Friday, February 12, 2010

Sno-cation!

This has been such a fun week! Today is the first day since last Friday that Bob had to go to work. Let me just say that is absolutely unprecedented! The federal government has just been shut down, and so we have had a wonderful, relaxing week here at home. Bob has been able to get a lot of little projects done around the house, including repainting our bedroom. He went to work today, but don't worry--Monday is Presidents' Day, so he'll have a 3 day weekend to recuperate from this one day of work, LOL.

We managed to do a week of school last week. No snow days here! Well, that's not totally true. We did do a little bit less some days, so the boys could go out before and after lunch. Still, we got a lot accomplished. As my friend Christine said, we were actually "homeschooling" this past week, instead of running around to our 2 different co-ops! Very nice! It was so refreshing not to have anywhere to go. Many board games were also played, and much time was spent outside.

Bob and I did sneak out to Walmart and Sams on Tuesday to get more milk before the second storm hit, but other than that, we have been homebound. Of course, now that the snow is over, I am ready to be out and about again, LOL. Bible study was canceled tonight because the L's don't have anywhere for anyone to park at their house. I was looking forward to conversation with other people not in my immediate family!

Our big project during this time at home has been potty-training Grace. We started this back in October, but then she got sick and was totally not interested after she got better. Being gone 2 days a week was not conducive to working with her on it, plus I was totally stressed out with the tin whistle/CC tutoring/teaching the Egypt unit at TNT before Christmas that I could hardly think straight, much less worry about potty-training. So we just let that go. In the new year, she has gone on the big potty sometimes, but never on her own accord.

Well, once the second snowstorm started, and I realized CC would be canceled on Thursday, I knew immediately that this was our window of opportunity! We put Grace in panties on Tuesday, and she did really well, even pooping on the little potty 2 times (first time for that particular accomplishment, woo-hoo!). Wednesday she did a little worse, having a few pee accidents and one very messy poop accident, where I eventually just put her in the shower and hosed off her legs, LOL. (This was not a popular decision.) Thursday was a terrible day, where she had multiple accidents of both kinds, and I was very frustrated with her. The boys were tired of it as well, and they suggested we just put her back in diapers. Bob pointed out that it would be awkward explaining the diapers to Grace's future husband, so we should just push on and help her get rid of them, LOL. I am happy to report that today has been a much better day, with no accidents of either kind. Yay! Maybe we have turned a corner. I can only hope so.

After potty-training Anna, I was ready to say definitively that girls were much easier to potty-train than boys, but now I can only say that--some people are harder than others. And Grace is one of those, LOL. That's the good thing about having multiple children--whenever you think that you've figured out something, another one comes along and shows you that you really don't know what you're talking about! Keeps one humble . . .

2 comments:

Johanna said...

I wish Olivia would finally commit to being potty trained. She will go an entire week without an accident and then go two or three days where she refuses to use the potty and/or just won't tel us she needs to go. Then, she will be excellent for about a week again etc. . . This cycle has been going on since mid-November. It is so easy to be changing diapers, but when you know they can use the potty and that they know what they are supposed to do, it gets frustrating.

Beverly said...

Kenna is also having potty issues. She was doing SO great for SO long. Now she has no motivation at all and actually prefers pull-ups to her new panties. Sigh.