Some fun with Allie

I started this post in early to mid-November. I had high hopes to get caught up before the holidays with this and other posts. Well, it clearly didn't happen, so I will be trying to slowly but surely catch up on our lives. I am going to put the date from when the picture or video was taken underneath of it for our own sake.

**********************************************************************************

Allie keeps us smiling, most of the time. She is such an energetic girl who loves to sing, dance, and read. She loves being a big sister. She also loves trying her parents' patience. But I guess that just comes with her being 2 years old.

Potty Training

Allie has decided that she wants to wear "big girl underwear" and only wears diapers during nap, at night, long drives, and at church. We have gone out to a few different stores with her in her underwear, and we avoided accidents by taking her to the bathroom every 30 minutes. She is getting more confident and will often run to the bathroom and want to do it by herself when she hears the timer. She has gone a day or two without accidents, but then there are other days (like today*) in which she has had several accidents. Granted, I did try stretching her to 35-38 minutes today. I cannot say that we love potty training. We just keep reminding ourselves that it will be worth it. Others have told me that I will look back on this time with fondness; we'll see about that. Allie's dentist said that potty training is the reason she only has two children. We'll have more than that if it is the Lord's will, but I now dread having to potty train however many we end up having.

*Added in late November: I started creating this post a little over a week ago. Allie can usually go 45 minutes or so without having accidents. But some days are still better, or worse, than others.

Due to the lack of schedule during and around the holidays, Allie's potty training has not been extremely great. By the end of November, she was going about every hour and 20 minutes without accident, but then it all went down hill. She currently can recognize when she needs to go, and if she is in her big girl underwear (which is still anytime other than nap, night, long drives, and church), she'll usually let us know so that we can get her to the bathroom in time. We had actually had a few successful Sundays without a pull-up at church, but they give her so much water in nursery that we are just going to wait a little longer. A few weeks ago, Allie gave them a two second warning and then made a nice puddle on the floor and in her shoes. Yeah, we're in no hurry to repeat that. Lately, after her nap, she doesn't want to go and wants to stay in her pull-up. She cries when we try to get her to go. Also, She does not like washing her hands and has been crying about it with each trip to the bathroom. We tried hand sanitizer, but that, "hurt [her] hands." We put lotion on, but she cries/whines about that, too. When we do finally get her to go potty, she wants to take FOREVER on the toilet. You can ask if she is done, and she just won't answer. She'll sing, talk to stuffed animals she has brought in - Anything but answer the question. We're trying to be patient and just hope it gets better. We should have a more regular schedule for awhile. I think anyway.

We were using a potty success chart and stickers to help Allie get motivated at first. After going "poo poo on potty 5 times," Allie would get a "big ice cream." You use what you need to for motivation in these situations. 

Before
Excited for her ice cream.
Oct 22, 2011

After
Getting every last bit off the stick.

Allie went through a stacking phase. She will still do it sometimes, but it seemed like she was doing it daily for awhile. Here are some pictures of her stacking blocks on the table.

Sept 23, 2011

She was very excited about how tall it was getting!

But then the inevitable happened, and she was NOT happy about it.

She would also stack the letters on the refrigerator.

Nov 14, 2011

Allie loves to watch videos. We have always tried to limit how much she watches, but when we were first adjusting to having Rachel, we let her watch more than normal. Because of that, she came to expect videos almost all day, everyday. She would wake up and ask, "video?" or "DVD?" We would tell her no, and she would break down. So we decided to hide all of the DVDs so that she couldn't see them and/or grab them and demand to watch it. It worked very well. We just told her that they were hiding, and she didn't throw a fit. So little by little, she started entertaining herself better. We then started using DVDs as a reward for things, such as being nice and going potty. We feel she watches a much healthier amount these days.

Here's a picture of her relaxing while watching a video.

Oct 26, 2011

Back when the weather was still nice, or before we started having occasional cold weather, we would take Allie to Theta pond on campus to feed the ducks and fish. Here are some pictures from an outing with Daddy.

Oct 1, 2011

We ordered some big girl bedding for Allie from Target. It came in a huge box. Allie had a blast jumping off of the chair (to the right of the box) into the packaging bubbles.

Oct 7, 2011

She makes us laugh by doing random things like sitting on the car seat cover that was drying on the back of a chair. There is a backpack on the chair acting as a counterweight. She just took a seat and was eating her banana.

Allie used to go to sleep so wonderfully for us. She'd even sleep through the night. There was even a time when she would get excited about bedtime. But it is no longer that way. There have been so many nights, whether she has had a nap or not, that she just will not go to sleep. We've tried letting her read books until she goes to sleep.

There were 16 books on her bed.

And that worked pretty well for about a week. But then she was up to 12 am or even 1:30 am again. We have been hoping that it would just get better. And since I am writing this two months after I started the post, I can say that it is improving. It just isn't great yet.

One night she fell asleep on the glider chair in her room. We then moved her to her bed.

Nov 15, 2011

Allie is learning her letters. She has been able to sing the ABC's (pretty well) for awhile. She is beginning to recognize many letters and is learning what letter different words start with. For example, if she see's the letter, "R" she will say, "Rachel letter R." She's also got A for Allie, D for Daddy, Mmm for Mommy (she says the sound), and then will identify many others either by name or sound.

Oct 10, 2011

She really loves singing.

Nov 15, 2011

Nov 15, 2011

She really is a pretty good big sister. Allie has her moments in which she pesters Rachel, but I think it is mostly to get our attention or to get a rise out of us. But here are some pictures and videos of her being pretty cute and sweet.

This first one isn't actually with Rachel, but it is still pretty cute.

Oct 6, 2011

I can't remember what I was needing to do, but I asked Allie if she wanted to read a book to Rachel to keep her happy. Allie was glad to help out and Rachel was pretty interested, too.

Oct 8, 2011

She has read books to her several more times since then.

Nov 8, 2011

Rachel loves her sister. There are so many times when I am just about to tell Allie to stop what she is doing when Rachel starts laughing and smiling. 

Nov 14, 2011

Though not too bad in this next video, there are times when Allie can be a little too helpful or pretty bossy with Rachel. She has gagged Rachel with a binky before, but not in this video. And actually, by the time this video was taken, Rachel didn't actually take a pacifier anymore. She would just chew on them.

Nov 14, 2011

For awhile, Allie was a great motivator for exercising. She would really get into it. I think I would burn a few extra calories by laughing during the workout.

Oct 3, 2011

There are times when Allie must do something that she has put her mind to. Cutting a roll with a fork was one of those things. She kept saying, "me do it" and "mine turn." We hear those words a lot. She is two, isn't she?

Oct 19, 2011

I swapped babysitting with a friend a few times before the mornings got too cold (she would play tennis while I watched her daughter). Her daughter, Rosemary, and Allie would have a lot of fun together. Here's a cute clip of them on our recliner watching a Baby Einstein sampler DVD.

Oct 6, 2011

Allie also went through a phase in which she like to skip. We never got a video of it, but she would love to skip, especially while holding Daddy's hand. They'd skip together going into Walmart. It was pretty cute.