Friday Morning, December 2:
With zero previous success or even effort, Anna sat down on her little potty, filled it up, received her promised reward, a purple pull-up, and never looked back.
By the end of the day, she repeated the act about eighty times, insisted on doing every step by herself, graduated herself to the big potty, and began requesting "privacy." This is classic Anna. It's easy to underestimate her from surface observations, only to then realize that she is tracking, remembering, even making a plan which she will enact in her own time. I'll hear her singing a song I didn't even know she knew, or watch her acting out something with her babies that shows how she was paying attention earlier. Anyway, all that to say, I was pretty shocked when the went and potty trained herself--but I shouldn't have been.
In the days following, as the novelty began to wear off, she began regress, so we decided to pull out the undies, pitch the diapers and go cold-turkey like we did with Peter. Here we are sitting around in the prize new purple undies.
And here we are at the library a couple days later I think, once I was feeling pretty good about her continence again.
When the first object doesn't quite get you up to the forbidden dresser top, dump out a basket.
The stump at which we must stop every Sunday walking to the car.
Flexing; too bad you can't see all her muscles under her coat.
Getting the wiggles out on a winter day.
So this happened one day when I was working on dinner. The kids were playing so nicely together, and occupying themselves in Peter's room while I cooked dinner. I just thought maybe I should go up and check on things...
Yep. 7 empty drawers. 2 guilty fiends. One unhappy mama.
I confess it took me a little while to get over it. Even with sweet sheepish smiles
And this little one pleased as punch to be running around in her big brother's clothes.
--
New story. December was a month of milestones, all of which crept up and sprung before I was ready. Potty training, Peter nap-dropping (mostly), and then this--we decided to give this one her freedom, and turned her crib into a big girl bed.
Her she is deciding where each friend should sleep
The "tickle balls"
...is what Anna termed these purple and blue (respectively) rubbery stretchy ball things that Tom brought home from some promotion at work. (Peter's is pictured her because now at the time of print, Anna's (spoiler alert) is no more. They were the favorite toy. Especially Anna looooved her tickle ball. She wanted to bring it everywhere, sleep with it, bathed with it, squeeeeeeze it. Eventually, it lost its bubble. Then, the top circular plug thing came out. Anna quickly figured out that she could turn it inside out, then having the look and texture of a water balloon. It didn't take long until she began to wear it. A perfectly fitting, gel-sole, non-skid, purple slipper. And wear it she did, until the end. Not one inch of that purple jelly material was wasted.
Here's my bud bringing in the trash can.
My little arteest.
Taking a brief break from purple.
And this was from our new game where we pick a place, talk about it, and then fly there in Peter's little green foam airplane. Sometimes we make it all the way to Chennai; sometimes we nosedive in the carpet Sahara.
