On the eve of your third birthday

Dear Emma,

Wow, three years have just flown by. I cannot believe that tomorrow you will be three years old! So much has happened in these past three years that it is almost impossible to capture how much joy you have filled our lives with. As you have moved closer to being a three year old, there are a few personality traits that have shown up that really excite me because I am truly getting a sense of the person you are and were always meant to be. Sometimes the hardest part of being your mom (or any mom for that matter) is that I think that who you are meant to be is up to me. That is simply not the case. God designed you and has a purpose for you beyond what I could ever attribute my parenting skills to.

Here are just a few examples of what I love so much about you:
1. You are so compassionate.
This is not a word that comes to mind when you normally think about a toddler. However, as you have gotten older- and especially in these past couple weeks- I have really seen this side of you appear. This week we had preschool orientation and there was a girl who was crying. You asked me if you could go talk to her and tell her it would be ok. You walked over to her tentatively, introduced yourself and tried to talk to her. Then, yesterday at the gym there was a little boy who was crying. Without asking or even looking in my direction you simply walked over to him and stood next to him and I heard you say, "it's ok, your mom will come back". These two instances simply tugged at my heart for a couple reasons. 1.) you are going to be a big sister soon and I am so confident now that you will be the best big sister 2.) when we picked your name- Emma Grace- I thought about the meaning of the two words. Emma means "universal" and my hope for you was that you would extend grace universally, or to everyone. As your compassionate side develops I hope that you never suppress the voice in your little head that tells you to boldly walk up to someone and tell them it's going to be ok.

2. You are so funny!
You, my little weirdo, are hilarious. There have been countless moments that I have literally laughed out loud at something you have said or done. You have a quirky sense of humor that is so weird it's goofy. You know how to work a room, and once you get people laughing you can't stop. This summer one of your phrases that got everyone laughing was "you crack me up". You would just say this to grandma or grandpa and it always got a big laugh. Last week we were in the pool and you were swimming "like a pirate" and you kept saying "ayy". This is just a couple examples of your humorous imagination at work.

3. You are dramatic and sharp as a whip.
I lump these two together because they very much go hand-in-hand with you. You are able to memorize lines from TV shows or movies and then reenact not just the words but the emotion behind it. Take Frozen; when saying goodbye to either your dad or myself you will hug us dramatically and say, "see you in two weeks" in the same tone as Anna does when saying goodbye to her parents in the movie. You have also mastered the "fake cry" and turn it on when you don't get your way. Once we call you out on it though you crack a little grin. Daily, you are practicing for the stage you will inevitably be on some day. I have told your dad that we have many high school plays and musicals in our future, I'm sure of it.

4. You are strongly independent.
This is always a hard trait to like about anyone, especially a three year old. Often I find us being extremely stubborn to one another, you are one tough cookie! But this is such an important trait as a girl, I don't ever want you to feel like you need to rely on anyone to help you get where you want to be. Recently when I told someone I was having a boy and that I already had a girl they said, "I always wanted a boy first that way the older boy could protect his younger sister" and I replied, my girl is extremely independent, she'll be able to protect herself". And I truly mean that. I cannot imagine anyone protecting you as your personality is not passive by any means. This doesn't mean you shouldn't take help when offered, or ask for help when needed, but I am so happy that you were our first child. Your personality doesn't lend itself to needing anyone's protection.

So with that, I hope that you feel loved and celebrated tomorrow. You are our special girl and this is your last birthday as an only child. You have taught us so much about ourselves and being parents in these past three years. Thank you for paving the way for our awesome family.

Love you so much my pickleina!

Mom

Potty Training Thoughts

I wanted to take some time to write down my feelings about potty training because it was so much more exhausting and emotional than I thought it would be. I want to be able to look back and remember what a struggle it was to get to this place so I will have empathy for new moms and also so that I give myself a break when the time comes to potty train baby number two.

I thought I would be super mom and potty train Emma much closer to two years old, but try as I might she just didn't get it. She has had a potty chair for a while and has sat on it but never attempted to actually go. I just think she wasn't developmentally ready until recently, but that is just one of those things you don't know until you actually try. You can never really know that a child is ready until they actually go on the potty. Sure there are signs that people and doctors say to look for to determine if they are physically ready, but the emotional and intellectual readiness is just trial and error in my experience.

