. Then I wondered, "How shall I teach her to hold it? How does she learn best?"

My daughter is a visual learner. She loves to point to pictures and repeat their names. She also likes to watch YouTube videos. Slowly, a plan formed in my mind. 

The next day, I woke up early and created some charts on my computer. There are plenty of free potty training charts online, but I needed to personalize this for Rosie. Here are the charts I came up with: 

1. Potty Steps

This chart is all about the steps of how to go potty. Rosie knew how to go pee pee when she was on the potty, but she needed visual steps on how to get there. The pictures of the princess come from a YouTube video(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vFAXZU8YFsk) which I let Rosie watch several times. It helped her see there is a non-verbal way to both hold in the pee AND tell me she needed to go. 

You wouldn't believe how much Rosie loved this chart. To this day, she points to the pictures on this chart and repeats the steps to herself.

2. Rosie's Potty Chart

This chart leads to a reward that Rosie is crazy about: ice cream. I also put a stolen picture of Elmo because she loves Elmo. I planned it out that if Rosie went to the potty 10 times, she would get an ice cream cone from McDonalds. Incidentally, she goes pee about 10 times in one day - that's a good time frame for a toddler to work for a goal and get a reward. Any less rewards a day, Rosie would probably get discouraged or forget. Any more rewards in a day and the rewards would be meaningless - plus I'd be poor. 

Well, did it work?

These pictures speaks for themselves:

Rosie has gone close to a month without wetting or pooping her pants. Now, every time she needs to go pee or poo, she'll grab her crotch and squirm and say, "I need to go." This is the potty dance. I escort her to the potty and her business is taken care of, without crying or trauma or impatience. I wake up smiling everyday.

Not to make it seem like this was easy - it was the most trying teaching experience in my whole life, and it took months and months and lots of accidents. But I hope it can give hope to a lot of desperate parents out there. You know your child and you know how they learn best. Just observe and let them teach you how to teach them. 

Natural vs. Epidural

There are many opinions on how you should give birth.
"Go natural! You will feel empowered and you will recover faster!"
"Get the drugs! No pain is awesome."
Well, as of this summer, I have experienced both routes, and...
I'm still unsure which way is better.

Birth #1

My first birthing experience was like a rollercoaster. First of all, I was living overseas in Taiwan. The baby came early - my water broke in the middle of the night - and so I was unprepared and anxious. My husband and I took the No. 1 bus to TaoYuan Hospital. It felt surreal. I was walking among the people in our street, watching them buy their morning vegetables. I boarded a crowded bus and watched school children in their uniforms riding to school. Everyone was hurrying on with their daily life, but I was off to have a baby.



When we got to my hospital room, I was greeted by the screams of a woman next door to me. She was either in the middle of labor or being mauled by a bear. It did not help to put me at ease. The nurses waited to see if I'd start contractions naturally, but I didn't, so they gave me Pitocin. All this time, I kept on asking, "When will I get my epidural? Is it time to get my epidural?" The nurses smiled and kept telling me to wait.

I waited and waited.

"It's hot!" I kept telling my husband. "Can you turn up the air?"
My husband went to talk to the nurse, and she came and told me the room was actually quite comfortable and the only reason I felt so hot was because I was in labor. I remember thinking very bad things about that nurse.

Let's skip to the good part - they came in and checked dilation. "Good news! You are almost completely dilated. Too late for an epidural. You will have your baby soon." I waited for the good part of that news. The nurse added, "An epidural is expensive anyway. It's 6000 NT ($200 U.S.), this way, you save money." I didn't have much time to think about money, as I was currently trying to rip the railings of my hospital bed off in pain.

I think when you are in so much pain, your mind sort of goes crazy. That happened to me. When the doctor was giving me instructions on how to push, I remembered turning towards my husband for translation. I speak Chinese, but when I was in labor I apparently did not.

When I finally gave birth to my 7 lb, full head of hair, red-skinned daughter, I felt elated. Not only was I happy because I had my baby, I was happy because I felt I had escaped death. The lights in the ceiling seemed especially shiny, everyone seemed like my best friend - even the money-conscious nurse. When I saw Rose the next morning, I couldn't believe it. It was like waking up from a dream and there in front of you was the thing that was in your dream.



Was going natural empowering? Yes! Would I do it again? ... hmmm.

Birth #2

I decided to have baby #2 by elective induction, so I basically had an appointment to go to the hospital and have my baby. My husband and I woke up to a 6:00 a.m. alarm, made last minute packing adjustments, and shuffled off to the car. As we drove against a slowly brightening sky, everything seemed so calm. My husband and I talked and joked.



