Going, going and going some more

I am happy to report, knock on wood, that Graham has been 90% successful in potty training these past 2 weeks.  His Pull-Up has even managed to stay dry through naps and almost every night.  Of course he has been waking up super early telling me he has to go potty, but hey, I'll forfeit an extra hour of sleep if it means we are closer to being free from diapers and Pull-Ups!  So I say 90% potty trained because we are still battling going #2  :(  It can and has been done, once, but on a regular basis, not so much. 

Potty training in the Ahlers household was accomplished thanks to the ever wonderful movie, CARS.  We have a Cars potty seat, Cars stickers and matching Cars fruit snacks for successful trips to the potty, we have brand new Cars underpants, Cars Pull-Ups for at night, we even have flushable Cars wipes for the glorious occasion when going #2 actually takes place on the potty.  You would think all these wonderful Cars things would be enough to make the kid go #2, but NO SIR... Graham is not having any part of going #2 on the potty.  So instead, because he wouldn't dare poop in his Cars underwear, Graham has just stopped going, all together???  I'm guessing that's not good.  Every 3rd day now I have resorted to giving him a 1/2 TBSP of Milk of Magnesia to make him go... and then the process begins!  

Graham knows enough to tell me when he thinks he has to go #2, or "poopers" as we like to call it at our house.  So once he drinks his Milk of Magnesia, it's off to the races.  About every 10 mins or so he "thinks" he has to go, so we run to the bathroom and sit on the potty.  And we sit, and sit, and sit, and sit... NOTHING!  We sign songs, read books, tell stories, I even considered borrowing a portable DVD player just for pure lack of other entertainment ideas.  Still, nothing ever happens.  On Wednesday I counted, we sat on the potty 27 times, 27!  Still no poopers.  The process is so painstakingly time-consuming that neither of us has the patience for daily recurrences.  Eventually Graham sneaks away from me, usually when I finally give in and take a potty break for myself, and then mysteriously there is an accident in our underwear.  This of course results in crying because we have to take his favorite Mater underwear off to wash them, dram, drama, drama. 

In hopes to entice a little potty pooping, we went to Target last Thursday and bought 3 new Cars toys.  All 3 are sitting on the bathroom counter and if he goes poopers on the potty he can open one.  Still not doing it!  There is lots of talk, but no action.  Sigh... what can you do?  90% is better than nothing  :)

Snap Out of It

Have you ever been in one of those places in your life where being in a bad mood just becomes your state of being?  I feel like that is where my life is right now and I just can't seem to snap out of it.  A bunch of things... potty training, pregnancy woes, my diet and all the little stuff just came to a head last week and no matter what I do, I can't get past the "bad mood" feeling. 

The beautiful weather and spending some time in the fresh air this weekend did help, but now it's Monday and I'm back to feeling blue.  Generally speaking, I'd say I'm a rather 'unemotional' person... or at least Tim thinks so.  I'm near last to cry at a sad movie or gush over happy/ sad news.  I rarely breakdown after a bad day or a bad fight and even when I do, I seem to be super quick to snap back.  I don't seem to hold grudges and can't find it in me to stay mad for very long, so why am I so 'stuck' in this bad mood and how do I get past it?

So far the failed plans have been:

• cry it out- no luck


• take out my frustration at the gym- apparently I'm not in good enough shape for this one


• talk to Tim- eh, he tried to understand, but he just wanted to enjoy his time away from work, don't blame him


• sleep- usually a good nap/ sleeping in brings me around, but I tried both and no dice


• watching the beautiful, half-naked men build my deck- OK helped a little  :)

Apparently I am just going to have to wait it out, unless someone has a sure-fire cure to SNAP OUT OF IT.

Still on the Potty Training Attack

Yes, we are still working on potty training... working being the key word.  I certainly wouldn't say we are "trained" but at least I feel things moving back in the right direction.  If you are getting to the "potty training" stage with your little boy, here are some things I have found helpful:

1.  This is the most wonderfully helpful potty training blog I have ever read.  It's sweet and to the point, yet seems to be working wonderfully.  http://toilettraining4toddlers.blogspot.com/

2.  Go straight to "big boy" training underwear.  Gerber makes some great ones!  Pull-Ups are too confusing for toddlers, too much like a diaper and no 'consequence' for having an accident. 



