Molly has seen plenty of movies at home, but today she saw her first one in a movie theater. While visiting Corpus Christi for Thanksgiving, in a breakthrough in the saga of Molly’s toilet training, Molly finally managed to poo in the toilet! We had promised her we would take her to a movie if she did that. So she got to see Frozen, her first theater movie.
molly
Two Steps Up, One Step Back
Molly’s toilet training has been a bit of a saga. Molly first successfully peed in the toilet almost a year ago. And two months ago, we finally got rid of Molly’s diapers for good. So that’s the end of the story, right? Well, I am writing about this now, so… no.
Actually, the transition to underwear went pretty well at first. Molly has been peeing in the toilet pretty consistently for two months now. She also spent the first diaper-less week or two putting her poo in the toilet. Then she decided that she would rather poo in her pants. Every time. She wouldn’t even try the toilet any more. She would often poo in her pants while standing in the living room five feet away from you without a word. She pooed at the table Jason’s deli after swimming. That one was the worst since we didn’t have anything to clean up with; just a long, messy trip to the men’s room. She comes home from school with poo-stained underwear in a little plastic bag.
When queried as to why she does not want to use the toilet for poo, Molly usually replies, “I dunno.” We eventually got out of her that she felt more comfortable standing up. To her credit, Molly tries to clean up after herself. Sometimes we’ll find her in the bathroom trying to empty her underwear into the toilet and wipe down any mess.
This situation has lead to some vacillating about what to do. Does Molly need an incentive to poo in the toilet? Or would an incentive make things worse? Or can we do anything at all? In the end, we did promise her some treats, etc. if she poked in the toilet, but so far to no avail.
So here we are. After a year, Molly is potty trained… kind of.
Wii Night
We recently rediscovered the Wii. Yes, welcome to 2007!
Anyways, the girls are old enough to enjoy playing the Wii now, and we occasionally let them go nuts with it. This normally happens on a non-bath night when we sometimes have a little time in our hands (what!?!?) after dinner, thanks in large part to Molly’s new school being so convenient.
The girls love Wii Sports Resort and its games such as dog frisbee, kayaking, bicycling, and Claire’s favorite: plastic sword fighting. Claire and I have both stated emphatically that we want to live on the fabulous Wii Sports Resort island. Molly, for her part, loves going crazy with the Wiimote and nunchuk. She likes the biking since you basically just wave the controls up and down as fast as you can.
But if you do turn the girls loose on the Wii, be prepared to have some worked up, possibly over-excited girls for bed time. Still, everyone has so much fun, it’s worth it.
Huh?
Molly says that when someone puts their mouth in a circle, it means “Huh?”. She pointed this out in a couple of pictures from her books, with a someone wearing a small circle for their mouth and looking a little confused.
Actually, “Huh?” may be Molly’s favorite new word. She says it pretty often, and in such a funny way, always with a playful element of surprise and a high pitch at the end. She’ll get in her car seat and seconds hold up a coloring book and say “Huh?” , as in “I didn’t know that’s where this was!” Or put her shoes on backwards and say “Huh?” Last night Molly stuck her head in the laundry hamper and said “Huh?”. It’s not clear what that was about.
Anyways, I wish I could capture it on video, but it’s much to quick to get. This photo will have to suffice. Huh?
Halloween 2013
A few pictures from this year’s Halloween. We did trick-or-treating around the neighborhood for a while, then I took Claire to meet up with her friend in her nearby neighborhood while Kit finished up with Molly near our house.
This is awkward
Molly Art #3
And here is Molly’s art and other creations from the last several months.
Off to London
Kit and I both turned 40 in the last year, and it was our 15th wedding anniversary. So we decided to celebrate with a week trip together. Grammy kindly and bravely agreed to watch the kids wile Kit and I ran off to some corner of the world for a week.
Kit and I decided to make the most of this unique opportunity to go pretty much wherever we wanted. We decided early on to go international. California, New York, Florida, etc. all sounded great. But they also sounded like something we could do with the kids. After some vacilating about where exactly to go, we picked London, beating out Venice and maybe a Caribbean beach resort as the other final contenders.
It was a great trip. Some details and tons of pictures can be found on a separate post in the new non-kids section.
Back on the home front, Grammy and the girls held up very well while we were gone. They survived some flooding and the school carnival in Austin. We got a text message from the girls every day. Claire, in her messages, always wanted to make sure we were having a good time. Molly, who apparently thought we were in “Lindon”, went so far as to say, “I hope you come back.” (TODO: attach the messages.) Grandaddy stayed on the weekends to help out too, especially with the crazy school carnival.
As fun as our trip was, it was really great to see the girls again. Man, those girls are ridiculously cute and cuddly when you have not seen them in a while. They greeted us with a big “Welcome home!” sign, plus a happy birthday sign and homemade cake for my birthday. And there were lots of hugs. The girls got a treat too. They really liked the souvenirs we brought home from the British Museum: a glittery Union Jack notebook with matching pen, some “London landmarks” school supplies, some British chocolate coins, plus some leftover real coins.
It would be really fun to take the girls to England one day, but we’ll have to wait a few years to handle the long, cramped flight, the tedious lines at customs, and the jet lag. That would not have been fun for anyone right now. Hopefully we’ll get them to Florida or California one of these days, though.
Many thanks to Grammy for taking great care of the kids for us while we explored the world a bit.
The Last Diaper
Molly is down to her last diaper. Once this diaper is gone, she will only have the toilet (or her pants) available for her urine and BMs.
It has been a long and winding road getting this point, but Molly is finally pretty much using the potty now, and we do not feel the need to pay Target for any more diapers.
I have not written a whole lot about the long saga of Molly potty training because, frankly, it has been a confusing topic devoid of concrete milestones. There have been false starts, regressions, and slow progress that you don’t even notice until later. There was some traction way back in January and February. But progress has been fuzzy since then, and nothing could really be pinned down to a single event or milestone. Until now. The picture to your right is Molly’s very last diaper. Molly understands this and is even excited about it, at least for now.
Now it’s off to London with Kit while Grammy deals with the consequences for the next week on our behest. What timing! 😉
McG Kids 