We have begun.

So far, she's making some small steps, and though they're small, that's more than where we were. She's peed and pooped in the potty so far. She's also had many accidents. Accidents, however, are part of the learning process.

Firstly, let me tell you what started this whole "journey" (if you will).
Sometime last month, I decided that, while I was no longer fully concerned with the potty, I was going to try again with two new tactics that I hadn't tried before. We found a doll that wets (though she's not interested in dolls really), and I also decided to check out materials at our public library. They were the only two avenues I had yet to go down as far as getting her potty trained was concerned.

When we first got the doll, I decided that night to show her what the doll could do. I took the bottle that it came with, filled it with water, sat the doll on the toilet, and let the doll drink. As it drank, it "peed" in the toilet. "See?" I told Journey, "This is where pee comes from. This is how it comes out of you and into the potty!" She was fascinated. She ran downstairs and promptly told Don what she had just witnessed, being sure to point to where the pee comes out of and exclaiming about the amazing dolly that peed. After that night, I didn't bother with the potty, and only took the doll out to show her the amazing ability to pee when she asked to see it. I didn't want to push the subject onto her, and continued changing diapers.

Then, at the beginning of this month, I decided it was time to see what the library could offer. I checked out five books and two DVDs, all about the joys of going potty. I offered them up to Journey, careful not to push them on her. We put in the Elmo potty DVD first, which she watched with wonder. She began asking us to read her the books, which we would. I asked Don not to get annoyed with her asking us to read the books over and over again if she wanted, because it meant that she was interested in the process and we might light a spark in her. He agreed. Of the five books, three were clearly her favorites, and we read those exclusively, day after day. I renewed her two most favored books, and we continued to read them over and over again. Finally, she asked to go potty. I took her upstairs, and she sat. At first she was under the belief that if she used the toilet paper, that meant she went. I had to explain to her that toilet paper is only for AFTER you poop or pee in the potty. She promptly got up, and decided she was done. "Okay", I thought, "She's got the spark."

One day (this Monday to be exact), I decided that if we wanted to take this to the next level, action needed to be taken. Now, to some of you, this might seem a little over the top, but a friend of mine told me that this was the way they started out potty training their child, so I decided since I tried so many other tactics, I would give this one a go. She asked to go potty, so I sat her. And I kept her there. She had just finished drinking a lot of water, and I knew that at any moment, she would pee in the potty, so I decided we were going to stay on that potty until she actually did the deed.

That first time took over an hour and a half for her to pee in the potty. We waited and waited and waited. Finally, she went. We made a HUGE production out of it. She got a star sticker to put on her chart, which sat stagnant since I attempted to potty train her back in September of 2009. She got m&ms. She then pooped on the potty twice. I was ecstatic! More celebrating ensued, with more stickers and more m&ms.

Today is day three. She peed in the potty three times today, each time taking less and less time for her to do so. This last time, she peed in the potty as soon as she sat on it. Granted, she's had three accidents today, and believe me when I say I'm grateful for pull ups for this very reason-her last one was a poopy accident of mammoth proportions, and though I was a little crestfallen, I advised her that the potty is where we poop, not our pants. The biggest thing is, I know she can do this. She's been doing it for that last three days. She pees on the potty now. She poops on the potty, though Monday was the last time she did. Still, she's proved she can do it. I ask her to go potty each day, and she hasn't fought me the way she did back in September. In fact, I think she gets excited to show me that she can pee in the potty.

The only thing we need to work on now is teaching her to hold on until she makes it to the bathroom, and to know when she's got to go so she can go to the bathroom. She's already got the going part down, now it's just a matter of timing it so that she'll go when she needs to go instead of when she wants to go, and then we'll work on keeping her dry and accident free. We're in the throes of step one; there's still two more stages to go. It's okay though, I'm prepared for it. The fact that she's going in the potty each time we go is so exhilarating to me that I'm not going to quit this process. We haven't been in a diaper since Sunday, which I'm very proud of. I'm hoping we can turn in that box of diapers we just bought and exchange them for more pull-ups, which we're going to need. I know that to some people a pull-up is the same as a diaper, but really it's much easier to pull off and on, and I'm much more comfortable knowing that if she has a poopy accident like she did today, I won't have to get my hands all mucked up in it like I would have to with cloth training pants.

I hope and pray that we continue moving forward and never look back. I'm excited to see where we go with this as long as it keeps moving forward, and see how far she's progressed by the time May 14th rolls around, which is Pre-K round up. Keep your fingers crossed guys!
 

