Taking Care of Business

We are potty training. And no, this is not one of those times when the presumptuous man says something annoying like, 'we are pregnant.' No, I've recently learned that when your child is potty training, the whole world is potty training with her. Whole world in this case being:
1. Me
2. Meredith
3. Oma
4. Opa
5. Gram
6. Grandpa
7. Panela, Serita, Ameena, Melinda, Belu, Teri and everyone else working at her daycare
8. All the other kids at the daycare
9. People at the BJ's in Plymouth Meeting
10. All people driving on Ridge Avenue at around 6:00 PM on Sunday
11. All the people at the playground in Whitemarsh
12. Kristin Sladen
13. Everyone enduring this ranting blog

Indulge me please as I explain Ellie's approach to taking care of business this fine Sunday.
Ellie and her second cousin, Cassin
As long time readers of this blog already know, Sunday is Meredith's day to sleep in, so I got up with Ellie that morning. Now, we've been very seriously potty training this whole week, but up to this point, daycare, Oma and Opa and Meredith have done all the heavy lifting. I've only had to cheer, participate in some "Potty Parades" (I'll get to that) and generally tell Ellie with all sincerity how incredibly proud I am of her. Ah, how I miss those laid back days at work.

We start the morning as usual, with your basic playtime. I had changed her from her overnight sleeping attire (including diaper) into some clothes for the day including her big girl underpants. We were playing Sesame Street when all of the sudden it's Niagara Falls in our basement. Ellie wet her underpants, the rug, and I'm pretty sure the cement underneath that. It caught her by surprise - she is crushed and frankly, I don't think I was as positive as I should have been because from that moment on, Ellie wanted to switch back to diapers. It's not that I was negative at all, but this situation had left her in a state of shock and I was busy cleaning, not comforting.

This sucks for many reasons. Not only had everyone else that week been tremendously successful at the training, this was the first time Ellie and I had been alone for hours and I blew it. All the efforts that came before me from so many people and now, she's not going to be out of diapers until she's five. (I do tend to exaggerate.) Nevertheless, this is what is going through my mind. Finally, Ellie and I get out of the house, avec diapers, and get ourselves thoroughly distracted with the playground and coffee at Wawa. I explain to her that when we get home we're going to make pancakes, wake mommy and try to sit on the potty again. She's an open -minded-get-back-on-the-horse kind of gal.
Daddy and Ellie in a Potty Parade
Fast forward past two mini-tantrums with Meredith about going on the potty and around 10:30 - she pees on the potty. This is big. This calls for an all out, bust a move, run in circles like an idiot singing your heart out Potty Parade to get her back in the swing of things. What pray tell you ask is a 'potty parade'? Why, it's only a huge celebration of all things Ellie going on the potty. Whenever she goes, we all look in the potty. Then we start to sing and dance and march around in circles to the glories of Ellie going on the potty. It may seem forced and contrived to the outsider, but the sheer excitement and joy a parent feels when their child is beaming with pride at their opus in the toilet is quite genuine. She has not been inspired to use the potty by offerings of stickers or toys or other rewards/bribes. Nope, it's the Potty Parade that our little one loves.

This is just the beginning, because after that it's a litany of poop and pee in the potty all morning and early afternoon. Truly it was exciting, but the real test comes after her nap. So, fast forward past the nap. We're heading to BJ's for some major shopping. The tension builds as Ellie asks for some juice in the car. Oh boy. Juice runs through her like the Mississippi. The clock is ticking. We get parked and get in the store and Ellie says she has to go potty. Oh boy. Fortunately, on the suggestion of her mother, Meredith purchased a literal port-o-potty yesterday that is collapsible and fits in the diaper bag. Ellie's never used it and we've certainly never gone in a public restroom. Oh boy. They rush off to the bathroom. I wait anxiously for the news dreading the sense of defeat that can only come when a star on the rise suffers a terrible defeat (see: USA relay teams trying to hand off a baton.)

They emerge and Ellie spots me and runs over with a huge grin, 'Daddy, I peed in the potty!!!!' I throw her up in the air, kissing her on the way down with cheers and high fives. You did it, Ellie!!! You listened to your body and peed in the potty. Announcements come over the loudspeaker: Attention BJ's shoppers, Ellie Molloy has peed in the potty! The place erupts in an ecstasy of pride and joy. ( I tend to exaggerate.) Nevertheless, people around us must have thought we were crazy.


