Aloha, I'm Donna, known everywhere on the Internet as "Champuru." I'm a Christian, blissfully wedded to my perfect match (the yang to my yin) of 16 years and a stay-at-home mom to my miracle baby, born in October 2008. Living life in Hawaii, less than 5 miles from my hometown, seeking balance in my pursuit of family, faith, recreation, and rest. Read more on the About page.
Lil K knows what she wants and has no qualms about letting us know what it is. Observing her interaction with other children, I notice that she tends to be bossy, especially now that she can vocalize her demands. Grandma says that being bossy isn’t necessary a bad thing. After all, the world needs leaders. She’s just a leader-in-training.
But in the meantime, the girl needs to learn manners and I’ve been trying to teach her to say “please” and “thank you” and not to refer to everything as “mine.” We try to reinforce the act of sharing and she does quite well with that. But when left to her own devices, playing amongst her peers, she will sometimes tell other children what to play with, where to go/stand/sit, or “No! That’s mine,” even when it isn’t.
I remind her not to be bossy, to play nicely with her friends, and that not everything belongs to her. Is being bossy a personality trait, a phase that toddlers go through, or a behavior that I can modify?
Help! This house has room for only one diva in the family and that slot is already taken by me.
I never thought that I would become a cheerleader for poop. Every day, we wait with anticipation for the passing of the poop. And when it arrives, it is met with much fanfare because it means that it will be a good day for Lil K — and us.
A two poop day? We’re throwing a party!
We saw Lil K’s pediatrician about a week ago and she recommended prunes and prune juice. This information is from the fact sheet she gave me.
Constipation
A very common problem. Not enough fruit and vegetables, compared to the amount of rice, bread, noodles, potatoes, and meats eaten.
Not all fruits and vegetables are equal. (i.e., 5 apples a day will not help your stools much. In fact, bananas and applesauce will constipate you.) So, NO BANANAS OR APPLESAUCE.
MY FAVORITE — PRUNES! Why? Because you need so little to help your stools. I like to say, “you would need a whole bucket of vegetables and fruits” to do what just a few prunes or a little prune juice will do.
How much prune juice? How many prunes?
If you choose dried prunes, I suggest 3 to 5 prunes every day.
If you choose prune juice, I suggest 1/4 to 1/2 cup every day. Some people may need a cup or more a day. (If you don’t like the taste of prune juice, add a small amount of apple juice to it. If you do this, my rule is no apple juice without prune juice, because the apple juice has too many calories.)
There are many over the counter constipation products, but they are expensive and not nutritious like PRUNES.
Prunes are very nutritious! See the benefits below!
My 2 sons have been on prunes daily since they were 18 months old. I have had them every day for many years! TAKE PRUNES EVERY DAY!!
High in Vitamin A - the B-carotene in this helps prevent damage to cells.
High in Potassium - to help lower blood pressure, which helps lower risk of stroke.
High in Copper
High in antioxidants - This prevents cell damage (decreasing atherosclerosis) and decreases cholesterol by making it harder for the liver to make it.
Helps the good bacteria in our intestines
Helps absorb iron
Prunes. The miracle constipation remedy with many health benefits. That’s fine and dandy, but what if your toddler doesn’t want to drink/eat it? The doctor recommends starting by putting a little in your baby’s milk — just enough to change the color. Then gradually add more. You will know when your child has too much prunes/prune juice in their diet when they have a diarrhea-like stool (or two). Then, just adjust to just under that amount. The doctor suggested that all babies should be on prune juice and they should be started on this before they become picky toddlers. She recommends starting them on prune juice when they start eating solids. (I didn’t get this advice since Lil K had a different pediatrician until recently.)
Lil K used to drink diluted prune juice, but since she discovered apple juice she refuses to drink prune juice. I even mixed a teensy bit of prune juice in her apple juice and she will scrunch up her face, hand me the cup, and say, ”prune juice.”
It’s hard enough getting Lil K to drink whole milk, much less milk laced with prune juice. I tried it. BIG FAIL.
I even bought bite-sized prunes hoping she would enjoy snacking on them like raisins. Nope!
I guess I will have to go very slowly with the re-integration of prune juice into her diet. Hopefully, if I can add tiny amounts of prune juice into her water or milk, slowly increasing it over time, she will grow accustomed to it.
In the meantime, we have pharmaceutical help for when things get backed up: Miralax and glycerine suppositories as needed. I am doing whatever I can, diet wise, to avoid having to give her medication, but it’s there when we need it.
