Another Attempt at Potty Training...

After talking to a friend about potty training and my struggles, I decided to try her approach. It would require that I be patient. Very patient. And that I take Jayden to the potty every thirty minutes, like clockwork. I told myself that I could do it. I felt emotionally strong today and I went for it. As soon as I noticed that Jayden was grunting, I took him to his potty chair. We sat there for a long while and nothing happened so I changed him into his big boy undies and told him that he should go to the potty when he feels like he has to go.

Thirty minutes later, we are at the potty again and he still hasn’t gone. So after five minutes, we get up and keep going. I figure there’s no sense in making him sit on the potty for longer than necessary if we are going to go sit on the chair every 30 minutes. Ten minutes later, he actually goes poop in his undies. I am very mad, but I try to control myself and take him to the potty. As I clean up his mess, I explain to him that he can’t go in his undies. He has to go in the potty. “Mommy asked you if you had to go and you said no. Why? You are a big boy now. You should go in the potty like a big boy, like daddy.” I’m upset. It’s not easy for either one of us, but I am not ready to give up so I put on his next set of undies.

Thirty minutes later, we are back at the potty. He says he doesn’t have to go. Now mind you, he went poop but he didn’t go pee. So we sit a little longer. I try asking him if he would like to go like Daddy and he says yes. So I get his foot stool and put the toilet seat up and I say, ok. “Go.” He holds on to his wee and actually says "Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh." Are you kidding me? He jumps off of the stool and flushes the imaginary pee down the toilet. “All done!” he exclaims. I hold back a laugh and put his undies back. I remind him on the way out that if he has to go, he should go in the potty.

A little while later, he says Mommy, pee-pee. I grab his little hand as we run just as fast as we can to the potty. I pull his undies down and wait. Nothing. What’s going on? I feel his undies and they are a bit wet. He leaked and held it. That part is good, I tell myself. He felt himself going and stopped the flow. But now he’s holding it even though we are at the potty and that part isn’t good. So we have the whole going-in-the-potty conversation for about the millionth time. I change his undies and we leave the bathroom.

Now it’s time for dinner. I prepare Jayden’s meal and ask him if he has to go potty one last time. He says no. He begins to eat. About 10 minutes later, he looks at me with this wild look in his eye and says Mommy, peeeeee-peeeeeeeeeeeeeee! And the floodgates opened. It was everywhere. This concluded the end of my patience, the end of my energy for the day, and the end of my stock of clean underwear. I can’t possibly imagine going back to the drawing board again tomorrow so for now, I clean Jayden and clean the mess and call it a day.

Jayden's Birthday Party

Here's Jayden watching the bounce house go up and he never once got in. Not willingly anyway. Luckily, everyone else including Mommy and Daddy enjoyed it!

Anyone up for a birthday hat?
Grandma spends time with Maya Isabella.

My sister Mari and cousin Cathy.

Aiden, Jayden and Ivy.

Jayden takes a swing at the Pinata.

Chooch takes a turn and puts his all into it.

Even Maya has a go.

Even gets ready to pull the strings.

Grab the loot! Sorry, the loot bags were full of gifts so we had to improvise.

All the hard went that went into this cake was well worth it. Anything for my little guy.

Happy Birthday to You!

Juan, Justin, Chooch, Daddy, Mommy, Becky

Maya, Jayden, Ivy and Gabby

My big boy is THREE!

Getting ready to blow out the candles!

Jayden loves all his gifts and is very thankful, but this one in particular made him very happy! The thinking chair from Blue's Clues.

Jayden shares with his cousin. Silly boys!

Big Boy Undies

I made a stop at Target to pick up some diapers for Maya and while I was at it, I started to look for a pair of shoes for her. Jayden decided to get out of the shopping cart and take a look at the all the items in that particular aisle. I was looking for a 12-18 month shoe size when Jayden brings me a package and says “This.” I started to tell him to put it back, but I noticed that it was a pack of undies and I remembered that someone recommended that I get him some to help with potty training. So I asked him if he wanted it and he said yes, of course. I told him that they were big boy undies just like daddy for the potty. That didn’t seem to make an impact, but I picked them up anyway.

Later, I noticed Jayden was pushing and talking with a strained voice. I asked him if he had to go to the potty and he said, “Potty”. I thought for sure he had already gone, but he hadn’t so I took him to the potty and sat him down. We sat for a while and waited and looked at books and waited, but nothing. He kept showing me the undies, which he had quickly grabbed on the way to the potty, as if to ask if he could put them on. Finish potty first I said. But nothing was happening so after a while I put the undies on him and reminded him every few minutes to go to the potty. After about 30 minutes, he jumped up and said “Mommy, pee-pee.” I took him by the hand and quickly led him to the potty chair where I discovered he had already gone on his undies. He sat on the chair for a while, where he did finish relieving himself eventually. He then went running to the drawer to get a new pair of undies. No thank you said Mommy. When you learn to go potty like a big boy, then you can use big boy undies.

