Toddlers are funny kids. Elizabeth was ALL about filming this interview video with me. She practically dropped everything she was doing and ran to get in front of the camera…
The rest? She barely stayed for 30 seconds once we hit “record”. HA!
If nothing else, this is a true reflection of what it’s like to have Elizabeth around – running around, saying “no” to everything, but clearly likes her image in the camera view screen.
Hope it makes you chuckle as much as it made me!
If you missed her first interview at 2 years old, watch it here!
We officially began potty training our daughter at 2.5 years old. We are now 2 months into it and I’m so pleased that where we are! It was not easy at first, but each day that goes by accident-free feels like a parenting victory!
When I first mentioned we started down the ol’ potty training road, I got a ton of questions, and thankfully even more advice and encouragement! So now that we’re on the other side and feeling good, I thought it was time to share some of our potty training tools that we actually used.
Before I share what potty training tools we actually for our daughter, a few things that MUST be said on the topic.
First, just because these potty training tools worked for us and our situation may not mean it works for your child. I don’t say that lightly. Each kid is SO different and each situation/method for potty training can vary. So just because our daughter did well with potty seats vs. small floor potties doesn’t mean the floor potty is a pass for you!
Second, I read virtually NOTHING in preparation for potty training. I asked a lot of friends who had been there and were either successful or had decided to stop and try again later. Both groups of friends offered great advice and reinforced my first point – that every child is different! If you find yourself feeling overwhelmed that potty training is such a struggle, there is no shame in stopping and trying again later. That’s ok! You’re potty trained, right?
Back to our daughter… it was definitely a trial-and-error to figure out what worked for her and what potty training tools she preferred. Thankfully, I just bought things as we went and we didn’t overdo it on potty training items. Here’s what we actually use and works for us!
Baby Bjorn Smart Potty – There are a ton of training potties that sit on the floor. I just picked a highly rated one off Amazon (love that!) and went with it. It was great to have in the first few weeks of practice! She could easily run over to it, sit and use it. After a while, though, she preferred sitting on the actual toilet and abandoned the “little potty”. But we still use this for car trips or outings to parks. It’s very easy to empty it out and clean. It’s also small and easy to store when we aren’t using it. One note – It wouldn’t be the best potty for larger kids. My small girl fit just fine, but it may be too small for larger children.
Potty Seat – We first used the Baby Bjorn Toilet Trainer. It has a way to latch onto the toilet seat and not budge. It unfortunately didn’t really fit on our longer oval toilets, but it stays put regardless if it’s not “latched”. It’s very easy to wipe down and stops errant leaks and splashes. Once Elizabeth was all about sitting on the “big potty” I opted to get a second potty seat, one for each bathroom. I bought the Munchkin Sturdy Potty Seat for kicks, to see what I thought. I like this one more than the Baby Bjorn! The handles are great and it really sits on the toilet seat well, no slipping and sliding around. It also stands up with not in use. My daughter now knows how to put it on the toilet, and then take it off when she’s all finished. It also has an opening for you to hang it up if you’d like.
Dreambaby Step Stool – A stool is a stool…. honestly it’s all about what works for your toilet and sink height. I ended up buying this one because it holds a lot of weight, so I figured post-potty training we could use it around the house as well for various needs.
Gerber Training Pants – I’m so grateful a friend mentioned these! If you’re trying to go cold turkey on diapers and pull ups, these are perfect! They are cotton undies with a small cotton absorbent lining. It doesn’t stop all the leaks, but it has just enough absorption that an accident isn’t a complete disaster. Plus, it’s all cotton, so it has the feel of plain undies for your child. And they’ll still have the “I’m wet!” sensation when there is an accident. Did I mention they’re super cost effective and machine washable?? I bought 2 packs of these and they’ve been worth it.
Pull Ups – I did buy a small pack of pull ups right from the beginning, and we’re still working through that pack. We’ve used these for road trips and to keep in our daughter’s school back pack in case of accidents. They are handy! But mercy, expensive. They don’t fit our skinny kiddo very well, so I don’t trust them for long periods of time, but they’re great in a pinch. I’ll definitely keep them on hand and a few in the car at all times.
Here’s what we didn’t used: Potty Training books, bribes or even pull ups ALL the time. Nothing wrong with any of these! They just didn’t really work for our kid. I thought she’d be all about candy bribes, but it wasn’t all that cool to her. TV was her motivator that first week! I ended up getting her in to the habit of sitting on the potty by telling her “You can watch one Daniel Tiger! But first you need to sit on the potty”. That was a winner!
Again, potty training is all trial-and-error. If you’re about to start this journey, I’m standing with you in solidarity! I was totally intimidated by the whole idea of potty training, and resisted starting it for months! But once we got over the initial week or 2, we seemed to hit a rhythm. But if we weren’t improving a little bit, I was fine killing the whole process and revisiting later. Just try it! Be flexible! And yes, it’s hard, but they will eventually figure it out before college!
I did vlog our first week of potty training to show what it’s really like. It wasn’t all roses and rainbows and figuring it out in 24 hours. So if you’re feeling discouraged over it all, watch this, and know that it will all work out!
Have you tackled potty training yet? What worked for you?
Some nights you just don’t feel like cooking what you have planned on your menu. Those are nights where I have a hard time resisting the siren’s call to go out to eat. We really shouldn’t go out to eat, and let’s face it, going out to eat with kids becomes harder than just staying home. To keep me from falling to temptation, I like to keep on hand ingredients for quick and easy meals!