3.  Elmo's Potty Time DVD!  Graham watches this at least 10 times a day and is really learning from it. 



3.  Some great potty training books to read while 'waiting' to go potty.  Here are some of our favorites:





4.  Stickers!  Make a chart or let them decorate their potty seat, but stickers are key to the training process.



5.  M&Ms!  Don't know why, but they seem to work every time.

So those would be my grand suggestions, now let's just keep our fingers crossed that we can stay "trained" for some amount of time without a relapse  :)

Potty Training Update

As it seems to go with most things in my life, just when I thought we were SOOOO close to being potty trained, Graham decided otherwise  :(   In the past 2 weeks Graham has completely regressed on the potty training front, as if he somehow knew Lent was ending or something.  Around the last week of March Graham got another "stomach bug" we'll call it forcing us to go back to using diapers for a couple of days.  Ever since then, the kid refuses to go #2 on the potty... just WON"T do it.  On Thursday we sat on the potty for literally an hour reading books and singing songs etc and the minute I gave up and put his underwear on, he pooped!  Really, give Momma a break!

I've tried stickers and candy, bribes and toys, jumping up and down, singing praising songs, I'm all out of ideas to get Graham pumped about going potty again.  And with each day I get more frustrated because I know he knows enough to tell me when he has to go, he just won't.  I'm lucky if he tells me when he has to pee or "twinkle" as he calls it.  How does this happen?  Graham went from telling me all the time, to honestly only telling me when he wants to get out of doing something else, like riding in the grocery cart, then he has to go potty or eating the rest of his lunch, then he magically has to go.  So how do I get back on the band wagon?

I thought about just giving up for a while and trying again closer to when he is 2 1/2, but I just feel like he is so close, why give up now?  So my only other thought is to try a new potty.  I was totally against buying one of the little potties that sit on the floor because let's be realistic, I have enough crap to clean up without adding another potty.  But in the hopes that Graham will like the independence of being able to "do it myself" I think  am going to break down and buy one, along with an "Elmo Goes Potty" DVD.  I know, I know... I also feel like this is a step in the wrong direction, but something's got to give because we are making no progress in the Ahlers' potty training department and Momma is getting a little sick of the ever-increasing laundry situation!  Here's to putting all my egg's in Elmo's basket... work your magic you little red furry thing!

Seriously, What Does a Girl Need to Do...

So I get it, I have Crohn's Disease, have for 11+ years now!  Which, that being said, means that on any given day, for no apparent reason at all, my stomach/ ab area is going to swell and make me look slightly pregnant.  I get that, accept it and have moved on... until recently! 

I diet and watch what I eat, I work out 5-6 days a week, 5-6 freakin' days, I'd say that's a decent work out effort wouldn't you?  But in the last 2.5 months I have been asked 6 times "if I am expecting" or "when I am due" at the gym.  Really people, 6 times?  I haven't been asked 6 times in 11 years, even when I was pregnant!  :)  And usually when I am I asked, I try to find some sort of humor in the situation and just laugh it off, but when the question sparks 10 people in the locker room to immediately glare at my stomach... it's just too awkward!  I mean what do you say?  :)

Do you try to make the person asking feel better by making up some sort of excuse, because by now they are clearly embarrassed?  But why should I do that, they are the ass who asked you in the first place.   :)  Do you just ignore the comment all together like you didn't hear it?  Do you just laugh and say no and walk away?  After pondering the issue a bit, I truly believe the appropriate response is "F-Off" or at least in this case when I had just completed bodypump and ran 2.5 miles, but even I am not that brave.  So, I am just at a loss... how do you answer that question WHEN YOU ARE NOT PREGNANT? 

And really, why would you ever, ever, ever ask someone that question in the first place?  I mean just save yourself the trouble of looking like an ass, it's just embarrassing for everyone, including the poor, innocent by-standers in the room who want to crawl into a hole just to get away from the situation.  :)  I promise you, unless you are giving birth to a child in my presence or you have personally told me that you are expecting, I will never ask you "when you are due!"  Ahh, just shake your head and laugh... that's all anyone can do!  Hope my fabulously blessed life made you smile!  :)

* I almost forgot... on an upside, Graham actually told the gym daycare lady he had to go potty AND he went!  WooHoo, at least the trip wasn't a total loss!

