The Muppet Movie

Q decided to spend big and take us to see a movie. This is the first movie that we have seen as a family of five, the first movie that the nerdlet has watch the whole thing (she fell asleep at 'How to Train Your Dragon' which was the only other one she had been to), and the first movie ever for the bear cub and Darth Baby.

It was definitely a success. The nerdlet apparently thought she was going to see the penguin movie and kept asking me the whole time when the penguins were coming on. The bear cub clearly had to struggle to stay awake, but she was successful and made us let her free so that she could dance through the credits. They both paid close attention and clearly understood at least somewhat what was going on and the bear cub was signing appropriately for the story line which thrilled me to pieces. Darth Baby fell asleep in my arms about 15 minutes in and slept for the rest of the movie.

I'm so grateful that my girls were incredibly well behaved and that we had a wonderful family outing. I don't know that we will do it again soon as movie prices have gone way up since the last time we went, but at least worrying about the how the girls are going to behave at least won't be a factor when considering it.

The Bear Cub's Signs

I made a list of the signs that I've seen the bear cub use. I may have forgotten some.

again
all done
apple
aunt
baby
ball
banana
bath
bear
bird
book
car
cat
cereal
cheese
chicken
clean
cookie
cracker
dad
dance
dog
down
drink
eat
extra
finished
fish
flower
fold clothes
go
grandma
grandpa
hat
help
ice cream
I love you
jump
like
me
milk
mom
more
music
pet
play
please
potty
rain
shoes
sign
soap
socks
special
spider
stars
thank you
time
train
up
walk
wash hands
water
yeah
you

Potty training was going fairly well after almost three weeks and we were having two or fewer accidents a day and most of those were pee accidents. Then I decided to take her to the National Down Syndrome Congress Convention on Saturday and after four accidents, I put her in a cloth diaper. I didn't take her on Sunday, but my husband and mom had her in a diaper that day, too. If I had known, I would have just put her in a diaper and taken her with me. She's been back in panties since Monday, but is obviously having a hard time with going back to using the potty. We're not having any poop accidents, which I'm really glad about, but I'm a little frustrated with how many pee accidents we're having. I may have to go back to taking her every 10 minutes, but right now I'm resisting the idea as I don't want to feel like I'm spending the day in the bathroom again. Also, even though she uses the sign potty, she doesn't use it to tell me she has to go. She's still doing fairly well, but I hate that we've back stepped a bit.

She does have the routine down though. She will get up after she is done and play with the toilet paper if I don't have some handy. She can't get it off by herself so she'll just unroll it a bit. Then she'll climb the steps to wash her hands. She'll stretch to turn the water, but she's a bit short and will actually scrub her hands once I put soap on them. The hand washing is the best reward for her actually going and she gets upset when she hasn't gone and I don't let her wash her hands.

Another Where Have You Been Post

Last Sunday we baptized Darth Baby.

We had a gathering afterward with food from Tastefully Simple which I had planned to do a separate post on, but I didn't get pictures of the finished food before it started disappearing. I'll post about it in a bit, but there will be a definitely dearth of pictures.

Monday I started potty training the bear cub in force. Poor thing didn't know what hit her. She isn't showing any signs of readiness, but her sister didn't show very many (really only not being wet all the time) and she was potty trained in three days. I knew the bear cub wasn't going to be as easy, but I have a strong belief that if you miss your early window you have a child much older that is still struggling.

I'm using the same technique as I did with the nerdlet which is just to go cold turkey. In the morning, the diaper comes off (with my oldest we didn't do nighttime diapers so slightly different) and she goes on the potty, I entertain her until she goes the first time. Then we go to the potty every 10 to 15 minutes all day long with lots of praise when she gets it. I also offer lots of drinks, but Chloe isn't a big eater or drinker so she isn't really drinking any more than usual. That was pretty much all day all week. I've even been taking her out with panties. Today is day seven and we're at about a 50% on the potty 50% accident. Once we have a higher success rate, I'll move the time to longer between trying.

Bear is tired of potty training though. I put her on the potty and tell her to sign potty as I do it and instead she signs "I baby". She also went over to the diaper changing table and started pulling on the edge like she wanted up. Overall though, I think we're doing okay and she isn't really resisting going to sit even as often as we do it.

My mom and a lot of other people think I'm crazy and I know she isn't ready the way that is traditionally thought, but I have confidence she'll get it. It will just take longer. Of course, you also may see a post in three months that I'm finally giving up for a little bit. I am just that stubborn.