1 May 2007
It's been a very long time since we updated the journal. Raina is a big girl now.
In the interest of fostering potty use, we purchased Raina a baby potty. Raina initially liked playing with it and using the bowl as a hat and as a place to store stuff. Eventually she became interested in sitting on it while a parent was using the real potty. Occasionally she'd pull down her pants and sit on the potty, but her diaper would stay on. Then, one day, Raina made it perfectly clear that she wanted to sit on the potty for real. She brought the potty into the living room, pulled down her pants, said "diaper!", and after Krystal took off the diaper, Raina sat down on the potty and peed. Raina's comment: "hot!" and then "yay!" lots of smiles and clapping. Of course, Krystal and Sammy were dumb-founded and we immediately ran to deal with the bucket of urine sitting in the living room. The funniest part was that she immediately said "more!" and, when mommy didn't respond with okay, she said "more" and gave the MORE! hand sign to be clearer. Unfortunately, making more pee is not an easy thing to do, so we have to promise more practicing time later. Since then, Raina has successfully used the potty a number of times, and has tried but unsuccessfully used the potty as well. She just likes sitting on the potty, and she gets somewhat upset with herself if she cannot pee in the required amount of time. In fact, she'll try -- you visibly see body parts moving as she tries to figure out what triggers peeing -- and then she'll look sad and say "hard." Yes, Raina, peeing is hard.
As a completely unrelated reward, we got a play kitchen for Raina. She likes to play eat the food. In fact, she likes to pretend and play with most everything. All of her stuffed animals make the appropriate sounds and hop or waddle or whatever. Then they all get fierce hugs and kisses from Raina. She's all about distributing the love.
Each Sunday morning, we go to the playground and play. Raina knows the difference between the local playground (just the "playground") and the "big kids" playground, which is at Faust Park. She gets really excited when she hears the words "big kids" and "playground" used in the same sentence. She's tremendously well practiced, doesn't require spotting on the climb up the stairs, and successfully goes down all slides on her own. (This is a HUGE change from last year, when we had to convince her to go down the two-foot slide by posting adults on both ends.) A few weeks back, Sammy and Eric took Raina to the local playground. Raina climbed up the stairs to her favorite slide, and then hesitated. She hesitated a lot. At the same time, Eric was wiping off all the rain water on the bottom of the slide. Sam and Eric both noticed that Raina wasn't going down the slide; in fact, she had started to come back down the stairs in retreat. Puzzled, they encouraged her to go down the slide. She looked to them questioningly, and then did what she was told. Unfortunately, Raina was smarter than Daddy and Sammy, and she saw the HUGE puddle of water she had to sit in to start sliding. But Daddy told her to slide, and so she did. (She's a good kid.) She came down very slowly and with lots of friction. Sammy and Daddy were worried that she was standing up in the slide. (In hindsight, she probably was.) Raina got soaked, and was perfectly happy to call an end to that day's playground trip.
For Easter we put together a half-assed easter egg hunt outside. Unfortunately it was 40 degrees outside and windy, so we had to bundle Raina up. We scattered the "happy eggs" about the yard and let Raina go fetch them. She was very excited to find the eggs, in fact when the hunt was over, she wanted to come inside and hunt again. So we did multiple indoor hunts that day too. All the while Raina would repeat the words "happy eggs" over and over again. One of the hunts was broadcasted live on the inaugural Compton-Whompton web chat.
Krystal's sister moved in with us in March, and Raina very quickly took to her. By just a few days in Raina treated her like another member of the family, whom she expected to read books to her, give her hugs and said goodbye to when it was time to go to bed. And whenever we went anywhere she would ask "Sammy coming?" Oh the power of being able to allocate an entire person's attention to Raina while the other two adults make dinner, clean, shop, or even nap cannot be overstated.
We have never put together a very good routine for napping on the weekends. Often a car-ride is necessary to get her to go to sleep, sometimes she will even request the car ride. But the transfer from the car to the couch inside is a delicate matter that Dad has a much better at than Mom. The key is to make sure that you lie down with Raina for a few minutes so that she goes back into a deep sleep, then you can shluff her off and go do other things. Or you can just simply enjoy the company of a sleeping child.
Raina has always been a bit timid around the former stray cat that hangs out near our house. But now she is downright afraid of it. She will demand the opportunity to cling to a parent and will stare intently at the cat until it leaves, often forcefully saying "No, Meow!!" One weekend daddy was able to get her to go to sleep simply by comforting her after a cat encounter.