I have also found that substituting brown rice for white is helping, too. I only cook brown rice now, so the whole family benefits from this dietary change for Lil K. (If you ask Hubby, he may not consider it a “benefit,” however.) I’ve also been trying to eliminate as much refined processed starches as possible, so my next project is making a whole wheat vegetable pizza that will hopefully be as kid-friendly as it is healthy.
As I work on my meal plan for the next two weeks, I’m also doing some research on kid-friendly and healthy recipes that I can add to my repertoire. Cooking for a toddler is not the easiest thing and is often a thankless job.
It’s been nearly a week since we started Lil K’s potty training and I have to admit that I didn’t make it the one-week intensive program as I had initially intended. It is recommended to pick a week when you will be at home so you can focus on potty training, but there is rarely ever a week that we are home every single day. We had a fairly busy week and I noticed that when I put her in pull-ups, she seemed to have more accidents. Perhaps, as a friend suggested, the pull-ups feel like diapers, so she thinks it’s acceptable to use them as such.
There were lots of Mommy Fail moments within the week, too. One of which was our Thursday playdate when I made the effort to haul her potty out to the park, but failed to pack extra training panties. She peed once in the potty, then she wet her pants before my one-hour timer went off and I realized all I had were diapers in my bag. So, needless to say, the diapers went on and the training went out for the duration of the playdate.
I’m still working on the logistics of taking her out and continuing with the potty training. I picked up a Kalencom 2 in 1 Potette Plus, portable potty and trainer seat at my favorite baby store, Ohana Daze, in the Mililani Town Center. This neat little invention works like a travel potty (you can buy absorbent liners for it, so you just tie up the bag and toss the mess in the trash) — and it also folds flat into a trainer seat that you place on top of a toilet seat, so toddlers with tiny tushies can use the commode without worrying about their little bum falling in.
I had been trying to encourage Lil K to use the toilet more often, but she still seems to prefer the potty. I’m hoping that this trainer seat will help her feel more comfortable. After all, it’s much easier to simply flush the toilet than to go through the ritual of cleaning the potty every time she uses it. And being the germophobes that we are, the potty is probably the cleanest thing in the bathroom now — as we wash and sanitize the heck out of that thing after every use.
I’m still waiting for the elusive poop in the potty. She still seems to have an aversion to using the potty for anything besides #1. She has also started asking to change her underwear every time she uses the potty, even if it’s clean and dry. I have to explain to her that the panties are still clean if she didn’t pee/poop them. Sometimes she believes me, other times she insists that it’s “dirty” and wants a “new” one. Perhaps I need to check out Target and pick up some regular panties to supplement the training underwear stash for her.
Lil K is only 2 happy-face stickers shy of completely filling her chart — that’s 43 tinkles in the potty! When she completes the chart, I promised her that we would get some frozen yogurt at Menchie’s (for simplicity sake, I call it “ice cream” — but she’s happy either way). To be honest, I’m not sure if the stickers or the promise of sugary, tasty goodness is motivating her at all. She just seems content to go on the potty with or without the incentives. I still like to make it fun for her anyway.
All in all, I consider our efforts thus far successful. Baby steps.
Central Oahu Carnival, Central Oahu Regional Park (July 30-Aug 1, 2010)
The Central Oahu Carnival is a benefit for the Honolulu Armed Services YMCA and was held at the Central Oahu Regional Park (Waipio, Hawaii) on July 30-August 1, 2010. Being that I live in the Mommy Cave, I didn’t know about this great event happening practically in my backyard. Thanks to Kamu, who invited us to the fair, we didn’t miss out on this fun-filled experience.
First of all, I apologize for the quality of the photos. They are all taken with our camera phones. I had my point & shoot camera, but when Joyce tried to take photos of Lil K and I on her first Merry-Go-Round ride, my SD card failed. What awful timing. Thank God for our iPhones (and Kamu’s Blackberry!), otherwise this milestone would have gone completely undocumented. The only unfortunate thing is that camera phones still don’t handle action shots in low-light conditions very well. Disclaimers aside, let’s talk about Lil K’s first carnival!
Lil K and I on the Merry Go Round for the first time (Photo by Joyce)
We arrived early at the carnival and it seemed that the Friday evening crowd was slow to arrive, which was perfectly fine with us. I can do without dealing with throngs of people and long lines for the rides. There was little to no waiting for anything that evening, which is great when you’re dealing with an active toddler.