Can I consider this progress?

Jayden's 3rd Birthday

My little boy is growing up and I’m not sure I know where the time is going. Jayden is so smart and like a sponge. He remembers everything. And whoever said that kids are watching you even when you don’t think they are wasn’t lying. Jayden is a mini-me. He mimics practically everything I do and say. When he was little, I used to make exaggerated facial expressions or have dramatic reactions to teach him things like happy, sad, mad, and disappointed. Now, I look at him and want to laugh when he mimics me. If I laugh at a joke, he laughs too. If he’s mad, he furrows his eyebrows and pouts his lips. If he wants candy and I said no, he hangs his head, dangles his arms, and slowly walks away. Sometimes I can’t help but to snatch him up, hug him and kiss him.

Jayden loves helping anybody do anything. He loves being with Daddy out in the garage or in the yard. He loves sticks, rocks and leaves. He loves to be out and about and gets very distressed when we are going back home. “No home mommy, no home.” Jayden loves his vitamins. He thinks they are candy and every morning he asks me “Medicine?” His favorite cartoons were Woody and Buzz, but they’ve since been replaced by the Blues Clues characters. He loves Blues, Tickety Tock, Steve and Joe, but his favorite is Mailbox. So much so, that when we go on afternoon walks, he has a tendency to open and close every single mailbox on the way. Jayden also loves all things art. He loves to color, paint and use sidewalk chalk. He’s getting really good with his colors and is always asking what color this is and what color that is. I always ask him to draw things and he would draw lines for me, but recently, he’s started to draw circles too.

Jayden has a ton of favorite expressions. Right now, his favorite is, “Great idea!” He says this all the time, no matter what I’m saying. One of my favorites happened the other day. He was looking for two of his matchbox cars and he couldn’t find them. I reminded him that he went to sleep with them the night before and suggested he look in his room. He came back after a minute without the cars and when I asked what happened, he said “I dunno. I don’t see it”. So I went to the room to help him look and when I moved the crib, there they were. He gasped for air and said “Oh my God!” I had to laugh. One of my not so favorites is the result of him spending too much time with the big boys out in the garage. I had the TV on a cartoon station that I normally don’t put on and the announcer said something like “Spiderman is coming up next.” And Jayden said “Oh S***!”

Jayden loves to correct others. I wonder where he gets this from. I often hear him say things like no, stop it or my personal favorite, “No Maya, no touch. It’s not a toy.” Jayden, like most kids, has issues with sharing sometimes. He’ll snatch something away from Maya and say “Mine”. In an effort to teach him to share, I tell Jayden that the toys belong to both Jayden and Maya and that we share the toys by taking turns. So now he’ll snatch toys and say “My turn.” It’s a work in progress.

There are two things that I know for a fact Jayden does NOT love. One is the potty chair. He still refuses to go on the potty. Every once in a while he’ll agree to sit on the potty, but he won’t go (even though he’s gone successfully in the past). As soon as I strap the diaper on, he takes care of his business and lets me know it’s time to change his diaper.

The second thing is trying new foods. He even hates trying old foods in different ways. It drives me nuts because he won’t try things that I know he’ll love. I’ve started to put things in his plate even though I know he doesn’t eat it in the hopes that eventually he’ll get used to seeing it there and he’ll feel adventurous enough to try it. He won’t eat beans. Every once in a while he’ll chew on a pea though. He’ll eat broccoli once in a blue moon, but not the stems. He’ll eat waffles or pancakes, but if I put blueberries in them, it’s a no-go. No mashed potatoes, tuna fish or any kind of hot cereal. No sweet potatoes and last time I checked, he didn’t want yellow rice, ‘cause it wasn’t white. It’s very hard to vary the menu and keep him interested in food when he doesn’t want to anything but snacks all day. Luckily, snacks at my house consist of fruit, yogurt, granola bars, light popcorn, rice cakes, raisins, and applesauce. But still! At least he is doing fairly well with a spoon and a fork, although since Maya started to self-feed, he’s started to use his fingers more often. Well, at least he’s pretty good with a big boy cup. “Two hands mommy”, he always says.

After months of repeating letters and numbers, one day Jayden started to repeat them all on his own. He’s gotten very good at saying his numbers from 1-9. He knows most of his numbers in Spanish, but not in order. He has attempted the ABC song, but only gets as far as ABC. He knows his shapes and is certain of circle, square, triangle, and star. He’s doing great with his colors. Red, blue, yellow, orange, green, pink, purple, black and white. And he even knows some of them in Spanish. Rojo, verde, azul, and amarillo.