When we settled into my hospital room, I got stuck with my IV right away. I blinked back tears, because I'm afraid of needles, but that was the most pain I felt the whole day. Then a systematic order of events followed:

- Hooked up to Pitocin: 9:00 a.m.
- Breaking of water by long crochet hook: 11:00 a.m.
- A visit from the epidural man: 12:45 p.m.

The epidural felt like someone was funneling cool water into my back. It was very comforting - like I was being embraced by the numbing arms of medicine. After that, I relaxed, watched T.V. It was boring.

When the doctor came to see me, she put on a face mask that was like a windshield for eyes. That worried me. Was it really going to be so messy? Then they told me to push. I was a bit unenthused. "What, now?" I said. I tried pushing a couple times but I felt like I was trying to move a phantom limb.

"It's like you're trying to poop. Just pretend like you are pooping," the nurse advised. I looked around at the four or five attentive faces around me and tried to imagine poop.

In between pushes, my husband held my hand loosely, make a couple of jokes, talked to the nurses and doctor. It was very different from the sweaty, white-knuckled grip he had on my hand last time. I was glad to see he was so calm about everything. He told me, "Because you're calm, I'm calm." The atmosphere in the room was so laid back, I wished that my mom and my daughter were there to witness everything.

When Simon finally made his appearance, he looked fat and covered in white cheese. I had the presence of mind to watch everything they did to him, to notice he peed in the warming bed, to take note of his loud cry, to gawk at his weird umbilical cord (it looked like a swollen telephone cord). That was the thing I appreciated most about having no pain, I had my full mind to take in everything, to remember the small details. 



But there was one thing missing. My first birthing experience was full of drama. Sure, there were parts that were like a blur, but in the end I felt euphoria. This time, everything was orderly and systematic. After it was over, I couldn't help but think it was too easy - like, "that was it? Okay."

So whether I would recommend natural or epidural remains unclear. Going natural is terrifying - and I wasn't even brave enough to choose it, it was forced upon me. But I did it and I'm proud of it. For those wanting an epidural, I can confirm it is so glorious to be numb. In the end, the birth is just one part of your experience of raising a child. The best is yet to come!

The 2nd Psycho Baby

Last month we added more crazy to the mix. This one is really talented: he can poop and eat at the same time! How I love his sweet face.





He will be blessed next month. This blessing suit is what my sister gave to me. My nephew wore this 7 years ago! Crazy that just two years ago, Rose was in her blessing dress.



Anyways, I have a lot of thoughts about the delivery and how it went down. This time I had a scheduled induction, artificially breaking of the waters, and pain medication. Also, I rode in a car to the hospital this time. A car! More on my next post: Natural v.s. Epidural. Until next time...

Potty Training: Progress and Regression

The stickers represent a successful run to the potty
and also a successful blow to my sanity. 

We've been potty training for two months now. Two months of stickers, praise, frustration, tears.

My daughter would throw me for a loop. She'd consistently go pee in her potty for days, then one day she'd act like she'd never seen the potty before. One time, she went poo in the potty three days in a row. Then the next time she needed to go poo, she held it in until it came out like a ramming rod - and just as hard. Then followed the phase of pooapocalypse - every time she needed to go poo it involved screaming, crying, loud coaching from us parents. Forget even using the potty, we just needed to get this thing out!

Even though progress has been so slow, I'm trying to be consistent and bring her to the potty (rain or shine) every couple of hours. It has been exhausting. I've learned to throw all expectations out the window. For example, I thought using public bathrooms would be really hard for my little one. On the contrary, she loves going to public bathrooms because she can explore a new space and peek under the wall at the person peeing next to her. She doesn't get creeped out by the high toilet or the dark cramped stalls. Then she goes pee like a pro. Why, then, oh why is it so hard to use the bathroom at home? It is confusing.

The thing I hate most is when I bring her to potty, she insists she has no pee pee, then five minutes later, she has a full wet diaper. I just have to remind myself she isn't trying to be spiteful.

So here we are, two months later, still working at it. But I have one gleaming hope to share:

The sign says: Zero Accidents 3/26/16

On March 26th, 2016 my daughter never wet her pants. Not once. From the crack of dawn, till the night when this was taken, she managed to funnel all her lovely liquids to the toilet! Now the next day it was not the case, but no matter, if she did it once, she can do it again! 

The Mother's Day Craft

It seemed so simple. Let your kid paint a photo matte, snap some photos of the process, and put it together for a mother's day craft. Sigh.

 

She painted for two minutes. Two minutes. "All done!" she said proudly at the hardly touched matte. "But Mommy needs to take pictures!" I replied. She held her arms out. "Wash hands?" She likes to be clean, and for once, it's a deterrent.
Then ensued an hour of me trying to get her to paint and smile. There were many tactics:
"Say Cheese!"
"Show my your teeth!"
"Tickle Tickle!"
"Do you want candy?"
"Stop eating paint!"
"Do you want to play ipad?"
"Look up! Look up when you laugh."