After having dinner under the tent, the first ride we attempted was the Merry-Go-Round. I wasn’t sure how Lil K would handle it. Observing from the outside, the Merry-Go-Round seemed to be running faster than I remember. Perhaps it was just because I was seeing it through the eyes of a concerned parents. Despite my misgivings, I paid our fare and boarded the Merry-Go-Round with Lil K in my arms. At first, I thought we would try riding in the sleigh. Ten seconds after sitting there, Lil K decided that the sleigh was boring and she wanted to sit on a horse.
Lil K decides to ride the horse! (Photo by Joyce)
She was even particular about which horse she wanted to sit on. I wanted to sit on one that was closer to the outside, but she was intent on riding a specific horse and she pointed it out to me. When the ride started, I looked at her face to see if she was scared, but she seemed just fine. The horse bobbed up and down and round and round we went. As she was riding, she was saying, “up, down, up, down, up, down.” When the ride was finished, she immediately said and signed the word, “more.”
Lil K is having a blast -- and apparently, so am I. (Photo by Kamu)
We encouraged her to try another ride and we found ourselves at the Helicopter ride. Joyce offered to take Lil K on the ride and she was happy to take her up on it. Into the helicopter they climbed and Lil K sat in the driver’s seat and immediately took the wheel. We even noticed that she had her hand on the stick shift as she was riding. The girl is learning! She sees me driving my car, which is a stick shift., so she copied.
Lil K's first helicopter ride with Aunty Joyce
Lil K has a fascination with airplanes lately. Ever since her Daddy made her a paper airplane, she often tries to fold one for herself a she gets excited when she spies an airplane flying overhead. So it’s no surprise that the “Crazy Plane” ride caught her attention.
Crazy Plane (Photo by Belle City Amusements)
I was a little skeptical about how she would tolerate this ride. It’s a swinging ride, going high into the air, swinging in large arcs and dips. Then, it goes backwards! As luck would have it, a row of young kids were sitting behind us, and they were screaming at the top of their lungs the entire ride. Lil K just sat quietly between Joyce and I. She didn’t seem afraid at all — she wasn’t clingy and didn’t utter a peep. I’m not sure if she thought it was fun or not, but at least she wasn’t frightened by it. She is a brave girl. Much braver than her mommy!
Me, Joyce, and Lil K aboard the "Crazy Plane" ride (Photo by Kamu)
Lil K also managed to go home with some lovely parting gifts thanks to Aunty Joyce and Uncle Kamu. Joyce took her to the fish pond and managed to hook the two turtles to go home with a bumpy red ball. Uncle Kamu got her a ticket to play a toddler basketball game. It was one of those “everyone wins” games, so they allowed me to carry her as she deposited the ball right in the basket. Her prize was that incredibly long inflatable stick. She couldn’t get enough of that stick and carried it around for the rest of the evening.
Lil K with her inflatable stick
The carnival was such a fun time for all of us. We wanted to return on Sunday, but it was raining. One thing that I realized that night is that I should let her experience things (as long as it’s safe) and not hold her back because of my own fears about how she would handle it. I loosened the reigns a bit at the carnival and allowed to try those rides, despite my apprehension — and she had fun!
Here’s a short video recap of some of the highlights of the night. Again, lacking my usual camera, the video was taken completely with my iPhone.
Lil K and me - photo taken this past weekend by my niece Lexis
Generally, Lil K (21 months) is as well-behaved in public as I could expect a toddler to be. She sits nicely at the table when dining at restaurants. If given a bowl of yummy deliciousness and a spoon she will feed herself with minimal mess and without much fuss. She is even relatively quiet — most of the time.
However, I guess even little people are entitled to bad days and on Monday, Lil K had hers.
We had dinner with Hubby and his buddy from Alaska at Ruby Tuesday. As soon as we were seated at the table, the nightmare began.
Lil K refused to sit in the highchair. Then the wailing started.
She sat in my lap for a little while, sobbing. I suspected that she might feel uneasy about the dark ambience of the restaurant. Or maybe she was afraid of Hubby’s friend.
When the appetizer came (spinach artichoke dip with tortilla chips), she reluctantly sat in the highchair for a little while — that is until she poked the roof of her mouth with a chip. That set off a nuclear meltdown and it was misery after that.