Jayden has always been quick to develop his motor skills. In addition to walking and running, he now jumps and attempts to dance. The other day, we were watching Diego and they were trying to get the viewers to participate by jumping with paws outstretched and shout Rawrrr! Normally Jayden ignores any requests for help from Diego, Dora or any of the Little Einsteins but that day he actually got up with me and did it. He had so much fun doing it too. I could tell he really enjoyed it. Now, I am working on teaching him to hop.

Jayden climbs pretty well. He’s good at his rock wall and has a good handle on the rope ladder. He has almost mastered pedaling. And just recently, I noticed that he can throw a ball overhand. When he falls, he gets up, looks at me (checking my reaction) and brushes himself off. He can take off his shorts, diaper, and socks. But he’s still working on putting them on. He tries really hard to put on his socks and pants, but he usually ends up a toe stuck on the outside of the sock or with both legs in one opening. He can brush his own teeth, but mommy always helps just to be sure.

My favorite time with Jayden is at the end of the night. We are usually alone since Daddy is working. Most days, I let him come to bed with me. We climb into bed and start fooling around, laughing, giggling and carrying on like two little kids. All you can hear is me whispering “Shhh. Maya is sleeping” and Jayden giggling. I’m usually exhausted by the time we crawl into bed so we don’t play for too long. When I’m ready to sleep, I ask him if he wants to pray and he holds my hand while I say the Lord’s Prayer. Amen he says. And then it starts. Amen Daddy. Amen Maya. Amen Grandpa. Amen Grandma. Amen Titi. Amen Chooch. And Amen to anyone else he can think of until I say, Alright Jayden. It’s nite-nite time. Go to sleep. I love my little boy. God bless you.

Preparations for Jayden's Birthday Party

Jayden’s birthday is coming soon. I have been super busy planning the party, making arrangements, putting together menus and researching cake designs. Golly! This is a lot of work. I don’t want things to get out of hand at the last minute so I put together a master to-do list and I’m planning and plotting when I’ll be working on things so that next Sunday, I’m not going nuts to pull it all together.

Since Jayden understands what a birthday is now, I’ve been telling him that his birthday party is coming soon and that mommy is making him a birthday cake. He’s the birthday boy. I tell him that he’s going to be three years old and that he’s a big boy now. Since he’s going to be a big boy now, I tell him that he should use the potty chair now. (I know, shameless plug.) As the day nears, he gets more and more excited. He asks about his birthday everyday. I might regret this later, but I never had birthday parties growing up and I want this to be a special part of his life.

A couple of weeks ago, we went to Party City to pick up supplies and he’s been thrilled ever since. Friday, I was sorting and organizing goodies, supplies and decorations. Jayden was trying to get to his Blue’s Clues piñata so bad. I reminded him that it was for his birthday party and that it was coming soon. Today, I worked on the loot bags and he saw the handy dandy notebooks that I picked up. He wanted them so bad. I can only imagine what’s going to happen tomorrow when I fill the piñata. LOL

In preparation for his birthday party, I decided to take Jayden for a haircut. Now, I’m a pretty fussy lady. I know this. It’s hard to make me happy. For such a young boy, Jayden’s been through a heck of a lot of barbers and hair stylists. I have only once been satisfied with Jayden’s haircut so I set off to take Jayden to the one man who seemed to have a good handle on his hair. Except when I got to the barbershop, he wasn’t there. I couldn’t remember his name and the owner didn’t seem to know who I was talking about so now I have to find a new person.

I decided to take him to a place I’ve been meaning to try called Sports Clips. As you can imagine, it’s all sports themed there and it looks like a pretty cool place. So there we went. We signed in and waited our turn. Jayden ended up with the only male hair stylist in the joint. He tends to be more comfortable with men than with women so I was happy. Except, I forget to tell the guy that I don’t like it when they cut the sideburn straight across. I prefer medium sideburns. And before you know it, not only did he cut it straight across, but he must have cut it crooked because in his attempt to fix it, he cut it well above where a normal sideburn should be.

So of course, I say something. He explains that Jayden moved and he did cut it a tad bit shorter than he would have liked. I leave it alone and I notice that he’s got the clippers and he’s headed back to the other side. “What are you doing? Don’t tell me you’re going to do the same thing to the other side. One side is all screwed up. I don’t want both sides like that. I can’t believe this. It’s a week to his birthday.” This poor guy was so nervous. He got flustered and couldn’t fade Jayden’s hair and had to call one of the other hair dressers to his aid. This poor man disappeared after that. The second lady ended up giving Jayden a decent cut, but wouldn’t accept payment for it. I felt horrible. I really liked how she cut his hair and would have gone back, but I felt so bad for the guy I don’t know if I could. He didn’t want to see me and I felt ashamed. I mean, I didn’t cause a scene or call him names, but I felt so bad. I wanted to apologize and let him know that I didn’t blame him. Things happen. But I couldn’t so I asked the hair dresser to let him know I was sorry about how things turned out and left.

