Potty time!

Kind of like "party time", but actually NOT at all. Oh man. I decided about a month ago that I was going to try and get Harvey potty trained this weekend. I have a 5 day stretch off and I figured it was now or not for a long time. Lots of big changes coming our way soon and didn't want to mess with it and wanted him to have a good solid amount of time to get it "perfected" before G-lo makes her grand entrance. My friend shared with me a 3-day method she has used and I felt good about it and Harv's ability to succeed :) Don't get me wrong, I still felt very nervous, anxious and un-excited about the whole process. 

I'm posting about this now because we are at the end of day 3, not because we have it mastered. Boy oh boy - it has gone SO much worse, but also better than expected. I've always heard potty training is hard but it's just like marriage or being a parent - you never REALLY know what the heck that means till you're right in the thick of it. 

We've had a little toilet for him for a couple of months actually. We've talked about it and going to the bathroom on it for a long time too - more heavily this last week. He seemed interested in the pot and kind of like maybe he was getting what we were talking about. He was actually very willing and excited to throw his diapers away and check out all his new underpants. He wore them proudly! (But not holding still)

 I won't share every single detail but it might be more detailed than anyone but me cares to know/remember. The morning was awful. Literally it was so terrible. He was in tears most of it and I joined in more than I would have liked. I would catch him peeing and we'd rush to the bathroom and he'd scream when I set him on the toilet. Wanted nothing to do with it. So there were a good several carpet accidents. Once while I was still in the bathroom and he wouldn't sit to finish, I told him to go get some new dry undies and I heard him start crying. He had finished peeing all over the floor in front of his dresser and onto one of his favorite books. Yuck. Well, I was still doing ok for the most part. We quickly went through undie changes. 

As the day went on he became more and more distressed about it. He screamed when he peed because it seemed like he was scared or felt like he was doing something terribly wrong. Oh man he would cry. He peed twice in his high chair trying to get through lunch. I felt so bad and was trying to keep it positive and praise him and we were doing stickers, etc. but it just wasn't clicking. Then he started to recognize when he had to pee (which was progress and I was impressed) but when he felt that sensation he would LOSE IT. So I'd take him to the toilet and set him down screaming and more would come out because he couldn't hold it and he would SCREAM when he felt it going in the toilet. So he'd hop off. Only to scream more because he still had to go. Horrible. I was losing it then too.  Not really out of frustration but I felt SO bad. It was all supposed to be happy and positive and not forced and I felt like I was traumatizing him. I was NOT expecting him to act or react like that AT ALL! I didn't know what to do and was having all sorts of doubts in both our abilities.  I knew he was really tired too so we tried to do a nap but it wasn't going so well. In and out of crib. Finally he fell asleep looking at a book. 

I texted my friend, Andrea, who had sent me the ebook and is one of the most amazing moms I know...and she talked me off the ledge. Told me to hang in there till at least the next afternoon. Got some more, much needed support, from my friend Brooke. She's great at letting me complain as much as necessary about anything! There was plenty of that that day. I tried to lay him down so he could sleep and I could wash laundry and shower and clean my filthy house. Nope. Woke up like 5 minutes later. Ugh. 

Buuuutttt....a miracle happened that afternoon. He didn't scream when I'd set him down. He'd give me the look when he started peeing and somehow he was able to stop it. We would then rush to the bathroom and he would finish in the pot. My excitement and cheers seemed to motivate him. He would hold his hands up like a conqueror and put up his blue Mickey sticker with pride. This picture was about this time but he looks much less happy than he was (at the time) and a LOT happier than he was that morning. His face makes me laugh. 

So ya. Lots more progress that day. No poop and lots of little wets in the undies but no carpet accidents. AND he was dry all night!! That was a miracle to me because he's never been dry at night!! The next morning/day was more of the same. The first couple pees were a bit of a backtrack to the previous morning of crying when he sat and felt himself pee. But luckily he quickly got over that.

Man his bum in undies is too cute.

One messy poop in the undies that morning. He did NOT like seeing that dumped underneath him. That gave me a bit of anxiety about our poop future. 

That afternoon we babysat a friend's little guy who is almost his age. I took a lot  of pics cause I do that, and also I love it when people that watch Harv send me pics so I wanted to share with his mama. 

This day in general was SO much better! Harvey was a complete gem. And he played AWESOME with Jared. He's usually not that friendly or sharing or caring with other kids, esp his age, but he was so good. He randomly walked over and gave him a hug at one point and then they giggled and wrestled on the couch. Guess we need more play dates with him!

Too dang cute. 

I had one of my proudest mom moments to date that evening. We were playing in the middle toy room and he looked at me and said poop. And he started walking to the bathroom. I helped him with his undies and he sat down and pushed out a poop. No mess in his pants. No crying. I could have cried with pure joy though!! It was so amazing. He seemed pretty proud too. (Oh ya - one other amazing part about this day was that both boys slept at the same time for a couple hrs and I had a glorious and much needed nap too and Harvey was dry!!)