Our potty break in the parking lot (yes I had the camera!)
The tests came fast and furious after that though. Later we're leaving BJ's and as we approach a particularly long light, a tiny voice in the car seat in back says, 'Daddy, I have to potty.' Oh boy. "Hang on Ellie, as soon as we get though the light I'll pull over, can you hold it?" Oh boy. The light of course takes longer than ever and the other side has a left turn arrow of course, C'MON!!!!!! We pull into the vacant restaurant parking lot right on a major road and like a Chinese Synchronized Diving Team, Meredith and I are working in perfect harmony. We get Ellie over near a wall and within seconds she is peeing out in the middle of the wide open air without a misappropriated drop to be found! Of course, we do a HUGE potty parade on this one throughout the whole parking lot. Drivers staring at us be damned, we are potty parading like there's no tomorrow.

But wait, we're not done yet. For those of you still reading it actually gets more exciting. We stop at her favorite playground on the way home and she pees again. This is big because she actually stopped playing, communicated she had to go potty, and we ran like lightning to the public restroom and again, a perfect potty 10. We stayed at the playground for a really long time and ended up having a little BM accident, but in the grand scheme of things, we'll just gloss over that.
Ellie and Meredith with Ellie's Great-Grandmother (Nanny)
At home she goes two more times, but it was this last one that was the most exciting. Ellie had already eaten her dinner and so we let her go watch Wiggles while we ate our own. Silence from down stairs... I check on her. Everything is fine. As the meal wears on, silence still from below. The phone rings and Meredith needs to take it (it is Kristin returning her call) so I go downstairs to check on things. I get to the bottom of the stairs and ask her if she needs to go potty. Ellie casually tells me that she went to the potty, and points it out to me. And she has, in fact, used the potty. Completely and totally on her own. Neither of us there to ask her if she needs to go, neither of us there to help her get her undies down, neither of us there to help her on her seat or hold her hand as she goes (she likes to hold hands while she goes and frankly, wouldn't you?). She went to the potty and was pulling her undies up all by herself. My little girl was taking care of business. And this is one of the best days of my life.

Training Day

Spending the past few weeks watching the Olympics really had me thinking about all of the rigorous and persistent training that goes into getting someone to compete as an Olympic athlete. The hours and hours of effort and work to get those athletes to that point. It also made me realize that potty training is well named. It is training. It is hard, tireless work. And we are knee deep.

That's right, the Molloy family has taken a real plunge into potty training. Potty training involves lots of reminders, patience, persistence, and a delicate balance of support and encouragement without being overbearing and obnoxious. And feeling like you can never leave the house. And talking about bodily functions so much that you cannot remember the last time you had a conversation that did not involve some variation of the words "potty" "pee" or "poop". (It's a good thing we aren't going out much because no one would want to have a conversation with us right now!) Training, we have found, is all-consuming. We have been dabbling with the idea of potty training for many months. Elise been interested in it for a while now and has even successfully used the potty several times in the past six months. But we never really did anything proactive about it - no real training, I think in part because we were hoping that she'd one day say "I don't want to wear diapers anymore" and magically start using the potty all the time. You hear stories about that happening all of the time. Everyone I know has a story like that! So, as it is in our nature to be lazy, we were hoping that's how it would be with Elise.

About a week and a half ago, we went to pick up Elise at daycare and Panela (the head teacher in her class) mentioned in passing that Elise's pal and classmate, Sara Jane, was completely potty trained after just two weeks. We were amazed. Sara Jane is only a few weeks older than Ellie, and Sara Jane's mom and I were talking about the possibility of potty training just a month ago. What this means is, if we want Elise to be potty trained, we, like Sara Jane's parents, are going to have to actually do something about it and not just sit back and wait for it to magically happen. It boiled down to this: either we give it a real shot now, or we wait until the spring or summer so that we're not trying to potty train with a new baby in the house. After much debate and discussion between us and some of the teachers at daycare, we decided to go ahead and go for it. She is showing an interest now, and she might be inspired by Sara Jane, as well as another classmate, Andrea, who had also just started training.

The first few days did not go so well. Panela suggested having Elise sit on the potty every 30 minutes throughout the day to get her comfortable with sitting on the potty, and to help determine her regular schedule so we can anticipate when she'd have to go. Being the headstrong child that she is, Elise suddenly never wanted to sit on the potty (even though she loved doing it before she was asked to) and tended to pee the nano-second I put her diaper back on. So after one frustrating weekend, I was ready to give up. Then last Monday she went to school and suddenly the momentum was back! She came running out to greet me, telling me that she used the potty and wanted some Dora underwear (apparently she easily caves to peer pressure because Sara Jane and Andrea both wear Dora underwear). Turns out, she'd had a very successful day, wearing underwear all day at school and successfully using the potty three times! I immediately jumped on the Dora underwear bandwagon.

