Big girl panties!!!

Well, we have officially put away diapers and are in big girl panties. I decided this week was the week. Hana has been ready for a long time but I didn't have the time and we were traveling too much. We finally have time.

Hana has technically been potty training for 19 months! Yes, that is correct, 19! However, it has been an awesome experience. When Hana was very young I heard about infant potty training. I was fascinated and decided to try it. Hana caught on very quickly. She always pooped just after eating and I knew basically when she was going to pee most of the time too, so I started taking her to the potty or holding her over a bowl, and she would do it! I started using specific words when she did her thing and before long I could tell her what to do and she often would. By about 7 months it was not uncommon to go through a whole day without her ever wetting or dirtying a single diaper. However, when she started crawling she stopped being so predictable and didn't want to go sit on the potty, and we regressed a little. She has almost always poopied in the potty since the beginning but teetee has been off and on from this point.

Several months back I tried big girl panties but it didn't work, we had lots of messes and a very cranky mommy and baby! So I sort of continued to take her to potty when I could and just let her wear diapers. I began to wonder if I couldn't accomplish potty training IN diapers, but over the last month have realized she just KNOWS she can choose to go in her diaper. After meals she is happy to go the potty and even asks to be taken but any other time she prefers her diaper and gets mad if forced to sit on the potty.

So I decided the only way to get over that is to take away the diapers, and that we did. Yesterday was her first full day in big girl panties. She had one small accident in the morning and the rest of the day was perfect. Today so far has been perfect! She is even dry in the morning also. She fusses sometimes when I make her go if it is not after a meal (when she is happy to go), asking her if she WANTS to go ALWAYS gets a "no". So I just make her go and sit there when it has been two hours or more she last went. It is so funny, she will be crying and I tell her she has to put teetee in the potty or she can't get down. She then teetees as she is crying and then says "yea, teetee" while still crying! But what an obedient child! I have no idea why she doesn't want to go if it isn't after a meal, but the fussing is getting less intense with each visit.

I was thinking we would have to wear diapers when going out and at night, but so far it looks good. She went out for two little outings yesterday and did fine without a diaper, and the last two mornings she has woken up dry. She hates when I make her go first thing in the morning but she'll get used to it, she fussed less about it this morning than she did yesterday and the day before. So we may not even need diapers at night. I'm going to give her a few more days to be sure she is consistently still dry every morning.

The only baby thing left about my baby is she still sucks her thumb. Otherwise, she is feeding herself, talking like crazy, sleeping in an open bed, and now out of diapers. My baby isn't a baby anymore, she's a little girl!!!

Two year old mischief...

(This happened on Aug. 21st, the day before Hana turned two)

Mommy keeps talking about this special day tomorrow where we are having something called a party and I am turning two. I don't know what it is all about really but I know one thing for sure, she is making something interesting in the oven and it is shaped like Pooh, and smells good! I helped her mix up some gunk to put in this pan shaped like Pooh and now it is sitting on the table after coming out of the oven. Mommy seems so excited about it but won't let me touch it though, and I sure want to know what that is. She's cutting out something and covering it with paper and putting Pooh on top of that. I wonder what that is for. OH, wait a minute, the washer just quite and Mommy went to get the laundry... hmmmm I wonder if she going to disappear upstairs for a while with the laundry like she always does. I'm not supposed to touch anything on the table up there, but Pooh is sitting there, and I could get a closer look while she isn't around. Here she comes with that basket full of clothes...

Hana, Mommy is going up stairs to hang out laundry to dry, ok?

ALRIGHT! There she goes, nows my chance. I can get up on that chair and then get a closer look at that Pooh thingy. Ohhhh, he looks so fun. I wonder what he feels like. OHHHH, he feels soft! oh and he tastes real good. Here's these scissors that Mommy was using to cut out his blue backboard, wonder if it would be fun to stab Pooh with the scissors. WOW, they go right through him! Weeeee, this is fun!!! UHOH, Mommy's back!!!!!!!

(And here is what partially amputated Pooh looked like when Mommy returned)


This is Mommy here.... at first I was so mad! But soon, I began to smile about it. Now I will have a great story to tell Hana about her second birthday! And what is a two year old without a little mischief! Although she did get punished for touching things on the table, because she knows she is not supposed to do that. I did not have time to make a whole new cake, so I just had to try and do my best with amputated Pooh. However, once decorated, you could hardly tell he'd been mauled! Here is the final product after I decorated him.