For this month’s meal round up post with Come Home for Comfort and Polka-dotty Place, we decided to share our go-to favorite quick meals for busy nights. Be sure to check out their posts too for some great ideas! I’d also love to hear your go-to quick meals, so I can be inspired!
Here are some of our family’s favorites, all vegetarian, with a few recipe links included!
Welcome to High Five for Friday – hosted by me, Tif, and Della! If you want to know more, read about it here!
This week’s featured blogger is Jessica from Sweet Little Ones! She is just the sweetest wife and mom around. Her blog focuses on the daily life, but she’s also passionate about educating people about the adoption process. Just couldn’t ask for a more uplifting, fun blog! She also has an amazing Etsy shop with such cute printables, but she can also do custom graphic design work for bloggers! But seriously, aren’t her prints awesome? If you’re designing a gallery wall, they would be perfect! If you see anything you like, Jessica is offering a 20% off code just for us H54F’ers! Use the code HighFive20 between now and next Friday, May 27. Head over now!
And now on to what we’ve been up to this week! (Spoiler alert – no baby)
1. I feel bad that the last post you got from me was LAST Friday’s H54F. I had all sorts of grand plans to catch up on blogging, but then I keep dozing off at about 2:30 every afternoon… At this rate the “what’s in my hospital bag” post/video will be a “what I actually used at the hospital” post. Ugh.
2. Yesterday Elizabeth had her last day of school for the year. Where has the time gone??? I meant to snap a picture of her, but she was surly when we got home, so I prioritized a nap over pictures of her scowling. But this was her when school started last September!
3. Speaking of Elizabeth, we also decided this week to film a “Meet Elizabeth” video (if you missed the last one, watch it here). I had such a willing participant at 2 years old. And this time? At 2.5 years old? Not so willing….. I need to edit it up if nothing else for a laugh! She participated for about 2 of the 11 minutes of filming. HAHA!
4. In anticipation of going in to labor at SOME point, I decided I needed to slap some polish on my fingers and toes. The fingernails? Easy! The toenails…. impossible. The pretzel-like position I had to maneuver into in order to get sort of kind of close enough to touch the brush to the nail was downright painful. So I’m determined, if I make it to next week, I’m popping in for a pedicure somewhere. Anywhere!
5. Anyone buy something from LulaRoe? What’s your favorite piece??? I’ve got the bug to buy something from them, because it just looks plain comfy! But I hate that I can’t see anything in person without a party of some sort… so soliciting feedback! You can tell I’m itching to not be pregnant anymore. I’m constantly day dreaming of things to buy. I already bought a few items from my post-pregnancy wish list, and I’m itching for a few more.
Welcome to High Five for Friday – hosted by me, Tif, and Della! If you want to know more, read about it here!
This week’s featured blogger is Keri from Living in this Season! I’ve been reading her awesome blog for a few years now. If you’re looking for encouragement and uplifting posts about living life to its fullest as a mom and woman, then her blog is for you! This post about finding community is such a great one! She is such a sweet spirit. And that conference I went to a month or so ago?? Yeah, totally met Keri there too! Whitney and I randomly picked a seat RIGHT behind her! Such fun. Go over and say hello!
It didn’t seem like we were up to much this week other than the usual… but there were a few highlights!
1. Mother’s Day was a fun day! I basically just didn’t want to cook a meal, so we hit up all my favs. We had breakfast at our favorite diner first. Elizabeth may love that place more than me!! And then we headed to Hillsborough for a walk on their Riverwalk path, which conveniently ends at an awesome playground! We played there (and by we, I mean my husband and Elizabeth… I sat in the shade!) for about an hour and then walked the half mile back along the river. There is also a REALLY cool stick house along the path. How to describe it…….. it’s a large castle/house thing made entirely of woven sticks! It’s really awesome! Elizabeth loves that, zooming in and out of all the little doors and peeking through the windows. Perfect morning! Our evening was really just watching fun movies with Elizabeth. A fun, relaxing day!
2. Remember last week when I mentioned the concert we went to? Funny story! While finding the concert, we drove past a pizza place called Tito’s Pizza. BUT someone really clever designed the logo to that the O in Tito was a pic of a pizza. So it then looked like it had a….. really strange name. I wish I had snapped a pic! But thankfully, Google provides.
3. This week I noticed that this baby boy dropped down considerably… so I decided it was my sign to start finishing up what I needed to finish up in preparations. It was a productive week! Not productive on the blog, but productive at home. I even ran to our local consignment shop and scored a TON of PJs (which is what he’ll basically live in the first few months of his life… who needs an outfit when you’re tiny and pooping constantly?). I rambled on all about the feels right now with this pregnancy yesterday if you missed it.
4. Along those same lines…. in my shopping yesterday, I quickly realized that buying clothes for a boy is SO much harder than buying girl clothes. The selection is so horrible! Unless you want a baby boy dressed in nothing but sports related clothing… where do you boy moms buy your boy clothes????
5. And HEAR YE! HEAR YE! Yesterday I did something that has probably NEVER been attempted in the history of mankind. I went to Target and stuck to ONLY my shopping list! No extra doodads from the Dollar Spot! No random nail polishes! No “hey it’s all on sale!” stock ups. I’m so impressed with myself! My key takeaway from it was this – always shop at Target when you’re in a time crunch. Don’t go when you’ve got time to kill….
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