Another first

So yesterday there we were in the front room just goofing around. I was sitting on the floor while Emma was wiggling around, singing I think. Then she put her head to the ground like an ostrich, which is something she has been doing for a long time. Sometimes she tries to flip over herself, but a lot of the time I flip her over herself. It's fun. But anyway, she was doing a great version of downward dog (a yoga pose) and then over she went. Aside from the fact that her foot hit the piano bench it was a success! It was perfect somersault form! I think she was so shocked that she did it that she didn't do it again. In fact she was purposefully ignoring my encore requests.

Potty Time, excellent

Emma's world..... I have been pretty easy going with the whole potty thing. Emma has been even more so. Sometimes she asks to sit on the potty (her own, plastic version). Sometimes that lasts for 40 minutes. Sometimes it lasts for 2 minutes. All of the time it has led to nothing ending up in the potty. Twice she sat for a little bit (okay, one of those times was for 45 minutes) and then ran away only to pee on the carpet or in her pants. I think I need to elaborate...

A few weeks ago now Emma asked me in the afternoon to sit on the potty. So we took off her pants and diaper and down she sat. I had to sit in the room with her of course, reading her stories. She was so content on sitting there that once boredom settled in I ran the water, used the big potty (sorry), stuck her hands in warm water, gave her a full sippy cup and encouraged long drinks. Nothing worked! I was hoping that she would at least tinkle a tiny bit since she was there for so long. Around the 40 minute mark she began trying to put her pants on, which is something she had been trying to do by herself. It took a lot of tries but she finally got both legs through separate pant legs. (Although it would have been funny to watch her try to walk with both legs crammed into one pant leg, I didn't want the potty experience to scar her or anything. This needs to be fun!) As soon as she managed that feat, she stood up, yanked up her pants and ran away. (It is so much easier to pull pants up over a diaper-less bottom!) I new that she was going to pee now that she was not on the potty. So I tried bargaining with her. "If you are on the carpet area I am going to put your diaper on you." It only took a couple of times before the gleamy-eyed girl made a beeline for the basket of clean diapers on the hardwood floor. She was digging in the basket doing who knows what. I grabbed the camera to document the first successful pants-on-by-herself image. Click. First picture taken. Then right before I could snap number 2, she got a weird look on her face and looked down. Sure enough, there were dark spots spreading on her pant legs. She proceeded to try to climb in the clean diapers, but I wouldn't let her. So we had a nice chat about peeing on the floor and all of that. I hope I was as calm as I felt. Although she did cry because she wanted to sit with the clean diapers.

The second incident happened with Aunt Susan. Emma said she wanted to go to the potty so Aunt Susan made that happen. Emma only sat for a couple of minutes before she took of running to the front room. Aunt Susan caught up with her to put a clean diaper on and then came to tell me the story. I told her what had happened about a week before and then went to the front room to check for wet spots on the carpet. Sure enough, there was a wet spot right in front of the couch! Silly little Emma!

The doc says that it is perfectly normal to go through this stage of peeing outside of the diaper but not in the potty. If it were summer I would really consider letting Emma go around all nakey so she could practice. Oh well. She's the boss when it comes to potty time!

So on Monday, November 2, 2009, Emma took it to the next level. She said she wanted to sit on the potty so we stripped her down and began reading. Just then the phone rang. It was Aunt Susan calling from campus to see if we needed anything else for the cookies we were going to make for Aunt KA. That required a trip to the cookbook in the kitchen to find out. Emma was in the bathroom all alone. I heard the potty bang against the door so I hoped she was okay and listened for tears or sobs but all was quiet (from my spot in the kitchen). A couple minutes later I went back into the bathroom to find Emma standing next to her potty with a very odd expression on her face. Then she stammered out, "Emma peed in potty." I looked down and said, "You did?" It was hard to tell so I wiggled the potty and sure enough there was some liquid in there! "Emma peed in the potty!" we both cried out. I gave her a huge hug, probably a high-five, lots of kisses and more hugs. I wished that I had a little treat to give her. Then I realized that the weird expression had been partly fear so I asked if it scared her and she said yeah. So I said that sometimes the first time is but it takes practice. OR something like that. Then more hugs and kisses! "I am so proud of you!" (They say that you are supposed to be conservative with the potty praise but I couldn't help myself!) Emma helped me dump it into the big potty, and then we washed her hands. Later in the day she would randomly say with a big old grin on her face, "Emma peed in potty."