Declaration PT'd

I think I am going to officially declare little Miss Hana potty trained, even though I know there are bound to be accidents now and again here and there. Why is it official...

1. She has been perfectly dry for two weeks or more.
2. She is in big girl panties at night too, and has been perfectly dry at night for a LONG time. (Only one wet night in a diaper about a week 1/2 ago)
3. She is telling me consistently throughout the day when she needs to go, or she happily goes when I tell her she needs to (if we are going to be in the car for a while or something).

Only thing left, when does she start taking herself???

It was so easy, I am so glad for all those months of taking her to the potty as often as possible even when she was still in daipers. So worth it! We saved who knows how many diapers over the last two years, and it was such an easy smooth transition for her, nothing tramatic about it. The potty has always been a part of everday life, we just polished off there at the end. I will definitley follow the same process with the next baby (and any others after???). I highly HIGHLY recommend it, you could never start too early with using the potty.

I can hardly believe it, no more diapers!?

Lazy, lazy day...

I don't know if it is because she had a fever for a couple of days or what but Hana has slept soooooooooo much today. She slept until almost 10 a.m. this morning and then took a 3 hour nap this afternoon! lately she has been getting up around 7 or 8 a.m. and only taking a 1 or 1.5 hour nap. I was amazed today. I should have gone to work out while she was sleeping.

Today she asked me, after her nap...

Mommy atsui too? (atsui = hot) 'Mommy are you hot too?'

She had sweat a whole lot during her nap time, and I thought that was funny.

She is sooooooooooo happy these days, I mean ALWAYS happy and smiling and squeeling and running around. I don't know what has got her in such a good mood constantly but I hope we can keep it this way. She hasn't been grumpy in a long time.

Potty training is really REALLY going well. She has not had an accident in almost 3 days (I think, I lose track) and she had one night time wet diaper this week. She is telling me almost always now, that she needs to go. There are just a few occassions throughout the day that I take her because of the amoutn of time it has been since she went.

She learned the letter P somehow, I have no idea how, but she knows that one now too. And she is getting better about saying her numbers. She says three now, and she doesn't call EVERY number two anymore, but 5 is still 2 to her and she insists that it is a two. She looks at me like I am crazy when I tell her it is a 5. She also says 2 for S's. they look very similar.

smart little cookie I got here, and so much fun!

Language explosion...

Hana is not necessarily having a vocabulary explosion but a language or communication explosion. In the last week she has started putting together 3 and 4 word sentences and today made a 5 word sentence. I was so shocked. We were talking about going somewhere and Hana comes running up and says "Daddy, Nana wants to go too." She calls herself Nana. I couldn't believe it. She sounded like a 4 year old or something to me. She is so cute about using every word in her vocabulary to communicate. Which at this point means using both English and Japanese so I have decided to lay off being strict about using only English for a while. I'd rather her be able to communicate, and instead am just repeating things in English as much as a I can. It works too because before she was saying eat-tai or pool-tai for I want to (shitai means I want to in Japanese) but she has stopped doing that on her own with my simply repeating what she wants in English. Now she leaves of the tai part and just says the main word. It is just amazing to me how quickly her language is developing, there is a visible difference every day!

Yesterday Hana had a fever and by late evening was telling me she needed to go teetee like every 20 or 30 minutes. so I thought she may have a bladder infection. Turns out she doesn't but somehow, that couple of hours of telling me so often she needed to go, made something click in her brain and she is now totally telling me she needs to go. I only asked her twice today if she needed to go and she said no and meant it. All the rest of the day she came and found me and told me. I even didn't take her right after her nap but waited for her to ask to go, and she did eventually without any accidents. I am tempted to declare her totally potty trained, BUT I will wait because she changes so much sometimes. and she seems to be in a phase of wanting me to treat her like a baby, she wants me to hold her milk cup and let her drink while being held like a baby, and she is even wanting to nurse lately! I can't believe she remembers it, but being around a few babies recently has triggered her memory I guess. I'm not letting her (I'm too afraid she would bite me) but she seems to want to go back to being a baby a little bit. So I am cautious about the potty too. Plus she isn't totally night time dry yet. So I am keeping her in diapers at night.

Other than that, all is well. She is so happy and fun these days. We are doing good with pre-school, it is just a short part of our mornings or afternoons (30 min. to an hour or so) but she really enjoys it. She just loves learning and I want to keep it fun! What a joy raising a two year old is. She is also so so so obedient. I am very proud of how obedient she is. I can not remember the last time I really had to get onto her. She is just so much fun!!!

I took some video today of blowing bubbles during pre-school AND I have some pics, I'll get those up soon, but for now Mommy is off to bed.

Expressing more

Hana is sooooooooo cute! One of the things she said to me today that I thought took some creativity to come up with is... "chicken atsui bye-bye" atsui means hot in Japanese. She was saying the chicken is not hot anymore. I thought that was such a smart way to express that.

