She did it!

My daughter totally amazes me. I am declaring her potty trained and am going to donate her unused diapers! Yeah, yeah, yeah! For a while there, she was having troubles with #2 in that she was holding it for a really long time- like a couple of days, but yesterday and today, she didn't even tell me she had to go. She just went to the potty on her own, did her business and came to tell me so that I can give her a candy, clean the potty chair and wipe her. I never would have guessed it could be so easy after the cosmic sized struggle we had with Ivan. I think a lot of it has to do with her being the second in birth order and her easy going personality too. I am glad we had Ivan initiate us first. If we'd had the easier ordeal first we would have been severely worried over the struggle of it, plus we may not have been very understanding and compassionate with other parents' struggles. I am so happy for her, for us! Now I just need to ween her off the candy each time, which won't be hard. I go to stickers, then just praises and voila! Plus with Ivan's birthday and halloween around the corner, she will be having candy for just no reason.

Ivan is being a total blast too. He learned to play slap jack yesterday and loves it. Right now he is "helping" his daddy with the blower (yes we still have to mow lawns here). He is super sweet most the time with his little sis, giving her kisses and hugs. He likes to be the caregiver, tucking her in at night and taking care of her. He is starting to navigate more and more the difficult field of social relations and is doing so pretty valiantly. Brian heard him go up to a boy he didn't know and say "hi, I'm Ivan, what's your name". Only I think the boy only knows Spanish so it didn't go over so well. But he tried!


We are getting closer on choosing our 3rd baby's name, so that is a profound relief. I really don't like thinking of the baby as "the baby". I like to think of her with her name, even if we won't be telling any of you. By the way I don't know if you were trying to lure the name out of Ivan, mom, but I heard his side of the conversation when he was saying "I don't know what the baby's name is" and then he said "what do you think we should name the baby?". Dominique wants to name the baby other baby's names like Lilly (Isaiah's sister) or Micah (the boy we keep).


I am excited about having another day to recoup, but need to clean the house some again, sigh. I had a baby party Thurs. morning, so we had to clean Wed. night and it's already a mess again.