Oh Erin!

"You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance."

Ella started calling me Erin yesterday. "Erin, come play kitchen", "Erin, help Ella go poopies, but no look","Erin go swimming with Ella, now". Um, you're not quite yet two little lady, lets stick with mommy for a while. It was amusing, but I couldn't let her know that.

I think we're starting to enter what they call the "terrible two's". She really has been great with the whole transition from no siblings to two. She only gets a little wild when there isn't anyone to focus on her. She's well aware of this when its happening, when Martin and I are both feeding a baby or otherwise both occupied. She colored on the wall once. She occasionally puts one of her people in the toilet. She takes her clothes off. But the biggest thing that shes into when no one is paying her any attention is wanting to go on the big girl potty. She knows we're busy, and I think she recognizes that when she goes on the big girl potty that mom and dad are giving her undivided attention.

I hadn't really started potty training, but around Christmas time (18mo.) I bought a little potty topper for our toilet. She was curious about it but didn't get the concept....until about 12wks ago. She essentially started to potty train herself, and I wasn't gonna stop her, even though the timing was sub-optimal. She would tell us that she has to go on the big girl potty, sit there for a few minutes, pee, then ask for a cookie. (Hey, if its gonna be this easy that works for me!). I'd say she does that 2-3 times a day. We bought her some pull-ups with princesses on them which she adores, but is only allowed to put on after she uses the toilet. I haven't quite had time to ask her every hour if she has to go or anything like that, but when she says she has to go we drop everything and run to the bathroom.

Then things changed a little. She will still occasionally tell us that she has to go when we're playing with her, but when we are both occupied, or when she is going to bed but doesn't want to, she pulls the potty card. Trying to give her the opportunity to use the potty as much as possible, we drop everything and run to the bathroom. All clothes must come off. She gets up on the potty, and then wants us to leave the room. Then she hops off the toilet and goes streaking. Once caught, we try to re-diaper her, and she screams and cries saying that she has to go potty, that she wants to wear big girl underwear (pull-ups) and insists on going back into the bathroom. So back we go, back up onto the potty, parents out of the room ... and we have a streaker again. And on and on it goes, ending in an inevitably frustrated parent and a screaming and crying little lady.

I think she knows and likes the individual attention that she gets when she does go potty and shes just trying to get that by pretending that she has to go even when she doesn't. I don't blame her, but we're on to you. I'm not in any real rush to get her potty trained. Thats just something else that I'll have to worry about when we leave the house, a change of clothes for her too incase of accidents. It will happen in time. I am proud of her though for getting as far as she has with absolutely no encouragement or support from her parents :)

She did something else amusing the other day. Last year we had a young kid named Brian who mowed our grass. He did a fine job and we paid him when he was finished each week. This spring, a new young boy knocked on the door and asked if he could mow our grass. Martin, being the business man that he is, worked out a deal with Cam (his name is Cameron but Martin calls him Cam) and basically went with the theory that the early bird catches the worm! Well, a few weeks late Brian knocks on the door, asking if he can mow our grass again this year. Nothing against you Brian but Cam got here first. But I didn't have the heart to tell him that so I just said that we weren't going to need him this year. Well my shadow standing next to me started to yell Cam, Cam mow grass, Cam! Luckily I don't think Brian knew what she was talking about. I was amused.

There are days when Ella drives me up a wall, but there are other days when you see her innocence and just how sweet she is - giving her sleeping sister a little kiss on the head when she thinks no one is looking, throwing out a random "love you" to me or one of her people, sitting and playing by herself just singing away - and I wouldn't trade her for the world!