Breath, Valeria

Valeria cries. That’s what she does.

Everything makes her cry. And once she starts getting td hard to stop her and reason, which is why I asked her to do. 

This weekend I came up with an idea. 

I ask her to breath in and breath out deeply. 

I showed her how it’s done. She did it with me. 

It made her stop crying 

It is very cute to see her trying to do the deep breaths to calm down. But she is working on them. Everytime I say stop and breath, she does it and tries to calm herself down. Then she listens. 

Potty trained

So Saturday she went potty on her own at the open house for the condo we bought. 

Yesterday, all day she either went without being asked or asked to go. 

I was driving in back roads when I made a turn to get back on main road to get into family dollar. 

Left poor Valeria sleeping in the car and ran inside, asked for a bathroom, and ran. 

Ding ding dong

Yesterday Alexandra pointed at a fast food restaurant and said :

I want to eat at ding ding dong. 

It was Taco Bell. 

Potty head

Do I’ve always heard this and it’s true that when you’re trying to get your child to potty train your whole life becomes about pee and poop. 

Truly the majority of my thinking time was occupied by those things. You kind of wonder what did life used to be like before you spent 95% of your time wondering whether or not the child has gone potty. 

I had also been told to be ready for accidents and not to get upset at the child when those happened, but simply remind them of the right thing to do. Now that is s patience exercise. 

Alexandra seemed to know exactly what to do. And she seemed to know it from day one back in August when we seriously started the process of practicing the potty use. 

Late August to late January. Five months - that’s what it took for this child to learn to go on her own or to not go in her pants (ie do that peepee dance til she’s prompted to go). If I could I’d have thrown in the towel long before this day. Back when she seemed to just not get it. 

But just a few weeks ago, I caught her doing the peepee dance. “Let’s go! Can you hold it!” She did. 

Then a few days ago she jumped off her chair and said - “do you know we’re supposed to do this when we feel like peeing?”

“No, no. You’re supposed to go! Go now!”

She did. 

Next day, “I need a diaper!” 

“No, you need to go!”

She did. 

Then yesterday she just went. Without being asked. 

And Valeria noticing all the commotion has begun to ask to sit on the potty (a few days ago), and today she sat there and peed! We were so excited!!!

Well, as I said, your life becomes about pee and poop. 

Alexandra Paying for her own groceries

Alexandra had previously asked me to pay for groceries. I handed her the credit card and walked her through the process. I’ve explained to her that every time we used a credit card a little bit of our money was taken from our bank and given to Walmart. 

I have also been telling them them that whenever we want something from a store we must pay for it. 

A few days after Christmas, we were at Walmart shopping their Christmas sale, and as usual, I let them play in the toy section. Alexandra grabbed a toy shopping cart and, after checking the price, I figured I’d buy it for her. 

However she did the shopping. 

When it was time to go, She pushed her little cart all the way to the register, stood in line and put her groceries (the whole toy cart) on the belt. She paid for it with my credit card and then bid the cashier farewell.