Since then, we have been making strong and steady progress. She is still not able to make it through nap or the night without an accident, but for the most part, she is averaging about 1-2 accidents (while she's awake) per day. I am so pleased with the progress she has made in just one short week! Of course I know that any kind of training is going to be on-going and yes, we will face setbacks along the way. But I also feel invigorated by Ellie's success and by the efforts of all of the many, many people involved in the training process thus far. It's amazing the overwhelming, beaming pride you feel for your child for doing something as simple as peeing on the potty. I totally know how Michael Phelp's mom feels...

Wit and Wisdom - 2 Year Old Style

Elise has been coming up with the most random and hilarious things this week. Here are just a few examples:

Ellie and neighbor Miles are playing in the yard, when Miles runs into his house to grab a snack. He comes back out with two individually wrapped string cheeses and hands one to Ellie. She looks at it for a moment, then hands it back as she says,
"I actually don't eat cheese."

-------------------------------------------------------
Ellie pretends to take Mommy's nose off of her face "I took Mommy's nose." she tells me, "I'm going to put it in the washing machine. It's gonna clean it."

-------------------------------------------------
Ellie on the phone with Oma "So...whatcha been doing?"

------------------------------------------
Mommy: "What do you think we should we name the baby Ellie?"
Ellie: "Um...Mommy."
Mommy: "That name is already taken. Can you think of another one? A name for the baby?"
Ellie: "Elise"
Mommy: "How about a name that is not already the name of someone in our house?"
Ellie: "Daddy."
Mommy: "Sweetie - Mommy, Elise and Daddy are all of our names already. What do you think we should name the baby?"
Ellie: "Pee-pee"
Mommy: "You think that we should name the baby Pee-pee?"
Ellie: "Yeah. Pee-pee"
Mommy: "Ok, you officially have no say in naming this baby."

------------------------------------------------------------
Ellie finishes her pancakes, so Opa cuts up his pancake and puts it on Ellie's plate. Ellie pats him on the back and says "Good sharing Opa."

-----------------------------------------------------
Mommy and Ellie using the potty together, Ellie on her little potty, Mommy on the big potty. Ellie asks Mommy if she wants the Elmo toilet insert for toddlers that she usually puts on the big potty when she goes on there. Mommy declines, but Ellie is adamant so Mommy takes it and rests the potty seat behind her back and does her business. Ellie says "Yay! Mommy peed on Elmo!"

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mommy: "We're going to see Oma and Opa today!"
Ellie: "I love Oma and Opa - they're not too loud"

Visits Near and Far

This past week was full of visits near and far - some more exciting than others! It started out on Monday when we had to take Elise to the doctor to get her elbow looked at again. For the fourth time since the first time it happened, Elise got "nurse maid's elbow" (sort of a dislocation of the elbow). The last few times it has happened, we did the maneuver the doctor did in the hospital and set it back into place. But for whatever reason, this time it just did not go back, so we had to enlist help from the doctor. Our pediatrician suggested that we have a consultation with an orthopedic surgeon to make sure that she will not need surgery to fix this issue. Once it happens the first time, it does happen a lot more easily and more often, but now it's becoming a serious problem in that she is doing random things to pull it out of place herself. The idea that she would need surgery is absolutely terrifying, and hopefully it will not come to that. While at the pediatricians office, she mentioned that Ellie should not still be getting the eye "gunk" that she still gets (she seems to often get mucousy eyes - not pink eye, just mucous) and it seems like she may have blocked tear ducts and may need to get tubes in her eyes to alleviate the problem. So, we also got a referral for the optometrist too. Urgh. Our poor little baby! We'll try to schedule these appointments next month.




On Tuesday, I took her to her first ever appointment with an allergist. Even though I was dreading putting Ellie through the testing, I have been looking forward to this for two years now so that we can FINALLY have some answers as to what Ellie is definitively allergic to. It has been frustrating that she seems to always have a rash, hives, runny nose, eczema, etc and we are never completely sure what is causing it, so we are unsure what to avoid to keep it from happening again. For example, in the last few days at Bethany Beach, she developed this horrible rash/eczema on the backs of her legs. Even though she didn't really complain about it, it looked really horrible - the type of thing that strangers stare at and steer their children away from so that they won't contract whatever disease our child has. It was awful. But where did it come from - the suntan lotion? chlorine from the pool? did she eat something she's allergic to? It could have been any number of things and we never did figure it out - it just cleared up after several days and applications her prescription eczema cream.