Last Monday I decided (through researching many many blogs, medical, and parenting websites) that I was going to go "all in" and just hope for the best. I officially stopped using diapers (although I did switch to pull-ups, more on that in a bit), bought a giant bag of M&M's, some dollar toys at target, and stickers and declared that we would begin potty training. As Brandon says "bribe early and bribe often" :). I know the jury is out on whether to reward potty training with sugar, but that's a choice I decided to make based on the knowledge of what would motivate my child. I told her that she could earn M&M's and a sticker on the calendar if she went pee on the potty, and if she got three stickers she could choose a prize from the prize box. The first few days were really, really tough for me. I get very stir-crazy if I don't get to leave the house at some point during the day, and according to all the parenting websites that talked about potty training in three days that's what we were supposed to do. The first day is supposed to be spent indoors with no diaper or anything and just putting them on the potty frequently throughout the day. Then the second and third day you can leave the house for no more than an hour, but I ended up staying in on the second day because I didn't feel comfortable bringing her out and having to deal with the mess. It's partially that I am not super patient and get easily annoyed if things don't go according to plan. So by the third day Emma had class at the library and I didn't want to miss it so I put her in a pull up to avoid having to clean any mess up. I went against the "plan" but to me it was more important to get us both out of the apartment for a bit and just stop thinking about it.

A prize (the necklace) and M&M's.

She totally peed in these pants. Time for mommy to lay down her pride and put on a pull-up.

We tried some excursions to the playground and walks in just pants or underwear and she did end up having an accident when we were at the park. So she had to go home soaking wet but I think some of that is necessary to feel what it's like and hopefully let the natural consequence teach the lesson. After going out a couple times like this totally stressed out I decided to not be so judgmental towards pull-ups and just give them a chance.

Once I decided that I would put her in pull-ups at night time, nap time, and any time I knew we would be leaving the house for a long time I think things got a lot easier for the both of us. Knowing that I could leave the house without having to deal with a pee-soaked child at some point put me more at ease, and I felt I could still ask her if she needed to go and really encouraged her to keep the pull-up dry. I bought ones with fun characters on them and told her not to pee on Minnie, Doc, Rapunzel, etc. Sort of crass I suppose, but it got the point across!  

After going pee on the potty several times (over 40 times in almost two weeks) I decided we needed to get working on going poo in the potty. From my sister-in-laws experience, I knew that I needed to be pretty aggressive when it came to getting this to happen. My nephew took a while to get the hang of this, and what ultimately motivated him was a really cool toy car that they kept at my in-laws. I figured I would use the "really cool toy" motivator for Emma early on so that she would get comfortable going poo very quickly. And boy did it work. I got her an Anna doll and Emma was so motivated to go poo on the potty. It almost was working against me because she would refuse to get off the potty because she was trying so hard to go poo, that's how bad she wanted this doll. I can't say that the doll was it or if she just was ready to do it, but either way she got the doll two days after I bought it. Today she went on the potty twice and both times were not at home (once at a friends house and once at Target).

Emma wanted the doll in front of her and was sharing M&M's. Motivation!!

I'm so proud of this girl for going after what she wants :)

Watching Frozen with her new friend.

My Top Tips for Potty Training

1. Bribe early and often- just make it easier on yourself and fun for the kid. Now is not the time to force them to do things the way you want.

2. Get them to go on potties outside the house- I am glad I took Emma to public restrooms right away. It made it so much easier than worrying about whether she could make it home in time.

3. Have them face the back of the toilet- this is a tip for when you're not at home with a potty chair. If she was some place public or at grandma and grandpa's I had her straddle the seat facing the back of the toilet. This gave more stability and she didn't have to think about going potty and also keeping herself from falling into the toilet.

4. Try to train pee and poo at the same time- I know this totally depends on the emotional readiness of the child, but in my experience it just makes sense. But I also had to bring out the big guns with a bribe to make it happen.

5. Use pull-ups or thick padded underwear (training pants)- again this is a "worked for me" thing but I know personally I was very against pull-ups because I thought it would just feel like a diaper. But since we were talking about going potty and really focused on keeping the pull-up dry it was a great fall back option for those times when you just can't make it to a potty in time. Many times she would be able to hold a little bit but couldn't totally wait.

6. Don't compare your kid to anyone else- this is really really hard because it can seem like you're not doing something right as a mom if your child isn't potty trained by a certain time. Every mom has a different motivation to get their child potty-trained and every child will react differently to the potty. For me I had to get her potty trained for preschool and also before the new baby. This was my particular catalyst for getting so into it. But you really do have to be ready to commit, for me having a "deadline" was what I needed to jump in feet first even though I didn't feel I was ready. 

7. It's OK to cry about it, just not in front of the kid- This one is a tip I will need to remind myself of with baby number two. I cried a lot of frustrated, defeated tears over the last couple weeks. But I told myself I would never cry in front of Emma and I also tried really hard not to upset her on the potty. I wanted potty training to be a fun and enjoyable learning experience for her (hence all the prizes and candy) and so I tried really hard to keep her happy any time she was on the potty.