More proof that my daughter may be emotionally ready for Pre-K:

I'm baby sitting for an 8 year old that's been playing with Ryan and Journey all day. She spent considerable time playing with Journey in her room, and is now playing an imaginary game with Ryan. Journey felt left out and upset by this, and proclaimed loudly "Bubba, I am going to hurt you!" and stomped. I gently pulled her aside and said "Please don't say that, it's not nice to want to hurt Bubba. Thank you for using your words though. I know you're upset, but now Bubba gets to play with C******." and gave her a tight hug. Journey hugged me back, and when the kids came back from upstairs, Journey politely asked if she could play too. They gave her a pom pom, and she was on her way, joining in again. All smiles.

So what does this prove you ask?
#1-My daughter, my 3 year old daughter can restrain herself from causing someone else bodily harm. She may FEEL like causing someone bodily harm, and she may even warn that person that she FEELS like it, but she won't commit on this act. She expresses herself through her words and not by her actions.

#2-When feeling excluded, she can pick herself back up, and ask politely to add herself into whatever social setting she's feeling left out of. She has the courage to face those who left her out and ask to join, and with that, she was included in the action.

If only she would potty train. *Sigh.*
 

I've decided today I'm going to write a list of things that define Journey, as told by her. I wished I had asked Ryan these same questions when he was her age, but I guess I never really thought about it before. I'm glad I have this blog to keep it safe though; I'll want to re-visit these answers when she's older and ask her if she remembers when she said this. It'll be cute.

As Told By Journey

What's your name? It's me, it's Journey!

How old are you? I'm three!

What's your favorite color? Purple!

What's your favorite food? Biscuits.

What's your favorite drink? Pink Milk.

What's your favorite animal? Dogs, squirrels and cats.

What's your favorite book? All my Hello Kitty books.

What's your favorite show? Ni Hao Kai-Lan

Who's your favorite stuffed animal? Kiki Maow, that's right!

What's your favorite pajamas? Froggy pajamums!

Who do you love Journey? I love cats...and you.

What's your favorite song? Hey Diddle Diddle, the Cat and the Fiddle

Anything else you want to say? Funky Kong! (She was watching Ryan play MarioKart Wii)

And that's it for today's edition of "As told by Journey", I hope you enjoyed it!
 

*Sigh.*

You're probably wondering where I've been. Truth be told, I haven't been around. I mean, I was here last week I think it was, sometime early in the week, and read blogs, but I'm so far behind in everyone's lives that commenting feels foreign to me. I still read...when I remember to log into here.

The biggest reason I stayed here in WdC is because of my blog. I never update this thing anymore. Suddenly it's gone from being about the kids to being about me, and I'm tired of my bitching and complaining. Nothing will get done if I don't DO something. Another reason I don't write? Because right now, my primary concern is getting Journey potty trained and into Pre-K. Now how many times are you going to be willing to come back and listen to me gripe about that? Really, there's only so much people can stomach in reading about the same concern over and over again, and there's only so much I can take writing it out all the time. I get it. I wring my hands over this. I lose sleep because of it. I should stop caring. Maybe she'll get interested if I just drop it. I can't drop it because I fear she'll NEVER do it if I drop it. It's a vicious cycle, and it gets old real quick.

*deep breath.*

I should've just stuck with writing about loose teeth and learning new words. Her pronouncing things like "peanups" and "pajamums". I'm so friggin hung up on this whole potty training/pre-k thing, I can't see past it anymore, and frankly, that's all my blogging would be about here, so I'm not going to subject you to that week after week after week. Nope. I'm just going to take my lumps, and I'm going to keep renewing my upgrade just because I don't want to lose all the stuff I have on here, and I'm going to stay silent until I have something productive to say. Until something, SOMETHING happens that will take me off the focus of "potty training/pre-k". Cause this broken record is just aggravating. It's as aggravating to me as it is to you...probably more so because I'm self depreciating.

If you don't see me again, have a fabulous month all.

 

So maybe there ISN'T a way Journey can get into Head Start...space is limited, and the closest one to us doesn't even have bus service to the center. I can't even walk her to it. Guess that does mean if she doesn't make Pre-K, she'll be stuck at home for another year until she gets this damn potty training thing down. I'm so sick of waiting on her to be ready.

I am so frustrated I'm crying.