Anyway, the allergist was probably the nicest man on the planet - and he was even better with Ellie than our pediatrician! He had her laughing and feeling comfortable within seconds. She did not even cry for the whole thing (and we were there for more than an hour) - I was so proud of her! They used a plastic tester thing to prick her back with 18 different common allergens, then we waited for 15 minutes to see the results. And the results were... negative. ALL OF THEM. Even the dairy one! So now, basically, I am more frustrated than ever. I swear I am not imagining that Elise is always randomly breaking into a rash or getting hives. I know for a fact that after she eats something that lists milk as an ingredient, she develops and rash and hives several hours later. I have seen this. Other people have seen this too. We are not all crazy! So, basically the allergist said that we will now do a blood test. And if the blood test comes back negative, we will do a "dairy challenge" (give her a big ol' glass of milk and wait to see if there is a reaction) in his office. It is possible that she has outgrown the allergy (she has not had dairy since 18 months) but he did say that usually children outgrow the dairy allergy at 1 year or 5 years. Who knows. Regardless of the dairy thing, it does not explain why Elise has an almost constant runny nose and rash. This test basically said she is allergic to nothing. He did say that it is possible that she just has extremely sensitive skin - but what does that mean? Again, there is nothing that can be done about that. So we are back to square one apparently.



Heidi, Riley, Heather, Tyler, Ellie and me on our college campus
Now, for the fun visit! On Thursday after we picked Elise up from Marty's parents house, we headed down to Fredericksburg, VA for a weekend visit with some friends from college. Our friend Heidi (and her 3 year old daughter Riley) hosted while Meredith, Ryan and their new baby Evan, were in from California for a wedding. It's a pretty lengthy trip (4-5 hours) and as you know Elise has been notoriously nightmarish in the car since birth, so we have never attempted the trip down there before now. She has gotten a lot better about being in the car, but still her tolerance for being the car seat is still fairly limited. So we thought that if we left around 7:30pm, she would sleep in the car most of the way and our problems would be solved. We did not anticipate that:


1) She would not fall asleep until after 9pm


2) We would hit no traffic whatsoever and make it down there in a smidgen less than 4 hours - arriving a little before 11pm


3) There would be so much excitement when we got there (dog, baby, new people) that she would see her two hour sleep in the car more as a nap and would be ready to go
Ellie, Evan, Riley and Tyler - probably the only time Evan cried the whole time so the girls were trying to comfort him



We put her down in the pack n' play and visited for a little while with Heidi, Meredith and Ryan, then headed to bed around 12:30. Elise was still wide awake, playing in the bed. We tried telling her it was bed time and ignoring her, but she was making lots of noise, banging around, standing up and whispering "Mommy, can I get up?" and "I want to play with the dog" that no one was getting any sleep. Finally at 1:30 am it became obvious that ignoring her wasn't working and she wasn't going to magically get tired and go to sleep, so we all got up and went for a walk around Heidi's neighborhood. Ellie had fun chasing after frogs and looking at the stars (which she doesn't see at home because we live in a big city and also because she is usually in bed before stars come out). After an hour of walking around, we got back to the house, read a book and FINALLY all got to sleep at around 3am. Luckily, she slept until about 9am, instead of her usual 6am!

Me and Ellie, Meredith T. and Evan, Heather and Tyler, Heidi and Riley

On Friday, another good friend from college, Heather, and her son Tyler (17 months) came up from Richmond, and Shoshana and her girls (Regan 3, Lauren 17 months) came up from Raleigh. It was so much fun (if not completely surreal) to watch all of our kids play together and to catch up with each other. Even with the crazy sleep situation the night before, Elise was in a pretty good mood and had fun running around with the other kids and despite of all the excitement even went down for a decent nap (after a lot of work on Daddy's part). She didn't even seem to bat an eye when I was holding baby Evan (it was the first time she's seen me hold a baby and not get jealous), which makes me feel more confident about her reaction to Juan in a few months.
Tyler, Ellie and Riley



Unfortunately, Shoshana had to head home, but the rest of us went over to Mary Washington's campus to reminisce about the good old college days and walk around. Elise had a blast playing in the fountain and pushing her baby in the stroller. It was bizarre to see our child playing in the same spots where I hung out with friends, "studied", and first met Marty! After the campus visit, we got frozen custard from local hot spot Carl's (yum!) and then went back to Heidi's to visit a little longer before Meredith, Ryan, Evan, Heather and Tyler all left.