I tried every distraction I could think of: food, crayons, and even my iPhone. Nothing would get her to sit in the highchair without screaming bloody murder. She didn’t even want her grilled cheese sandwich and french fries — “junk food” that she normally wouldn’t get at home but is usually happy to devour when given the opportunity. Hubby and I ended up taking turns carrying her. Even in the comfort of our lap, she continued to cry off and on. To be honest, I felt sorry for our dinner guest as well as the patrons in our section.
Hubby’s friend was convinced that she was afraid of him, so he did a little experiment. He left the table, fully expecting that she would settle down in his absence. That was not the case.
Needless to say, I was not able to relax and savor my peppercorn and portobello mushroom steak. (It was super yummy, though. I ended up taking half of my meal home and enjoyed it the next day, minus the crying toddler in my lap.)
When I was done eating, I took Lil K to the front lobby. She was in a much better mood when removed from the table. I sat her down and asked, “Sweetie, why were you crying? Were you afraid of the dark?”
With tears still in her sad eyes, she looked at me and said, “no.”
“So what were you afraid of?”
“Uncle,” she replied, referring to Hubby’s friend. I assured her that Uncle was a very nice man and she had nothing to be afraid of. When they rejoined us, we left the restaurant and chatted outside for a while. There was a grassy area next to our car, so Lil K was happily running around. Talk about a complete 180º change from her mood in the restaurant. She even blew kisses at Hubby’s friend and gave him high-fives.
Aside from Lil K’s behavior, the dinner in itself was nice. The food was good and Hubby’s friend is very friendly and so easy to talk to. I enjoyed our conversations. It was just a little harder to shoot the breeze with an unhappy toddler in my lap.
I don’t know what caused her behavior:
Unfamiliar person?
Environmental factors: restaurant was dark?
She simply did not want to be confined to a highchair?
She wasn’t tired, she had just woken up from a 3 hour nap, so I was sure she would be in a stellar mood that night. All I know is we must get to the bottom of this mystery or else our dining options will be severely limited.
What do you do if your toddler refuses to sit in the highchair at a restaurant? Or decides having a meltdown at the table is a good idea?
Today’s scorecard: 7 successful attempts, 3 accidents. Still zero poop. (She managed to poop while she was still wearing her overnight diaper this morning and refused to use the potty.)
Yesterday’s successes were a hard act to follow. It’s hard to top a day with 9 successful potty attempts and 2 excusable accidents. Today, there were 3 accidents — 2 of which were likely my fault for deciding to rely on Lil K’s ability to inform me when she had to use the potty. I guess she’s not ready for that yet. I should’ve stuck to the method of putting her on the potty every hour on the hour instead of asking her, “do you need to use the potty?” For all intents and purposes, I could have been asking if she wanted a root canal. Anything interrupting her playtime that doesn’t involve TV or ice cream will likely yield a negative response.
The other accident happened on Hubby’s watch when I was out taking my mom to the doctor. To Hubby’s credit, he was sticking with the routine, but I guess Lil K’s bladder was ahead of schedule. And again, right now, she’s not apt to volunteer to sit on the potty.
There were a few times I think she went on the potty just to get the sticker. She eeked out a few drops of pee, immediately jumped up and applauded herself, “yay!” she cheered and said, “sticker.”
Speaking of stickers, I have to say that I just love Price Busters. I bought three sticker booklets for $1.69/each. Each booklet contains 276 stickers. That stash will reward a whole lot of peeing and pooping!
NOTE: This is not a sponsored post. I will proclaim my love of cheap stickers for free.
Perhaps to say that today is “day #1″ of potty training is somewhat misleading. The little pink potty has been a fixture in our bathroom since Lil K was 16 months old. (It’s amusing to note that Lil K is wearing the same pink shirt in the photo in the previous potty entry, too.) She has been following me into the bathroom and sitting on the potty (fully clothed) for the past several months. We’ve been putting her on the potty before baths and she had been peeing pretty consistently into the potty, but I didn’t start officially potty training her until today.
I made a potty training chart for Lil K and we put stickers on it every time she uses the potty. Today, there are 9 stickers on her chart!
Last night, I asked Lil K if she would like to start wearing her “big girl panties” in the morning. I explained that it meant that she would need to use the potty and there would be no diapers. She agreed and even seemed pleased by the thought of transitioning from baby to big girl.