And yeah, the Head Start place said they would take her even though she's not potty trained. That's great, I'm thrilled to hear it. But to hear also that A) they have a year waiting list, and only 20 kids get in, and B) that there is no bus that will pick her up or drop her off. It's not even close enough for me to walk her to it, I'd have to find a way to get a ride to get her there at 8:30 am, and go get her at 2:30 pm. We currently don't even have a CAR, much less a way for me to get her there. I can't send her to any other of the Head Start centers in the county, because if she's out of the living area of those other centers, she has to find a way to get a ride there as well, they won't send a bus to get her.

So basically, it boils down to this. Either Journey learns to go potty, or she misses out on getting integrated with children her own age, and Kindergarten is going to be extremely traumatizing. There's no other way around it. There's no place to send her to, there's nothing that can help me help her. Either she gets it and she's potty trained, or she's not potty trained, I've failed, and she doesn't make it in. That simple.

I HATE THIS.


 

So all this time I've been worried that Journey will either make Pre-K, or she won't make anything and I'll be stuck with her here at home for an entire year, trying to make the best of the situation and trying to potty training her.

There is another option folks, one I wish like hell I would've thought of this year. There's a second program called Head Start, that we are qualified for, that's for ages 3 to 5 years. This is usually a back up program for any child that doesn't make it into Pre-K and has social or economical needs. I wish like hell I would've thought of it this year, because I'm worried that she has some delays (when you ask her a "where" or "how" question, her answer is just "yes' or "no". Hmmmm.), ESPECIALLY in the potty training area. I really believe that if she were around kids her own age in say a daycare setting, she would've already been potty trained. Well, Head Start takes kids, even if they're not potty trained. I was completely unaware of this. I'm hoping to get this confirmed by a call from the head start coordinator herself, but I've been told that they will take her if she's not potty trained. I wish I could've put her in this year so she'd see that other kids her age go potty, and she should too. That, and she'd get some socialization in this year so she'd be ready for Pre-K, and it wouldn't be traumatizing for her. Seriously, IF she does potty train, and she does happen to get into Pre-K, I don't think it will be all that traumatizing. Now if she doesn't get into any programs before Kindergarten, I can assure you that Kindergarten WILL traumatize her. She will NOT be ready for what Kindergarten will bring, and I'm going to have a helluva time helping her cope.

Luckily, thankfully for me, this is not going to happen. If she doesn't make it into Pre-K, she's going to make it into Head Start, it's either one or the other, which I'm thrilled about. She definitely needs this. I wonder if I could still get her into Head Start this year? I think I'll try to call again after I help her clean her room. Here's to keeping me on task today.

Edit: I am a complete idiot. Currently Journey owns 11 pairs of Hello Kitty socks, all bought for $1. I could've been using these as an incentive to go potty all this time instead of just buying them to buy them! Why didn't I think of this before?!? Now to find a way to Target to see if they have any other Hello Kitty socks, maybe I can stock up on them and save them for when she goes potty...too bad she already owns 11 pairs of them. I wonder if I could get away with confiscating all 11 pairs for now and saving them for when she DOES go potty....hmmmmm....is that wrong of me?

 

Let's try this again, shall we??

Anywho.
Went for my massage last night. It was a very relaxing time, except my shoulders and my neck are sore as hell now from it . I hold a lot of tension in those areas, so she advised me that it would be sore for a couple of days, which is understandable. Apparently I've had more in the way of massages than I thought I did too...I said that I never had a professional massage, but that's only because I was a guinea pig for my friend who was getting her degree in massage therapy. She did work on me once when I was helping her out with her home office as well, but I don't really count that as a professional massage. Guess I'm wrong though . Either way, it was nice, to have a pampering moment for myself, since I don't get those often. She used lotion while she massaged, and it made me laugh, because it reminded me of how I lotion my kids after they have a bath. It was nice to get some lotioning done back LOL. The biggest thing about it was how Journey handled me being away. I rarely ever leave her with Don and go somewhere without the kids, so this was different for her. Don said though she didn't cry, she continually voiced how she missed me so, so much. When I got back home, she started following me around like my shadow, not letting me go to the kitchen or the bathroom without her assistance. It's good to know that she didn't melt down and have a complete fit though, which gives me a glimmer of hope for her when she goes to school.