Our night was tricky last night. I couldn't get him to pee one more time before bed and he always cries when he gets put down for at least a little bit. Well, I was worried because I didn't know how to tell if his crying was from normal bedtime protests or needing to pee. Well, I did go check on him soon after and he had peed in bed. So then it was out and changing him and sheets and more awake. Took me forever to get him back down, still with much anxiety over if I was letting him pee himself again...or worse. But he finally fell asleep and woke up dry again! And peed first thing in the morning. Beautiful. 

So today again, some more of the same. Weird huh?  Mostly he tells me when he needs to pee (or like looks at me with that look) AFTER he has already gone a tiny bit, but he always finishes great in the pot and we actually had a couple where he went without getting wet first. We took him to the store for a little over an hour and he did great. He does seem to have good bladder control but we just need to get him to tell me before he has to go! I think sometimes he doesn't want to interrupt the playing. I actually had a lot of issues with that for a long time as a kid. Kneeling to hold it so I wouldn't have to go to the bathroom. That's another story, though ;)

We both had a good nap and we both stayed dry :) No poop today.  He toots and thinks he needs to poop so we tried a couple times and he'd push and look at me and shake his head like "nope, guess not". So funny. He peed once before bed when I just had him try. He cried for a long time again tonight in his bed and it still gave me anxiety. He has woken up right around 6am today and yesterday and I've hopped right out of bed in fears of him needing to go and me not being there. So his sleep routine is getting messed up with this but hopefully that will settle soon. I have a couple more days off where we'll get to make more progress I hope, especially cause after that he goes to babysitter and I will feel bad having to make her have to take a larger part in potty training another kid! But, like I said, so much harder than I was expecting - especially at first- emotionally and physically exhausting. The being on the floor constantly with him and the up and down with my huge preggo self has been rough. But then he has really pleasantly surprised me with how quick he has caught on and all the great that he has done. This is the toy he picked out for getting all those stickers on his Mickey chart. Shocking that it's a garbage truck, right?

So proud of our big boy! Keep up the good work!! 

Christmas Week 2015

Here's another picture heavy documentation of the second half of our Christmas vacation. We got to spend the majority of the next week at my parents house. We got home late Saturday (the 19th) from Mexico. Sunday was my birthday :) Tanner gave me the best birthday present...

Since we found out baby #2 was a girl, there has been some good debate about what we should name her. I've still always wanted the same name I've wanted since before we found out Harvey was a boy...Greta. He's been pushing for Ingrid. Also a good one, but I really have had my heart set on Greta. Well, weeks before we went home he had his mom pick up this bracelet. Obviously not an "I". It matches the "H" I have for Harvey and I have another little mother charm he gave me with the "H" for Mother's Day last year. I cried. It was awesome. He's the best. So verdict is in...Greta it is!!

We had a yummy breakfast and then went to church with my parents. After church we headed up to Tanner's parents for our mini family party. It was a little different this year since we had done Mexico, but she still did the tradition of us all getting little Steinbach ornaments. They were all little Mexican guys or airplanes, which I think was so awesome - a perfect way to remember a perfect vacation. Harvey's face in both of these kills me. Just kicking back with the cousins like he's too cool for school. Haha. I thought I took more pictures here, but apparently not.

 

Right after that we headed over to Grandma Elaine's for the Burningham family Christmas party. I didn't take any pictures and haven't acquired the one fam picture they took. But it was fun. Great food. Good socializing and an always entertaining white elephant bingo. Harvey played really well with all the kids and did great for not napping that day. I guess I did take one picture...

He's got the couch lounging down, that's for sure.

I'm having a hard time (only a few weeks later) of remembering exactly what we did and when. I'm sure none of you are worried about those details, so I'll let it go and just say we had a great week. 

Since Harvey, I'm sure, didn't get in enough golf whilst in Mexico, we found some mini-golf at Fat Cat's. We played the 9 holes 3 times and he wasn't a fan of being done. 

He thought this one was cool until he realized he didn't get his ball back.

A little arcade fun... His favorite was the basketball. We bought some airheads with his massive ticket winnings.

 Laura and Dallin came over that night and Harvey was the most precious thing ever with Logan. It makes me so excited to see what kind of a big brother he'll be with little g.

 

One thing that was a necessary evil that had to happen for me was Bruge's Waffles. We met Kathryn and Laura and Dallin at the Sugarhouse location one morning. Fills my heart and soul with sweet waffley joy.