My fondest memories of my childhood birthdays are watching my Mommy make cakes for us. She would work so hard to make them and they turned out so fun and delicious. I remember watching in wonder as the gooey yummy icing came out of the icing bag in the weird shapes, and created my favorite character in bright colors. I always wanted to squeeze the icing out, but Mom would only let me do a tiny bit and then she would tell me she had to do the rest. I dreamed of the day I would do that for my babies, so I could squeeze the icing out on the WHOLE cake, all by myself!!! I've had this Pooh cake pan and the supplies to decorate it for years. It has been waiting for the day I could use it for one of my children! I finally got to use it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not only did the pan fit into my NEW oven ( a miracle since my old oven couldn't hold the pan) but I think I did an OK job of decorating it! I can't wait to make more in the future!

Happy Birthday my sweet baby girl!!!!!!!

Birthday pics...

When is everybody going to hurry up and get here so we can get this party started?!!!

PRESENTS!!!


MMMMMMMMMMM Cake!!!!

Look who's TWO!!!

Today we celebrate my baby girls second birthday. It is amazing to me to think that she was born two years ago today and I didn't even know she existed yet! WOW!!! But I think that somehow I did know because in these few days before we got the call about her I had become so anxious I was almost frantic to figure out a way to get my baby home. As if my heart knew she was out there and waiting for me.

Today she is a rambunxious, happy, smart and sweet little two year old. She obeys really well for the most part (although I am beginning to understand what they mean by those terrible twos). She is not terrible at two but certainly more independent, getting a stronger temper and showing more willpower than before.

She LOVES her Mommy and Daddy and showers us with kisses and hugs though out the day. She is start to say "I love you" which is more like "wub you" but it is so precious to hear.

Her current fad is the "ABC's" she wants to sing the song about a million times a day and wants to see over and over again, one portion of a certain Mickey video where they sing it. When she tries to sing it her self it comes out (with the ABC song tune) as "A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B-C-A-B-C" and so forth. And where ever she sees writing (whether in English or Japanese) she squeels and explaims " ABC's!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

I have a set of Baby Einstein learning cards and she can identify the circle, oval, square, rectangle, and triangle when asked. And she can identify one and two. Her favorite number however is two, so every other number after that is always two, unless prompted to say the correct number by Mommy.She still absolutely adores bow-wows, but can identify many many animals. All of them are identified by the noise they make and not their actual name. So cats are "meow, meow" dogs are of course "bow-wow", horses are "neigh-neigh", ducks are "ga-ga" (the Japanese noise they make), lions and tigers are "rahhhh", and so forth.

She absolutely loves Hermie the caterpillar! We watch that movie a couple times a day (she demands it imediatley after breakfast and potty trip are done first thing in the morning) and she would want it to play continuously thoughout the day if I would let her. We discovered hermieandfriends.com and she loves for me to print out the coloring pages for her.She is just such a fun little girl.

She is talking so much now that I can't possibly keep record of all the words she knows. She picks up several new ones a day. She speaks in a mix of Japanese and English. It feels to me sometimes like she is constantly speaking Japanese but really I think it isn't so bad. Most of her nouns are English and her verbs are mostly Japanese. She would be an interesting linguistics study. But Mommy and Daddy are as strict as we can be about making her say things in English before we respond. However, since we understand as readily what she is saying in Japanese sometimes we respond before we realize she said it in Japanese. It is taking a lot of self discipline for us both to reinforce the Enlgish in the home rule we have set up! She demonstrates to us all the time though that is understanding almost EVERYTHING we say. We also have to be careful in this area. She understands so much, in both languages!

I am so amazed to be her Mommy and so thankful to the woman who gave birth to her. She is heavy on my heart today as well as the other family (birth grandparents and other extended) who may be thinking of her especially today. I wish they could also know this precious ray of sunshine and watch her grow. I would love to say thank you to them today and everyday for this amazing and precious gift of my daughter.I can not believe two years have flown by. I wish I could slow down the clock, and at the same time I can not wait to see what a beautiful young lady this amazing daughter of mine turns out to be.