Speaking of school, I woke up with a guilty conscience this morning, anxiety riddled over if Journey has the skills to be in school or not. After sitting there watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, I quickly made my way downstairs to grab a preschool workbook that we had bought Ryan when he was younger and brought it up to her to see what she could do. I was quickly surprised by what she CAN do. She can follow simple directions, such as "color the squares" or "circle the biggest toy", is able to decipher her shapes, largest to smallest, longest to shortest and colors. However, there are some things she needs to work on. She hasn't quite mastered "X"ing out things (when I asked her to "X" out certain things on the page like the directions called for, she just furiously scribbled them...I'm thinking I need to work with her fine motor skills a bit more), patterns (though Ryan wasn't up much on patterns when he was about her age either...I'm thinking I'm just lacking in my teaching skills in that area though), and when asked to match something like a kitty to the milk or a doggy to a bone by drawing a line from one to the other, she threw her pen down and screeched out "THAT'S IT!!" in an infuriated voice. That pretty much said to me that it's time to put the book away . Ryan used to get that way after a few pages as well though, so hopefully it's just age that's causing her to become frustrated. Her attention span hasn't really developed yet, but she was more than willing to sit there and show me that she can do some of those pages, which I was highly impressed. Journey is a completely different animal in that retrospect to Ryan. When Ryan learned skills, he would immediately show that he knew them and was paying attention. Journey, on the other hand, hoards that information and stores it away, and only when you catch her doing it does she reveal that she actually was listening to you and picked up on what you were trying to teach her. It can be quite frustrating at times. I'm glad to see that she's school ready though as far as certain things go. It takes a load off of my mind.

The one thing I'm still hoping for is all this potty training business. Everyone keeps telling me about how their kids didn't potty train till nearly four, but we don't have that kind of time. Journey will more than likely be starting school on the day of her fourth birthday, so I'm hoping that she'll start picking it up here sooner rather than later. I'm trying to persuade her mind by telling her that diapers are icky and gross, and that the potty is good and takes our yucky poop and pee away. I'm wondering if maybe she's scared to lose her bodily functions with such permanence down the toilet, in which case I don't know what to tell her other than keeping it around can make her sick and they are not good things to keep. There's a particular commercial that I play up a lot when it comes on about doing the "Potty Dance", and I point out how all the kids on the commercial are big kids because they go potty, and how diapers are icky and we should ditch them, and big kid pants are great! Yay, potty is fun! Not sure if it's working yet, but I suppose it's worth a shot. I swore I was going to give her until she was three and a half to try herself, and if that didn't work, I was throwing her in headfirst . At this point, I'm not sure what I should do, but I know that she can't go to school if she doesn't go potty, and it would be a lot easier if her birthday was nine days after it is now, because then she wouldn't be able to go to Pre-K until the year after next instead of this coming year due to her birthday being past the registration age. I don't want her to miss out on Pre-K, but with this whole potty training business, I'm not sure she's going to be developmentally ready to go when the time comes up for her.

I'll be taking the kids tomorrow to Ryan's math night. He's blowing me away, doing multiplication and division. His class isn't even caught up to him yet doing things like that. He learned multiplication from playing Yahtzee, and just tonight he deduced that half of fourteen was seven, to which I told him "You just did division. fourteen divided by two...did you know that?". He grinned at me and told me "It's fractions too, Mom." Crap, how did I get a kid this smart?? He loves math, like seriously really loves math. I'm blown away by it because though I can be good at math when it's explained to me right and I have a course that automatically corrects me, I'm not all that great with math, especially things like algebra. Don is not math savvy either, so we wonder where Ryan gets his love of math from. Either way, I hope he follows with it, and I hope he continues to love math. Don will be meeting up with us on math night so he can take Journey home while I stay with Ryan to finish participating, so we'll see how well Journey takes leaving Ryan and I at the school while she goes home with Daddy. I'm also being picked up on Friday to attend a Candle-Lite party, which I'll be attending by myself, and we'll see how well Journey handles that when I leave without her as well. I think it's good for her to know that there is life after I step out the door without her, and though I'll be gone for a little while, I'll always come back.

That's about all I have for tonight. At least I was able to cover all the topics that were deleted from me the first time I attempted this blog LOL.
 

I had a really long blog that I sat here typing since 1:45 pm. It was a great blog. This stupid website that I clicked on, took me away from the page, thus, the end of my perfectly good blog. I'm so pissed off, I can't bother to come back and write it all again. Maybe later tonight. Right now, I'm too angry. Just thought I'd share. . I'll edit this later with a new, full blog entry. Hopefully.Guh.
 