In the interest of fostering potty use, we purchased Raina a baby potty. Raina initially liked playing with it and using the bowl as a hat and as a place to store stuff. Eventually she became interested in sitting on it while a parent was using the real potty. Occasionally she'd pull down her pants and sit on the potty, but her diaper would stay on. Then, one day, Raina made it perfectly clear that she wanted to sit on the potty for real. She brought the potty into the living room, pulled down her pants, said "diaper!", and after Krystal took off the diaper, Raina sat down on the potty and peed. Raina's comment: "hot!" and then "yay!" lots of smiles and clapping. Of course, Krystal and Sammy were dumb-founded and we immediately ran to deal with the bucket of urine sitting in the living room. The funniest part was that she immediately said "more!" and, when mommy didn't respond with okay, she said "more" and gave the MORE! hand sign to be clearer. Unfortunately, making more pee is not an easy thing to do, so we have to promise more practicing time later. Since then, Raina has successfully used the potty a number of times, and has tried but unsuccessfully used the potty as well. She just likes sitting on the potty, and she gets somewhat upset with herself if she cannot pee in the required amount of time. In fact, she'll try -- you visibly see body parts moving as she tries to figure out what triggers peeing -- and then she'll look sad and say "hard." Yes, Raina, peeing is hard.
As a completely unrelated reward, we got a play kitchen for Raina. She likes to play eat the food. In fact, she likes to pretend and play with most everything. All of her stuffed animals make the appropriate sounds and hop or waddle or whatever. Then they all get fierce hugs and kisses from Raina. She's all about distributing the love.
Each Sunday morning, we go to the playground and play. Raina knows the difference between the local playground (just the "playground") and the "big kids" playground, which is at Faust Park. She gets really excited when she hears the words "big kids" and "playground" used in the same sentence. She's tremendously well practiced, doesn't require spotting on the climb up the stairs, and successfully goes down all slides on her own. (This is a HUGE change from last year, when we had to convince her to go down the two-foot slide by posting adults on both ends.) A few weeks back, Sammy and Eric took Raina to the local playground. Raina climbed up the stairs to her favorite slide, and then hesitated. She hesitated a lot. At the same time, Eric was wiping off all the rain water on the bottom of the slide. Sam and Eric both noticed that Raina wasn't going down the slide; in fact, she had started to come back down the stairs in retreat. Puzzled, they encouraged her to go down the slide. She looked to them questioningly, and then did what she was told. Unfortunately, Raina was smarter than Daddy and Sammy, and she saw the HUGE puddle of water she had to sit in to start sliding. But Daddy told her to slide, and so she did. (She's a good kid.) She came down very slowly and with lots of friction. Sammy and Daddy were worried that she was standing up in the slide. (In hindsight, she probably was.) Raina got soaked, and was perfectly happy to call an end to that day's playground trip.
For Easter we put together a half-assed easter egg hunt outside. Unfortunately it was 40 degrees outside and windy, so we had to bundle Raina up. We scattered the "happy eggs" about the yard and let Raina go fetch them. She was very excited to find the eggs, in fact when the hunt was over, she wanted to come inside and hunt again. So we did multiple indoor hunts that day too. All the while Raina would repeat the words "happy eggs" over and over again. One of the hunts was broadcasted live on the inaugural Compton-Whompton web chat.
Krystal's sister moved in with us in March, and Raina very quickly took to her. By just a few days in Raina treated her like another member of the family, whom she expected to read books to her, give her hugs and said goodbye to when it was time to go to bed. And whenever we went anywhere she would ask "Sammy coming?" Oh the power of being able to allocate an entire person's attention to Raina while the other two adults make dinner, clean, shop, or even nap cannot be overstated.
We have never put together a very good routine for napping on the weekends. Often a car-ride is necessary to get her to go to sleep, sometimes she will even request the car ride. But the transfer from the car to the couch inside is a delicate matter that Dad has a much better at than Mom. The key is to make sure that you lie down with Raina for a few minutes so that she goes back into a deep sleep, then you can shluff her off and go do other things. Or you can just simply enjoy the company of a sleeping child.
Raina has always been a bit timid around the former stray cat that hangs out near our house. But now she is downright afraid of it. She will demand the opportunity to cling to a parent and will stare intently at the cat until it leaves, often forcefully saying "No, Meow!!" One weekend daddy was able to get her to go to sleep simply by comforting her after a cat encounter.
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