This morning, I reiterated about the panties and the potty as I changed her out of her diaper and sat her on the potty. She immediately used the potty and earned her first sticker! I slipped on her cotton training underwear and stationed her potty in the living room. I am taking some cues from an article on potty training by John Rosemond (via Mitchell, @scrivener). He suggested having a potty near where the child is playing because the “out of sight, out of mind” principle can work against you in this case.
Rosemond recommends the bare bum approach where you allow your child to run naked from the waist down for a week to teach them to use the potty. That’s why he calls his method “Naked + $75″ — the $75 being the cost of carpet cleaning. I am less tolerant of urine and feces on my carpet, even temporarily, so I am employing a modified approach that uses cotton training pants that allows the child to feel wet while at the same time containing the mess in the event there is an accident.
I took her to the potty every hour on the hour and she used the potty every time except once. She was so pleased to receive her reward and would run to the livingroom where the chart was posted to get her sticker. She is allowed to place the sticker anywhere on the paper. (It’s tough to get her to put the sticker in the exact spot that I want, so I just let her stick it anywhere to decorate the chart.) Then I stick a round colored dot in the square, drawing a happy face on it to indicate that she used the potty successfully.
At naptime, I took out a diaper for her. I wasn’t confident that she could hold her pee in her sleep, especially on her first day. She spotted the diaper and started crying.
“What’s wrong, sweetie?” I asked her.
“NO DIAPER!!” she wailed.
“You don’t want to wear a diaper?” I asked.
“Noooo diaper!”
I didn’t want to discourage her since the momentum was moving in the right direction. I put a waterproof pad under the bed sheet and a bath towel over that. She took a nap wearing her cotton underpants and when she woke up there was indeed a little bit of pee in her panty, but I am not disappointed at all by that. After all, I wasn’t expecting to have her 100% potty trained in a day.
We had dinner at grandma and grandpa’s house and I was concerned that it might set her back in the potty training. I brought the potty along and she used it twice while we were there, not having one accident during the nearly 3 hours that we were there.
As I was getting her ready for bed this evening, I was brushing her teeth. She is normally very squirmy and resistant to this part of our bedtime routine and will often cry out that she needs to “doo doo” as a distraction to end the toothbrushing. It worked the first two times, but I’m on to her now. Tonight she used the same tactic but instead of saying “doo doo” she cried, “potty!” I thought she was just trying to trick me again, so I told her that she would have to wait until after we were done brushing her teeth. After that, I took her into the bathroom to use the potty and lo and behold, pee in her panty. I guess she wasn’t kidding this time.
So really, I don’t consider that accident her fault, since she really did try to tell me that she had to use the potty but I didn’t let her go. Oh, poop. What a mean mommy.
I couldn’t be happier with our first day of official potty training. 9 successful attempts and 2 accidents — and no pee on my carpet! I’m a little concerned that she didn’t poop today. She said she needed to go, but was reluctant to use the potty. I encouraged her to use it anyway, but she didn’t produce a poop. I am hoping that she’s not holding it back. I consider her first poop in the potty a milestone to be reached, so we’ll see how long that takes.
My friend Arnold asked me if I would be photographing Lil K’s first poop in the potty and posting it on the Internet, Kate Gosselin style. Although I am no stranger to the concept of “oversharing,” I don’t think Lil K, ten years from now, would appreciate a photo of her and her first potty poop circulating on the interwebs. Arnold suggested that I take the photo and put it in our personal family scrapbook for posterity. I just might do that. In this age of digital photography, at least I don’t have to be embarrassed to take that roll of film to a One-Hour Photo.
You can make a difference in the life of a child -- I am! Our family is sponsoring Melvin, a 9 year old boy in the Philippines. Click the image below to find out more about child sponsorship and how your pocket change can change everything for a very special child.
Yesterday’s successes were a hard act to follow. It’s hard to top a day with 9 successful potty attempts and 2 excusable accidents. Today, there were 3 accidents — 2 of which were likely my fault for deciding to rely on Lil K’s ability to inform me when she had to use the potty. I guess she’s not ready for that yet. I should’ve stuck to the method of putting her on the potty every hour on the hour instead of asking her, “do you need to use the potty?” For all intents and purposes, I could have been asking if she wanted a root canal. Anything interrupting her playtime that doesn’t involve TV or ice cream will likely yield a negative response.
To Hubby’s credit, he was sticking with the routine, but I guess Lil K’s bladder was ahead of schedule. And again, right now, she’s not apt to volunteer to sit on the potty.
