Potty Training

Alice was potty trained in 1 week. This is a bold statement, and for the most part true on our part. We talked to Alice about going potty at home and on weekends, but she was uninterested. She was much happier playing with us and not having to take time to go potty. We had limited success on the potty training front at home, but we really were not pushing her either. We figured when she was ready, she would tell us. If it hadn’t happened by the time she turned 3, then we would really being to train her in earnest.
School on the other hand, really tried to get the kids to start going potty. They have scheduled potty breaks and tiny little porcelain toilets for them to train on. Alice started to wear pull-ups at school, although she refused to wear them at home….she still wanted to wear her diapers. She had a potty chart at school and stickers were starting to appear on it regularly. One day her teacher said…”Alice’s pull up has been dry all day. If you want to bring her in panties, we could see how she does”. So, the next day Alice went to school in big girl panties and has been wearing them ever since. We still have to remind her to go potty, or ask her if she needs to go, but for the most part, Alice will just tell us when she needs to go. She is also starting to make us leave the bathroom so she can do it “all by myself”.

Since they have the small porcelain potty at school, Alice has always refused to use the small plastic potty training potty.  At first, I had to hold her up on the toilet, then we graduated to her using a step stool to help her get up, but now, she is getting to be a pro.  She can skooch her little butt up on the toilet without any help, and will perch there precariously.  She has only fallen in once ;-) and we joke about it now.  I tell Alice, "be careful, don't fall in the potty" and Alice will smile back and say, "mommy - I fall in the potty......No!!!!" 

We still need help at night, and even with pull ups over her panties at night we have accidents, but she is very proud on the mornings she is still dry.

Diapering was never really all that bad and the funny thing is that I think I will actually miss it. 

Chase Me

We play chase alot.

Alice, the puppy wolf.

Alice has been "reading" books much more lately.  She has a stack of them that she has been carrying between rooms.  We'll work through the stack a few times, she likes to "read" them to me :-)

The last couple of days she has been loving the "big bad wolf".  This morning she turns to me and said, "I'm the big bad wolf daddy".  So I asked her who I was, "You're riding hood, daddy".  She quickly became the "puppy wolf", and we played "puppy wolf" and "riding hood" for a good while this morning.  Good times :-)

Friday Night, Pizza Night!

Alice learned early that she loves pizza.  This led to responses of "pizza!" whenever asked what she wanted to eat.

Dad:  What do you want for breakfast Alice?
Alice:  Pizza! (followed by short pizza dance)

Dad and Mom needed to let Alice know that pizza is a treat and not something anyone should eat every day, especially for breakfast.  Our solution was to officially designate Friday night as pizza night.  She could get her yummy pizza predictably (plus let us off the hook to cook after work on Friday).  So we began responding to every request for pizza with, "Friday night is pizza night, you'll have to wait until then" or something like that.

This has seemed to work well as she no longer asks for pizza for breakfast.  Its still the dinner that gets her most excited and she loves hearing that dinner is pizza on our drive home from school on Friday.

Alice also gets excited for "Parties!" where she often gets pizza.  Just mentioning that we are going to a party gets her energized and she'll run for the door to get her shoes yelling, "Come on daddy".  She often encourages me to get out the door faster.  I'm not sure if this excitement is for possible party pizza or just for party fun.  Since she mostly plays with us at parties, I'm guessing its in large part due to possible party pizza (and cake of course but that is for another post).

update......

It's been a few weeks since my last post.  Things have been really busy at the Bickel household ;-)

We had our annual Independence Day weekend over the 4th of July weekend.  With Patra's twins being so young this year, and the weather also not being very cooperative, we decided to have a get together in Dallas this year. 

We spent Saturday over at Aunt Sissy's house, and Alice played with her cousins Jackson, Joci and Jules.  We got in the pool, and had a relaxing(ish) ;-) visit.  Alice got 1/2 year birthday presents from her Gammy and Paw-Paw and from the Miesse Clan.

Her lunch consisted of tortilla chips and chocolate cup cakes ;-)

On Sunday, we had a Meadows/Philips/Jacksons get together.  We had (1) 3 year old - Jackson, (1) two year old (Alice), (2) one year olds - Cooper and Case and (2) 2 month olds - Chris and Sean. 

 Of course there were the adults too.....All the kids played well together, and Chris and Sean were just passed along from female to female.

We have had a few illnesses in the past few months too.  First, we thought she had Roseola, but it turned out to be an intravirus.  Then, she was sent home with "slap cheep" aka Fifth Disease and a few weeks later she caught the Hand Foot and Mouth Disease from a kid in her class.  The Hand Foot and Mouth illness was the worse sickness we have had to deal with yet.  Alice got all her blisters in her mouth and couldn't/wouldn't swallow.  It was too painful, so she held the saliva in her mouth until it drooled all over her clothes and all over mom's too.  We were worried she would get dehydrated because she wouldn't eat or drink anything.  She was in pain and there was nothing we could do about it....it was really heartbreaking.  Luckily, there was only 1 really horrible day and two not so bad days.  This pic was taken on day 3 on the illness, so youcan see she was starting to feel better!

Kiddie Acres

We took Alice to Kiddie Acres this morning for her first trip to an amusement park.

We met our friend Tavo there, and he brought his daughter Izzy.

Alice chose to ride the boats first.  She was very good at staying in her seat, and she enjoyed dipping her hand in the water.  She enjoyed this ride the most, and asked to ride it two more times.

Second, the girls rode the Jeeps.  As Larry has pointed out, all the ride look much better in the photos than they did in real life, but the girls thought they were fun anyways. 

Third, was Alice's first pony ride.  The attendant took Alice's ticket and asked if she could pick her up to take her to the horse, and to our AMAZEMENT....she said yes, and outstretched her arms.  I guess anyone with a pony is alright in Alice's book.

Next, Alice and Daddy rode the carousel.  Alice is a pro at the carousel, since Didi has taken her to one a couple of times before, but it was her first ride with her dad, which makes it special.

After the carousel, Alice rode the planes.  We think this was her least favorite, since she had a concerned look on her face the entire time she was on the ride, but she sat still and soaked it all in.

Mom took Alice and Izzy up on the Ferris Wheel.  Luckily there was a 200 lb maximum weight limit, and the girls aren't that heavy yet ;-)  Alice liked it when the ride stopped us at the top and we could see over the trees.  Alice noticed we were "really really high". 

We were there for only 1 hour, but it was an action packed hour, and we were all already tired.

Brief Notes

Note 1:  Alice Likes Pizza
Alice likes pizza.  Last week, when asked what she wanted for breakfast she said, "pizza!" three mornings out of five.  She didn't get it for breakfast (maybe on vacation but not a school day).

Note: 2:  Alice is Talking More
Alice is talking so much more.  She is picking up words at an increasingly fast rate and putting them together into short functional sentences, at least when she feels like it :)  Her greater vocabulary range allows for much more conversation, like"what did you do at school today".   "Paint!"  Of course we knew she had painted since her finger nails were dark blue around the edges, but its so nice hearing her pick something to relay and be excited about it.

Note 3:  Alice Told Daddy, "I love you"
Alice told me she loved me for the first time this morning.  Its June 15th and my daughter loves me.  I am so happy.  I've never had a greater compliment except when my wife agreed to marry me.