We had another perfect potty day, after two accidents late yesterday (I think). I can't figure out if one of them was a teetee accident, OR a spilled drink. but I had to clean it up either way, so I count it as an accident, in her CAR SEAT no less!!!

She's doing pretty good about telling us she needs to go, but I still have to take her from time to time against her will, especially when she is busy and distracted by a lot of people. She is just like her Daddy, LOVES to be around people, and stops being aware of EVERYTHING else in the world when with a group of her favorite people.

She is such an odd mix of being shy and other times not being the least bit scared of a stranger. Today she went straight to two men she doesn't know. They were both sweethearts, and she can spot a sweet man from a mile away. She just KNOWS! I pray she keeps that up and ALWAYS only wants to have anything to do with sweethearts.

We start home preschool tomorrow. I just pray I can keep it up, I have three weeks planned out. This week we study A, next week B, and next week C. I have a game or an art project, songs and Bible lessons planned. It will only take about an hour or so each morning. But I thought it would be good for us, sort of a trial homeschool venture! It will be interesting to see how she responds to it. I don't know if she is going to like the structure or not. As structured as games and playing with letters can be for a two year old. But we'll see!

Starting to tell me...

I was suprised yesterday when Hana told me she needed to go teetee once in the morning. The rest of the day she did not tell me, I just take her at certain time intervals. But yesterday was a perfect day!!! Today she has told me twice so far that she needs to go. IF she keeps this up, I will be able to relax knowing she will tell me when she needs to go. However, she doesn't always keep doing something just because she started at some point. So we will have to wait and see on that. So far today has been perfect!!!

We went to play with Corkey today and it was so fun. She even inspired Corkey to use the potty several times while we were there. Corkey's Mommy as like, "Come back ANY time and motivate Corkey again to use the potty!" My little inspiration!!! LOL!

I was going to blog about something else she has been doing lately and now I can't remember what it was. Maybe I'll remember later.

I remembered what I was going to write. The funniest thing she does right now. When we see a knat or a misquito I always try to kill it by clapping my hands together and trying to catch it in mid-air. So now, when Hana sees bugs flying around, she'll say "Mommy, Mommy!!" and then enthusiastically clap her hands together while staring up in the air at the bug, pretending to follow it around with her eyes! So funny!

Little Miss Creative

Tonight on our way home from shopping Hana was being so creative. She loves to spot the moon in the sky. Tonight there was an almost full moon and she was really excited to be seeing it. It was positioned in the sky perfectly that in the direction we were driving she could watch it constantly. Then all the sudden she starts yelling,

"Daddy, Mommy, Moon 'something something' BOW-WOW! BOW-WOW, BOW-WOW 'something something' moon, moon, bow-wow!"

She kept going on and on about the moon and bow-wow. At first I couldn't figure it out and she was so adament that Daddy and I understand her. She was getting all worked up saying it over and over again. Then I realized, since I was a little girl, I thought there appeared to be a bunny rabbit in the moon. To me, the moons craters sort of look like a bunny rabbit. I don't know if anyone else sees this, but I always have. Well it seems Hana sees something similiar because I finally said, "ohhh, Hana do you see a bow-wow in the moon?" And she got so excited, "YEA" she says, "Moon, 'something something' BOW-WOW" And on and on all the way home. She sees a puppy dog in the moon! I thought that was so creative. I don't know, maybe you can see one too?

This is the best pic I could find on the web, and it is really too clear to see what the naked eye sees in the sky at night, but maybe you can make out my rabbit (Hana's puppy dog) it looks like he is laying on the moon on the upper left hand side. He is arching his back, so his face is upside down on the upper right, and his feet down at the bottom left. You can sort of see two ears coming out of the top of the head, he's got huge eyes and a huge nose, his body is just weird blotches, but you can sort of see two feet at the bottom left??? Maybe?

I just think it is so wild that Hana sees the same thing, a shape of an animal in the moon! MY DAUGHTER!

Still doing good...

She's still doing really well in big girl panties! There are accidents here and there, but I think we are on the back streatch. She is dry every morning too. It won't be long now. The only thing is, I have to decide what I am going to do with this huge pack of diapers I got. I'd been filling up a point card for her brand of diapers for the past year since we moved here. The store I get them at has a special, after you buy ten packs of diapers, you get one free. I finally got one for free so I chose the pullups, but she isn't going to need them all. And to save them for the next baby, who knows how long they will have to sit around!? But I guess diapers don't go bad, so I could just put them in a large plastic bag, so they don't get moist, and save them for the next potty training!

