Katie’s in New Orleans. Last year, when she tried to go back to NOLA for Jazz Fest, we had a huge blizzard, all flights were canceled and instead of a fun filled, childless weekend going to concerts with her friends, she spend the days stuck in our house with her kids and her parents. Whoo-hoo!!
So this year, no blizzards, flights were fine and I’m spending the weekend with BoopityBoop. For the last year or so, when the girls spent a weekend or so with us, it was at our house but this time, I’m at their house because we’re in the midst of potty training and we all agreed that taking them off their own turf at this stage of the process could knock them back to square one.
They’re doing brilliantly, actually. I think they started training a week or so ago. They have matching potty chairs in the bathroom, the girls run around in dresses with no diapers and every half hour or so, whoever is in charge herds them into the bathroom to try to go. Katie told me that for the last few days, no accidents!
In fact, this afternoon, although I did ask them once or twice if they wanted to go potty, most of the time, one of them would run to the gate, yell “pottypottypotty!!”, we’d all run down the hall and they’d immediately do their thing in the chair. They’re very businesslike about dumping everything in the toilet, flushing it away, cleaning themselves and washing their hands. After either of them performs, they both get a treat. Katie has both chocolate chips and sourpatch kids but after the third or fourth time, Boop vehemently rejected all the candy in favor of some dried banana chips. We only had an accident once all day and that was while we were out in the back yard, so who cares? Bottom line; they totally get what they're supposed to do and they know how to do it. Boop even puts her shorts back on by herself. She needs help finding the two different legs but she tries to put them on all by herself.
Their language skills are coming along like gang busters. In addition to being able to say many phrases, they also know to use them in perfect context. For instance, they each know to yell “My turn, my turn!” when they want to take something away from their sister. At dinner tonight, they were very excited about some wasabi peas but then Boopity brought a handful over to me and dumped them in my lap.
“Aren’t you going to eat them, sweetie?” I asked.
“No, dey yucky, Nana.” She said, clear as a bell.
We watched Tarzan after dinner. It’s their favorite movie right now. They both snuggled up with me on the couch to watch. The moment when kid Tarzan turns into grown up Tarzan, they both screamed “Tarzan!!”, which lead me to believe that they don’t think kid Tarzan is Tarzan at all.
When the movie was over, they went potty, brushed their teeth, helped me get them into pullups and jammies and ran down the hall to bed. I haven’t heard a peep out of them in hours.
Lovely children!