So lately, for the past two nights, I've been having panic attacks. This has happened to me before twice: first time was when I wasn't on medication at all, and I had a helluva time sleeping. I wouldn't be able to finally sleep until sometime like 4 in the morning, sometimes later. It messed with me so bad, and I was always in panic mode. The second time was when I was on meds, but wasn't on enough meds.

A couple nights ago, I started having a panic attack, which I thought meant that my meds that I take with food didn't go through my bloodstream correctly. The meds don't work unless you eat with them, and sometimes I don't eat enough for the meds to kick in. So I went downstairs, made myself a peanut butter sandwich and took half of my dose. I fell asleep right away, and though feeling like lead the next day, I was in considerably high spirits and I was able to do just about anything once the lead feeling wore off. The same thing happened the next night, I was having panic attacks and hyperventilating instead of sleeping. I went downstairs, repeated the steps above, fell asleep right away, had a cheerful day the next day after the lead wore off. Last night I didn't take any chances, and just took the pill so as to be able to sleep. I'm scared I'm building up a tolerance, and that now I'm not going to be able to sleep unless I take that third pill, in which case it screws me up because I'm only supposed to take two pills a day, not three. I only have so many pills in my prescription, so taking more kills how many days I really have with my prescription. I'm going to talk to my shrink about getting a higher dosage so I don't have panic attacks, but what do I tell him? "Hey guess what I've been extra medding myself without your permission"?? That's just great. I don't even wanna know what he thinks of that, and what he's going to do to me when he finds that out. How do I ask him to put me on a higher prescription though? Ack.

So mot much else going on about this place. I've decided I need to spend more time doing things with Journey. I've been poking around on facebook too much, need to actually spend time with her and play ponies, or build puzzles, or color in coloring books or something. I feel like I've let her down a lot. I'm still waiting for the potty training thing to happen too. I'm a control freak, so this not being able to make her go pee or understand why she needs to do this is killing me. I wish there was a way I could tell her "you're doing this" and sit her on the toilet, and make her pee. I wish it was that simple. But I'm not going into this anymore, because then I'm going to start beating myself up for stupid things like "not trying hard enough". I've already been told, I need to wait for her. So I'm waiting. It's hard to wait, and I hate waiting, but that's all I can do at this juncture.

Tomorrow is my new years. I don't really feel like it's going to be much different than last year was, but maybe that's a good thing. I'm someone who craves stability and needs that kind of security. If it being the same is anything, it's security to me I suppose. I already know what Don got me for my birthday too...a massage. I don't know how I feel about this. Part of me says it's a good gift, because it's less stuff to clutter up our already overflowing house full of clutter, but at the same time that's a lot of money for just one hour with a masseuse who may or may not do their job very well, and it's one of those things that you usually need a follow up on once you've gotten worked on once. I used to work for one of my friends who was a massage therapist, and she would pay me (whenever she remembered to anyway) with free massages. Once you get worked on once, you feel as though you need it again after awhile. It's been five years since I've had a massage, so my body is used to whatever kinks and cricks it has at this point, and I don't feel anything. Once I use that pass though, I'm gonna be feeling them all the time. Oh well, I shouldn't complain, it's a massage and it's supposed to be for spoiling me, so I'll look at as a good thing and smile away.

Off for now.

 

Broke my resolution at least three times already this year. Only nine days into it too. That's gotta be some kind of record for me. Even when I vowed to go to the gym and take care of this weight, I did it for at least 8 months before I got frustrated and gave up. Apparently some behaviors are harder to give up than others. Oh well, one day at a time and all that jazz I s'pose.

I find it interesting that somewhere around 2:30 in the morning when I'm tossing and turning, everything seems obtainable to me. Going back to school, getting on top of the house, doing mountains of laundry, doing projects with the kids, all seems like a walk in the park to me at that hour. My thought process goes to "Why not? We could do this, all we have to do is follow steps a-z, and then we'll get to where we want". I even think this about going back to Denver late at night when I should be sleeping instead. I'm wondering if this is the Lamotrigine talking, or if it's just that I'm a night owl by default, which makes everything seem that much nicer and easier for me. I've decided the only way to find out is to take the Lamotrigine during the day and see if things start turning out rosy for me or not during that time as well.

Not much else going on in this neck of the woods. Still trying to figure out life thus far. Still waiting on Journey to decide if she's going to potty train or not. Still waiting for our car to come so I can drive down to the main campus and have my case heard to reinstate me into the college system again. Sometimes I really hate this "hurry up and wait" scene. It gets tiring. Oh, if I could control the world...