Weaning: Somebody Won't Let Go

After tossing it around and much deliberation, I made a decision to wean Maya. I was just so tired of her giving me a hard time at the end of the night and of her waking up 1-3 times a night. I felt that I had to wean or I would just die or be angry all the time. I discovered I had no idea how to wean. I tried to give her a bottle of milk hoping she would be nice and full before bed, but she tossed it to the side and screamed her head off. My girlfriend suggested taking away the easiest feeding first. So in an effort to wean Maya, I took away her 3:00pm feeding. This is the feeding immediately following her afternoon nap. That was a month ago. It turned out to be a long process.

Three weeks into it, she was still following me around the house like clockwork at 3:00pm crying and tugging on my pant leg. One day, it dawned on me that the opening of the nipple I was using could in no way feel like drinking from the breast because the flow was completely different. I decided to try it with a nipple that had a smaller opening and lo and behold, it did the trick. I waited for a week just to be sure, but she seemed fine with it. I intended to wait until Saturday to wean the next feeding just in case she fought it. I would have four full days to help her work through it. But on Friday, I came home from work to find her drinking a bottle at 6:30pm. This is the time I normally nurse her. Hmmm.

Esteban apologized and suggested I take the bottle from her and nurse her, but then I thought why? I was planning on weaning the 6pm feeding the next day anyway. So I let her finish the bottle and nursed her before bedtime at 9pm. That’s when it hit me. I was thinking about my reaction when I came home and found Maya perfectly content with her bottle and I was enraged. I am not ready to wean just yet. I thought I was, but I’m not. I was only desperate to wean because she was already 1 year old and still not sleeping through the night. I was at my wits end. Plus, I think Esteban is ready for me to wean. At work, I pump and I’ve had people ask, “You’re still nursing? Wow, that’s great.” But in my head I’m worried that what they’re really thinking is, “Still? Dang!” I wonder if other people are looking and wondering when I’m going to stop. I wouldn’t have felt as desperateif she could have just slept through the night.

Then all of a sudden at 13 months old, she did. It was right around the time I made a conscious decision to end all middle of the night feedings. She’s old enough, I thought. She gets plenty to eat throughout the day. She doesn’t need the feeding. She might possibly need to be comforted or feel close to me, but she can’t possibly need sustenance. When I got firm, things started to happen. At first she would wake once or twice. I would rock her, insert the paci and lay her back in bed. Now that she knows she can’t graze no more, she sleeps through the night and now that I’m getting a full nights sleep and I’m only doing three feedings a day, I’m don’t feel so hot and bothered by it.

I’m not so sure that I want to proceed with the next scheduled weaning. And not for her sake, because I feel that at this point it would probably be easier to wean, but more for my sake. I need that time with her. I love the way she latches on. I love the look on her face when she drifts off to sleep. Sometimes she dives in and with incredible precision I might add. And when she pulls herself off, she sits up, looks around with that drunken sailor look on her face before diving in for once last chug. I love the look on her face when she sees me getting ready for her. She lights up and smiles from ear to ear. Then she starts to kick both feet and waves both arms in excitement. It’s so cute and it’s such a special time. I am reminded that this is it. There won’t be any other babies or chances at breastfeeding. The time will fly by and I’ll look at my little girl and wonder where by baby went. I just want to enjoy it as much as I can for as long as I can. So, weaning is on hold, for now.

Picture Mania

Maya hangs out in the screen room. Clearly, she's got a full diaper!
I met a friend at Lake Eola Park in Downtown Orlando and Jayden was spotting the swans on the way to lunch.

Awww.

We spent a weekend at Titi's house and spent a fun day at the pool. Here's Aiden attempting to spray Jayden.

Titi and Maya

Jayden still afraid to get wet.

Maya isn't sure what to make of things.

Titi goes commando on the kids. Chooch suffers the brunt of the attack.

Titi loves on Chooch. All is well again.

We got invited to the neighbor's house and Jayden decided he was going to drive.

It was very warm out so the kids cooled of at the water table. Jayden is like the mad scientist. Maya just wants to splash around.

Very busy. Concentrating.

It was no easy feat getting a hat on Maya but she sure was darn cute in it.

I finally get a willing smile from Jayden.

Mother's Day - Me and the kids spent the evening over at the swing set.

Jayden masters the rope ladder.

Hangin' around...

Jayden wants to push Maya so bad, but he hasn't figured out how to get out of the way before getting wacked! So he attempts to push from the side. It wasn't pretty.

Finally he agrees to get on the swing.

Only for a second cause this is so much more fun.