We stopped at the Planetarium on the way home. I'm not sure it was the highlight of Harvey's trip but we had some fun for a little while. We wandered through the gift shop and he honed in on a colorful striped bouncy ball and wanted nothing to do with anything else. I guess he could have had much more expensive taste there than $3. He fell asleep while Tanner was carrying him out to the car. I think he was getting a little sick because we had a few rough moments and fever off and on the next couple of days.

Climbing through a real live space shuttle tire ;)

 

 My parent's had the temple Tuesday evening so we met Tanner's parents at Rio Grande. We rode trax downtown and wandered around City Creek, then ate dinner, then wandered through temple square and took a token picture. It was snowing and SO crowded, so it really was a quick walk through. Then trax back to car and home. I think Harvey thought the train was pretty cool.

We also spent a morning at the Discovery Gateway Children's Museum. That place has been around a while but I'd never been - guess that's not that shocking as I never had a kid when we were around it. Harvey loved it. There was TONS of awesome and fun things. He probably spent the most time in the grocery store and at the ball area. Julie and her girls met us there.

Of course all the balls had to be blue.

I love this picture Tanner snapped.

Love my dad's face in this. Love the big kids playing too!

Hahahaha. That's all I can say. Love my mom.

 

Pretty sure T had equally as much fun.

This makes us laugh. Reminds me of that flu commercial...

 

 

Tanner and I wanted to try the hurricane simulator. Well, Harvey wasn't about to be left out, so we let him come in with us. It was hilarious. He wasn't a fan.

 We also had our first family photo booth experience while there.

Annnndddd...after all that fun...we got to leave like this.

Life is rough, huh, kid?
We did get some yummy food after and he had luckily relaxed by then. Nothing a few garbage truck videos on youtube can't fix.

Some more fun at home...

 My dad really is the best...

Some post fun exhaustion...

One evening we went out to my cousin Ty and his wife Lori's house for dinner with cousins and my aunt Shirley. That was fun. He found the car stash.

Christmas eve was a rough day. I think he wasn't feeling good. Didn't nap. Didn't sleep good the night before. And just was a constant grump and whiner all day. It was hard. We hung out at home that day. Played games and did a puzzle. I saw my friend Brooke. It was a low key day which was probably for the best. We may have started a new tradition though by doing a Lego gift Christmas Eve and putting that together. I think it will stick. Harvey seemed to like it. And I know dad will!

By some miracle, he slept good, and woke up happy. And it was an absolute magical day. He was SO much more fun and entertaining than I was expecting. We woke up and Tanner walked him up to the Christmas tree to show him all the presents. No one was quite ready to attack the presents...except him. He wandered right over to the tree and just started tearing into a present. Luckily it was his, and my mom and dad and Kathryn joined soon after. We took LOTS of pictures. (Weird, I know).

His loot prior to going under the tree.

1st present!!

 

 

 

His Christmas was very truck heavy...if you couldn't tell. The garbage truck was definitely the highlight.

Still missing at least one...

 Trucks are a lot of work...gotta have a milk break.

 Trying to get a little variety...

 My parents gave him a tonka truck, a little tykes dump truck and that hat. The trucks held a little more appeal than the hat :)

After Harvey loaded up on stuff, we watched my parents and Kathryn open their Christmas. Then they gave us some great things too.

 

I got a maternity outfit, including pants that are too comfortable for words. I also got an ice cream maker!! So excited! Tanner got a yeti soda can cooler and a puzzle and sweet gift card.

Then the rest of the fam started showing up. We had aebelskeivers for breakfast...a most delicious tradition. Then we did more family gifts and family gift exchange. The rest of the day was puzzles, games, resting, playing, holding baby Logan, etc. Seriously, it was such a happy and perfect Christmas. Tanner's parents and Grandma Elaine even stopped by for a bit.

 

Harvey got a ball popping gun and shark car from Austin.

Tanner got a arc'teryx shirt from Shane

Poor lighting - got some sweet piano books from Laura

 

My cropping on my phone didn't cross over to the computer. Focus on the cute more central part ;)

 

It was fun that Harvey was so entertained by toys - it left some good time for me to puzzle and relax too. Also after bed we did a little gaming.

Cool artsy photo by Tanner.

Tanner wouldn't cooperate and look at the camera- and again - no cropping saved when putting the pics on the computer. 

Again - a perfect trip home. Mexico and Utah were so great. And the drive back home was even better. We left the trailer, had better weather, broke it into two days, and just everything about it was better. Here's Harv carbo loading for the drive.

And just because it's still Christmas-ey, I'll add these. We had some gingerbread houses that we never got to before we left. So Sunday when we got home we did them. Harv helped with mine, ok?

  And picking the candy off of them after is probably the best part of gingerbread houses, right?

Whew. And now we are solid week into January. January is such a weird month to me. And it feels like Christmas was months ago. I am looking forward to 2016 though, for sure. Lots of big and exciting changes in our future!