Baggy Loves Alli

After putting Alli to bed and finishing chores, Jenny and I couldn't find Bagheera. On a wild guess, we went into Alli's room and found him laying on her bed. It's ridiculously cute to think that Baggy missed Alli while we were in Texas for Thanksgiving.

-KimG

Bye Bye Underwear

After 3 months of potty training, lots of disgusting laundry, I convinced Alli's teacher to just put her back into her diapers until Alli decided she was ready to try to be a big girl. The last straw (for me) was when she peed 3 times in 30 minutes at preschool and sat in it without any care. Ugh. She just doesn't want to do it, and I'm tired of fighting it.

On other notes though, she is excelling. Everything is by color: "Mommy, what is that?" "No, it's 'blue'!" :D

We found out that she likes some of Britney Spears' songs. It's really cute to see her shake her bootie, which she is doing quite a bit these days.

She understands so much about everything, and she wants to do everything that mommy does. She helps me cook meals, do laundry, etc. She also wants to wear similar clothes - if I have a jacket on, she needs a jacket. If I take my socks off, she takes her socks off. It's really cute.

Happy Halloween!

This year, Alli started understanding Halloween a little better. She dressed up in her little kitty cat costume and I tried to explain trick-or-treating to her. We had our candy bowl, and I told her to say "trick-or-treat" and then I gave her some candy. All was looking promising.

We went to the first house and we knocked on the door. I told her when the person answered she should yell "trick-or-treat". She did - without any prompting. We were quite impressed. Then she handed the lady the candy from her own bag. We laughed. It's nice that she was ready to give!! :) The 3 of us helped her with the candy and then we went walking to the next house.

This house however had lots of people sitting outside, and Kim and I knew the parents. With all the commotion, Alli got shy. So up in my arms she went and wouldn't say a word. Unfortunately, she never got over it. So we hit 4-5 houses total and then just went back home. She was much more talkative there - hanging out with us and the neighbors out front with a fire in the pit beside the driveway.

Alli's First Night In Her New Bed

She picked out the red sheets and Lightning McQueen (Cars) comforter.

Alli's First Haircut

Alli's hair has finally reached the point where we thought we could cut it without having her look like a little boy. And since Kim and I both had haircuts scheduled at the same time, we thought it might be fun to have a whole-family haircut day. Stacy did an awesome job on Alli's hair, and Alli was such a big girl, sitting nice and still in the chair the entire time Stacy cut it.

And, in typical Guerrette style, the camera and video camera were going the whole time!

Alli's Getting a Bed

We've know for several months that Alli could climb out of her crib. The first few times she did it were out of frustration, tantrum really, when we put her in time-out in her crib (a bad practice that we stopped shortly after starting). We weren't too worried, however, because we stopped punishing her by putting her in her crib, and she stopped climbing out.

We knew it wouldn't last. For the past couple of nights, Alli has been climbing out of her crib because she wasn't ready to go to sleep. Jenny and I would put her to bed, then a couple minutes later we'd hear her door open and hear her walk into the kitchen to tell us something. I think we both laughed a litte, regained composure, and told Alli that she wasn't allowed to climb out of bed. That didn't really work as she's been getting out of bed 2 or 3 times per night. She asked that we keep her door open when we put her in her crib. We obliged thinking that would keep her happy enough to keep her in bed. Sometimes we'll check on her after 5 or ten minutes only to find her standing in her doorway, listening to us.

This morning, the girl who normally wakes up at 6am-ish, walked into our room at 7:30am. She's so cute. Jenny and I both said, "Good morning, Alli!" She ran to me at the side of the bed closest to the door and said, "Daddy, I poopied." Jenny and I laughed.

-- Kim

What's Been Going On

It's been a while since I blogged, so I figured I had better talk about some of the changes in Alli.

In the last month, more words/sentences have been coming out of her mouth. Baggy (or Geera) has turned into Bagheera. Phrases have turned into complete sentences - like "Bagheera, what are you doing under the table?" It's quite fun to watch her blossom!

Potty training is...well...still challenging. She still hasn't made the connection of when she has to go, so we still have to make her go sit on the potty periodically. And poopies have not been on the toilet at all - those she still goes and runs away and pushes while hiding in a corner. :)

She is learning lots of new songs at school, which is fun. And she has finally learned her colors. Yay! But it's now a big deal if I pull out a sippy cup and she doesn't want that particular color today... Ugh!