She is such a happy baby these days too. Mommy and Daddy being home and not so busy has made a big difference in her personality. She is so fun, and playful. She is pretty good about letting me get things done and playing by herself too. She is watching way too many videos while I work on other stuff right now, but when I get the house in order I hope to start some morning homeschool pre-K acitivites. Just simple stuff, coloring numbers and letters, etc. We are going to costco this afternoon and I am going to see if I can find some good coloring books, etc.

She's talking like crazy too. Putting together three words sometimes. Like "teetee no go" and "Mommy, eata kore" eata is Hana's way of saying eat. I don't know why she puts the a on the end? And kore means this in Japanese. So she is mixing the languages. she is also into possession. She must declare what is whose. Hana's booka (she also adds a to the end of book). Mommy's bowl, Daddy's bowl, Nana's bowl (she calls herself Nana). When she sees objects and she knows who they belong to, she tells me. It's so cute.

Mama, has also almost completely disappeared. I'm Mommy now most of the time. Dada left her vocab a while back, but she slowly started switching back and forth between Mama and Mommy, but the last few days I don't recal hearing Mama at all. I thought I would be sad to not hear Mama anymore, but it doesn't matter what she calls me, it is so precious to hear that sweet little voice calling my name.

She is still over stuffing her cheeks with food, but is getting good about understand that she has to chew and swallow it all before she gets more food. We have had a few stand offs where she refussed to chew and swallow, especially one with Daddy that lasted almost two hours. They are both very hard headed. LOL! but she hasn't done that again since Daddy outlasted her. Sometimes it takes her 15 or 20 minutes, and yesterday she wet her pants because I wouldn't let her out of her high chair until she chewed up and swallowed what was in her mouth. But she is slowly learning that we mean business, and she might be getting better about not stuffing her mouth as full as she used to. Maybe!

she's suck a joy to me! She really is so very obedient for a two year old. There are days that the level of her energy drives me nuts, the constant, "Mommy, mommy, mommy!!!" and chatter chatter chatter, and when she gets really hyper! But at the same time it is precious, and it is well within the boundaries of normal. I have seen much worse. And she is easy to control, even when she gets hyper! She's a good good girl.

Plugging along...

Today was good, two small little accidents. This morning she had a little bit of wetness in her panties just a little while after breakfast (she'd been to the potty so I'm not sure why), and then when she was crying once this evening she had a little leak. Otherwise, she is doing great. Woke up dry again this morning too, but the day before she had wet her pull up at sometime during the night. I'm still holding off on big girl panties at night because I am suspicious that she is not emptying her bladder during the day, and I'm afraid she will just not be able to hold it at night. Today especially she didn't seem to ever go very much in the potty when I would sit her down. I will be interested to see if she is dry again in the morning. Maybe I just need to get used to the volume of teetee that is normal.

She still fusses a little when I make her go sit on the potty but she is getting better about just accepting it and calming down. Or teeteeing as she cries. Which is still so funny.

We're doing good! It will just be a matter of time before I can relax a little bit. We have had any BIG accidents where she made a puddle on the floor in 4 days, so we're doing good.

this Mommy stuff is so fun!

There are good days and there are bad...

Fortunately, we have mostly good days! With potty training that is! Things are going quite well. We started last Monday or Tuesday, I can't remember for sure. We had a couple of GREAT days and then one really bad day (FOUR accidents), then the next day I think there were a couple of accidents, and the last two days have been perfect (or maybe very early yesterday morning she had an accident, it's all running together for me now). So I was brave enough to go to church this morning in big girl panties. We started with a baptism at 8:30 a.m. which is quite early for us (be sure and check out the ministry blog and read about the baptism, AWESOME stuff!!!), and then there was a major meeting after church so we were there until 5 in the afternoon. And it was a PERFECT day! We just have to get into a rythm with each other it seems. On that day that she had four accidents, I was getting a little too relaxed because she had done so well the first couple of days. She had accidents right around the time I would be thinking to myself, "I should take her to the potty, but I'll just finish this up first." and before I would finish up what I was doing, she'd have an accident. I have to learn to listen to those Mommy instincts! AND I have had to learn to take her even when she doesn't want to go. It is soooooooooo funny, since we've been doing this all week, now when I look at her and say "Hana, do you......" before I even get that far into my sentence she says "NO" and goes on about her business. For the next few minutes she completely ignores me! SOOOO funny. She must be so sick of being asked if she needs to go teetee. So today, I never asked her. The answer is always no anyways, so I just took when I thought she should be needing to go! It seems to be working. Now someone tell me how long it will be before she truthfully answers me when I ask if she needs to go, and then how long will it be till she tells me every time and I don't have to ask, AND THEN tell me how long it's going to be till she can take HERSELF to the potty! That day, there will be a HUGE celebration in this house!!! I'm already worn out! But I am just thankful I am not cleaning up puddles all day long and washing 20 panties a day!

This really is FUN! If I sound like I'm complaining, well, I'm having the time of my life!