Leaving Her Mark

I have been struggling with something with Amelia for the last month or two that I have not been blogging about because it is about bowel movements and I wasn't sure if y'all wanted to know or read about this. I am going to try to keep it as clean as possible (har, har), but thought it was important to document --- so if you are easily grossed out, quit reading now.

For the last month or so Amelia has been sticking her hands down the back of her pull up and getting it on her hands and smearing it on the walls. At first, it was just at nap time when she was in her room and we were not around to observe her, but now she is doing it during the day time, too and it is nearly every time she does #2. She likes to stand behind the couch and do her thing and then wipe it on the windows in the family room. When we were in Mobile for Thanksgiving it really seemed to escalate. She went down the hallway at Mom's house and wiped it on the hallway walls, she did it on the sliding glass door at the beach condo, and the worst -- on Grammy's brand new couch.

It is normal. Some kids go through a phase. She needs a lot of textural input. She loves play dough and wants to play with her food and squish it in her fingers. My theory is that she likes that supply of free play dough she can often find in her pull up.

I had been telling her that poop was yucky and was trying to teach her to tell me when she had to go, but it wasn't really working. Some people gave me some tips and the last couple weeks, I have been really trying to be consistent. If she does poop, I tell her "Poo poo goes in the potty." I take her to the bathroom, take off her pull up and dump the poop in the toilet and say poop goes in the potty and then I make her sit on the potty. Then I make her flush it and watch it go down. I ordered the potty book and she thinks it is funny the way I read it and she likes listening to it. My plan was to read it to her every day, but we haven't followed through. She has begun to use the words potty and poo poo. She repeats me mostly, but I know she can say them and that is an important step.

Tonight we had a breakthrough. I noticed she was straining to poop in her pull up. She is usually very upset with me when I suggest going to the bathroom when she is trying to do it, but this time I was firm with her and told her "Poo poo goes in the potty. Let's try to do it in the potty." She took my hand and I led her there. We are trying to work on her pulling down her own pants, but speed was of the essence and I did it for her. I put her on the big potty and placed a step stool under her feet. She held on to the side and leaned forward while she pushed her feet against the stool. It wasn't even a minute and she had done her business and I whooped and hollered and hugged her and high fived her and yelled for Todd and he came in clapped for her. She had the biggest smile on her face and was so, so pleased with herself.

Now she has proven she can do it. Now she knows what we expect of her. Now she knows it is a big deal and super awesome. Hopefully my days of scrubbing poop off of walls is over and this is the beginning of some serious strides in potty training.