My next door neighbors were outside and I think they thought I was really hyper and uptight.







She tried to smile, she really did, but I think she was distracted by her dirty hands and the fact that I had an expensive toy in my hand.
Finally, at the end, I got a couple strained smiles. My face hurts when I looks at these pictures because I think I will always remember how sore my face was trying to get her to be happy. Anyway, its over!




My respect goes out to kid photographers everywhere! And to moms who want their kids to do something, anything.
Yay! Happy Mother's Day.

I am the Potty Trainer

If they made a movie called "The Potty Trainer" I would watch it. It would be high drama, full of tears and maybe blood, and in the end, we'd all feel a cathartic release - or a release of some kind.

Disclaimer: First of all, I decided to potty train my baby at 22 months because 1. Her verbal skills have rocketed up the roof and she can understand nearly everything I tell her. 2. I don't want to change diapers anymore. A lot of people wait to potty train till later, and that's fine. Some people would even say I brought this potty training stress upon myself. I bring a lot of things upon myself.

After reading a lot online about the 3-day bare-bottom potty training method, I decided to give it a go. I was all geared up with a pink princess potty that sang when you peed in it, and a booklet of Sesame Street stickers. I read "Once Upon a Potty" to my girl for the sixth or seventh time - on her insistence - and had a talking with her about no more diapers. Her eyes twinkled with wisdom and understanding, we were ready to take the plunge.

Day 1's Pee Pee Log

10:00 a.m. The diaper comes off. 

We visit the potty every 30 minutes, but in the meantime she runs around like a hippie, and I follow her around, my heart pounding. 

11:00 a.m. She pees a drop on the floor and comes to me saying: "Uh, oh! Pee pee." I whisk her off to the potty and she lets lose 1 cup. Her face lights up when she hears the potty sing, and I clap like a crazy person. She says, "again?" So far, enthusiasm is high. We get a sticker and she proudly presses it to her shirt. 

11:22 a.m. As I'm brushing my teeth, she comes and says, "Uh oh, pee pee come out!" She leads me to the wet splatter next to her play table. It's not too much, but more than a drop. I direct her to the potty where she let's lose another cup. Another sticker. We clean up her splatter together. 

11:40 a.m. She has another piddle in front of the bird cage. I lead her to the potty and she releases what's left. She is racking up the stickers. Meanwhile, I text my husband the progress and he replies, "She pees more than I do!"

12:00 p.m. She has her first real accident right on her toy train tracks. It required a big towel for that one. We go to the potty but it seems like she's really emptied out this time. It's just been two hours since I took off her diaper and I'm already exhausted from all the work we've done. I wonder where she gets all her pee from. 

1:45 p.m While playing in the tubberware drawer, she stands up and starts to cross her legs. My hawk eyes (or elven eyes) notice and we run to the potty where she releases her first big pee. I say first big pee because it gushed out and even shot out of the potty with force. I'm so happy! It seems like my troubles are behind me. 

2:50 p.m. Another big pee pee accident. Some got on the corner of the rug.

3:30 p.m. Another big pee accident. She was wearing big girl panties and playing in the sandbox outside when pee started to run down her leg. She cried out and I tried to get her to move away from the sandbox. We were too far from the potty, so we just sort of watched as the pee soaked her panties and puddled in her crocs. It was depressing. Why didn't she just tell me she needed to go?  

4:12 p.m. After eating chicken nuggets, I set her on her potty for a routine potty run. She grimaces. Suddenly poo and diarreah shoot out and cake the inside of the potty. I'm elated and disgusted. I feel the same way a pedestrian feels when a bus just misses them on the road. Rosie is interested in her brown creation. She is also getting better at washing her hands. 

4:45 p.m. I prompted her to go potty and she went pee. We are down to a routine. 

5:20 p.m. Took her to the potty again, and she went pee again. She is losing interest in the stickers, so sometimes after peeing and washing her hands, she just runs off and plays. 

I stopped the pee log at that time because my husband came home from work. He was impressed with her progress but didn't like the bare-bottomness of it all, so we went to get pull-up diapers to use in the future. Now here is the real question: Will pull-ups be a benefit or a hinderance to this process? We'll find out. But in the meantime, here is something I've learned: 

- My kid was enthusiastic at first, so the first day was critical. I fed off the newness of it. This is when she was most receptive. 

- My kid can't really tell when she needs to go. She's busy with playing, with running, with eating. So while I trained her to release her bowels when I manually bring her to the potty, I have a long way to go in training her to recognize her body signals and go to the potty beforehand. 

Here's to that long road ahead. If you don't hear from me in awhile, you can just assume something or someone has backfired.