Alli is *very* independent. While it's frustrating to wait for her to finish something, it's also more time consuming if I don't. For instance, if I try to help pull her shirt off of her cause she's having problems getting it over her head, she winds up in a complete melt-down because *she* wanted to do it. So we have to put the shirt back on and start all over again. There are times where she walks an item back to where I got it from just so she can pick it up herself. Sometimes that's really funny, and other times, well, when you're in a hurry...

Her teacher (Miss Flo) says she often confuses Alli with a 3 year old because she is mature for her age and she hangs out with the 3 year old girls when they get the classes together. As soon as she figures out the potty-training, she'll be moving up to join them. :)

We also started her in a little gymnastics program at a place called "The Little Gym". She *loves* it. They have all sorts of gymnastics equipment which Alli gets to explore. She really likes the balance beam and hanging from the bars. :) We (the parents) are also learning how to spot the kids so that we can help them with flips, learn how to teach them the beginnings of hand stands, cart wheels, etc. It's a cool little place and Alli gets excited when I tell her we are going to the gym.

And speaking of work outs, mommy started running consistently again. So what happened? Alli wanted to start running. Last night she decided she wanted to go and we took off and wound up going probably 1/4 mile!! Nice work little girl!!! (She had to walk half way up one of the hills.)

Alli also had her first boat ride last weekend. She was soooo excited and did an excellent job swimming in the middle of the lake with her life jacket on. I was pretty amazed that she didn't get scared. She even jumped off the back of the boat holding my hand to get into the water. Big girl!!!

2nd Day of Daycare

Today was Alli's second day of daycare and she came home with only 1 pair of soiled underwear (a poop) and the same clothes we put her in this morning. Holy cow - that's some progress in the potty training department!

She is very chatty all the way home, which is quite fun for mommy. Both mommy and daddy keep thinking that in 2 days she has matured months. It's crazy - but also exciting!

Alli before her first day of day care ("school")

Potty Training Attempt #1

Well, we weren't really planning on potty training Alli because she didn't seem ready, but the opportunity presented itself so we figured "why not".

If you take Alli to the toilet, she will go - even if you ask her if she has to and she says "no", she will typically manage to get something out.

So yesterday I went to pick her up at Marcie's and we wound up staying and swimming with all the kids. When we got out of the pool, Marcie said "oh yea, I forgot to tell you that I was running low on diapers, so now I don't have any." Well, there was nothing we could do except put her in big-girl panties, so we grabbed a pair of Reegan's (4T - a bit big for Alli) and told her "you have to go potty on the toilet now - you have big girl underwear on." We assumed this would work, plus we were planning on setting her on the toilet every 1/2 hour or so.

5 minutes after getting the underpants on, she pooped in them. Ugh. Okay, so I took her to the bathroom, cleaned her up, set her on the toilet (nothing came out), and got another pair of Reegan's underwear. "Alli, if you have to go potty, you need to tell Mommy or Marcie and we'll help you sit on the toilet."

10 minutes after that incident: "MOMMY!!! AHHHHHHHH". "Alli - your pants are wet..." Ugh. So, we cleaned up mess #2, sat Alli on the toilet again (and again, nothing came out), and grabbed yet another pair of Reegan's underwear.

20 minutes into dinner: "MOMMY - OUT!!!" "Alli - you went potty while you were eating??? Ugh..." By this time, Reegan was protesting us using her underwear and decided that what Alli needed was a pair of Gage's underwear. I surely didn't mind if Alli wore boys underwear, but Marcie said no and Reegan had to give up yet another pair...


15 minutes later, we went home. The first thing I did was put her in a diaper. :)



Today we decided we would just see if it was a fluke last night...

Alli has a little training toilet at our house that Marcie gave us and Alli likes to use (cause she can do it herself). This morning we dressed her in big girl underwear and before we left the house, I told her we had to go potty. She told me to stay in the hallway. She went to the bathroom, closed the door, and wanted to do it all herself. Well, she needed help pulling down the underwear so she finally let me in to help, and then shoo'd me out. She went potty in the little toilet and even picked up the little toilet and dumped the pee into the big toilet. Then I helped her get some TP and we finished the process. What a big girl!!! Surely last night was just a fluke...

Verdict today from Marcie? Alli wet her underwear twice in a 30 minute period! And then she wet a 3rd pair while standing in the garage, and instead of wanting to be changed, she wanted to ride a bike.

We're going back to pull-up diapers for a little while....