Riley and Ellie boogie down
On Saturday, Ellie and Riley continued to play and have a blast together at the playground and at Heidi's house. If only Juan could come out a 3 year old girl, we would be set! Ellie was completely enamored by Riley - wanted to do everything she did and followed her around constantly, and Riley had an equally great time telling Ellie what to do! There was little to no arguing over toys or anything else, so it was pleasant for all of us. We'd originally planned to stay all day Saturday and head out Saturday night (so that she could sleep in the car) but after the disastrous staying up until 3am incident from Thursday, we decided to go ahead and get on the road in the afternoon and take our chances. She slept in the car for the first two hours or so (unfortunately the traffic was so terrible that only got us to DC - I'd forgotten how much I hate Northern Virginia traffic!) and for the next two hours she did really well. Then we stopped in Delaware for dinner and a break from the car - and Marty and Ellie ran around in the parking lot like maniacs for about 30 minutes to burn off some energy. Marty joined Ellie in the backseat for the last leg of the trip and did a wonderful job keeping her entertained and distracted.


Regan shares a necklace with Ellie


We used Sunday to recuperate from the busy week and have been enjoying the boring, trip-free week!

Luscious, Luscious Hair

Ok, I admit it. Ellie has been "follicle-challenged" for the first two years of her life because of me. Yes, it's my fault. No, I haven't been cutting her hair (although people actually ask me that all of the time - honestly why would I cut my child's hair into a mullet? why?) but I definitely did bring on the baldness. When Ellie was first born and the doctor announced that we were parents to a baby girl, I admit, my first irrational feeling was panic. Hair-induced panic. A little girl means doing little girl hair. It means pony tails and pig tails and braids. It means all of these things that I haven't the slightest clue how to do.

As the mother, all eyes are going to be on me to make sure my daughter has presentable hair. When she has a lumpy, lopsided ponytail people are going to look at me like I'm the crazy one. Not Marty; he is not expected to know how to do such things. In fact, he is expected to make her hair look silly. People will laugh and say, "Oh men can never do little girls hair" and think it's cute when Marty puts her hair up all lopsided and lumpy, but if I do it people will think that I am a terrible mother. It's sexist but true! Not to mention, she has this gorgeous red hair that everyone stares at and comments on so her hair is a focal point to begin with. Everyone on the planet will be paying even more attention to her hair and will be judging my hairstyling skills! So I began to panic, right in those first few hours after giving birth. How does one learn to put a pony tail into a child's hair without big lumps in it? I can't even do that to my own hair. I wonder if there is a class that I could take...

Well, here we are two years later and it is still not an issue for me. Not because I magically learned how to do hair but because my daughter still does not have enough hair to put into a ponytail, therefore I cannot make it lopsided and lumpy. Hence, I jinxed my child with baldness. However, we've noticed in the last few weeks that things are actually happening in the hair department. It's like she turned two and the jinx wore off and all of a sudden she's growing hair. Don't get me wrong, she's still no Rapunzel, but she does actually have a little bit of hair on the top of her head and it's really coming in in the back and it's getting fuller and thicker. And it's curly! (Marty and I both have stick straight hair, so we have no idea where that came from - maybe it's a red head thing)

The funny thing is that Ellie loves hair. She loves having her hair brushed, and loves brushing other people's hair. She will stand perfectly still for an obscene amount of time (she doesn't stand still for anything else ever) to let you brush her hair. And when you're done, she runs over to look in the mirror and says "I pretty!" I have no idea where she gets this from, believe me it's not something we've taught her. She just loves her hair. I predict that she'll actually need her first haircut in the next six months. It's crazy to think that sometime soon she will actually have so much hair that some will need to be cut off, but I do believe that is on the horizon.

I am not panicked about putting a pony tail in her hair anymore though. My skills have not improved and I do think I will be horrible at it, but honestly it doesn't bother me anymore. I have come to realize, that like everything else with parenting, there will be trial and error, but eventually you figure it out. Besides, so what if her pony tail is lopsided and lumpy? It won't mean that people will think I'm a bad mother. They will think her father did her hair.

Ellie-isms

When Marty's sister, Amy, and her friend Laura left the beach house after a week of hanging out with Ellie, they both pointed out that they have begun to talk like her. It's true, Ellie has tons of catch phrases and ways she says certain words that are addictive - Marty and I catch ourselves talking like her all the time too. Here are some of the Ellie-isms that you can't help but pick up when you spend a lot of time in her presence:

"Who dat?"
"O-Tay"
"Um....Sure"
"Sounds good"
"Dat's not so bad"
"Dat's tastey!" or "dat's not tastey" (to describe whether or not she likes something she's eating)
"I don't like it"
"Dat's too noisy"
"I bumped the head" (meaning I bumped my head)
"neneneneneno...don't do it"
"soooo much" (in response to someone saying I love you)
"Dat's not nice"
"how about this one?"
"and Louie too?" (fill in any name)
















Ellie with her cousins Abby (5) and Nate (14)