No Dice...

So last weekend was an all together failure in many departments for me...

First, our Dr. did not agree that we should start any type of fertility drugs without going through the whole series of tests to make sure there is not an actual problem first.  Normally I would be on her side, but since we went through these same tests 3 years ago, and found nothing, I'm not really all that jacked up to do them again.  Some are super painful, some are really expensive and some are just annoying.  My opinion this time around is try the drugs, if we still aren't pregnant then clearly there is a bigger issue and we need to do some more exploring in my lady business.  But why beat me up for 2 months?  Anyway, my lack of a medical degree came into play and even after begging and some tears, I settled for a gauntlet of tests, the first of which is on Wednesday.  I will be having my second HSG, which if you've had one, you know feels very similar to having a giant needle stuck through both your ovaries.  Apparently it's really just a small tube with some dye in it so x-rays can be taken, but I would like to see the actual apparatus this time, b/c I'm fairly certain it must look more like a giant needle!  Then in two weeks I have to go in for a series of blood tests and the whole nine yards.  We shall see from there what other tortures they can come up with.  So now I am praying even harder to get pregnant just so they'll stop beating up my girlie parts!

Second, Graham came down with some terrible diarrhea this past weekend and pretty much shot our whole potty training progress to hell.  He had gone 2, almost 3 days without an accident when this started and it all just went out the window.  We had to revert back to Pull-Ups out of sheer lack of underwear and the fact that we were at Tim's Aunt's house... not really cool to have your kid pooping on everything at the relatives!  So we are finally over our bug, but the potty training is slow going again today.  Lots of accidents and not wanting to go, ugg! 

And third, due to all this lovely disappointment, my diet was totally sabotaged over the weekend.  We were traveling and I was already upset and I just gave in  :(  It's not like I gained 10 lbs overnight, but it was more that I totally lost my will-power.  I suppose, as with almost everything in life, there are going to be setbacks, but this weekend was a giant step in the wrong direction in oh so many ways.  But today started a new week and tomorrow will be a new day, so I guess I'm just going to take each thing one day at a time!

Unbelievably Impressed

I will admit, I was a bit nervous, or skeptical even, when I decided to push forward with potty training and go straight to "big boy" underwear, but to my surprise the whole process has gone great... for the first week at least.  Of course Graham is not perfect and potty training doesn't happen over night, so we still have accidents and are working on the complete concept of going "poopers" IN the potty, but over all I have been delightfully surprised by how well Graham is actually taking all of this change. 

Maybe I set my expectations really low in hopes not to disappoint myself right off the bat, but I imagined load after load of laundry and tons of accidents in public and that has just not been the case.  I'd even dare to say that Graham does better in public than at home.  He made it through a restaurant dinner, and hour and a half at the gym yesterday and today through 2.5 hours at MOPS all without an accident.  I'd say that's pretty impressive for the first week, OK I'd even stretch to say it might be a small victory, for me anyway. 

Now back to reality... I am still trying to keep a level head about this because I realize that the "newness" of wearing big boy underwear will soon wear off and it will no longer be fun to read the potty book 8 million times, but I am still hoping for the best!  Setting realistic expectations, remembering my patients and above all reward, reward, reward, those are the goals, I'm just keeping my fingers crossed it works!

"Do the Potty Dance"

We have started potty training, again, this week due to Graham's sudden interest Monday morning.  I was prepared, I got new snacks and stickers and the whole nine yards, but this time none of those 'rewards' seem to be working.  Nope, all Graham wants is for mommy to do the "Potty Dance!"  Just to further prove that kids absolutely never forget anything...

One day when we were trying potty training the first time I got so excited that Graham actually went on the potty that I did this little song and dance number.  Now every time we sit on the potty Graham refuses to go unless I dance.  Now this is fine at home, but I feel like a huge boob doing this in public restrooms.  Not quite sure how we are going to get around this one, but the good news is that he is going on the potty.... that's what I wanted right?