Milestones: Potty Trained & First Steps

I wanted to write a little bit about milestones that both Ryan and Grace have achieved recently.

First of all, in the past week Ryan has been going both pee and poopy ON THE TOILET! He's been peeing on the toilet since last summer, but as most of you know we've had a pretty tough time trying to potty train him on the poopy part. We've been frustrated to the max. We tried everything under the sun and nothing worked. One of my good friends, Kris, told me she experienced a similar situation and decided to give up the fight. Her kid was going to poop on the toilet when he was ready. Well, she was right. Because that's what Ryan did too. I can't believe I didn't mark the date, but it was probably a week and a few days ago that we put Ryan to bed one night, and about an hour later we heard him say (from the hall), "Mom and Dad. Come here. I have something to tell you." So we went down the hall and he was standing in the bathroom. He told us that he pooped in the toilet, and wiped himself, and flushed the toilet, and washed his hands! We almost didn't believe it, but the proof was in the pants. (We had to re-wipe him to make sure he was all cleaned up.) WE WERE SO EXCITED!!! I was completely blown away by the fact that he did this all on his own, without any prompting. And he did everything - going on the toilet, flushing, wiping, and washing. He knew all the steps. He even said to us, "I felt it coming, and so I went into the bathroom and went on the toilet." I think he was pretty excited that he could feel when it was coming and understood that it was time to go. We were both SO proud of him, and the best part is that he was super proud of himself. I loved seeing that. And ever since that night, he hasn't had any accidents. He even showed his new "talent" at Grandma and Grandpa Hackett's house and at Netta's house (his daycare provider). As I sit here and think about it, I'm still amazed that after over a year of trying to fully potty train him (and everything we went through to try to make it happen), he was the one that did it himself.

Second, Grace is finally getting her groove going. She took her first steps on March 5th but this past week she has been practicing her steps more and more. First it was about 3 steps at a time, then 5-8 steps. And now she can walk across a room. She's still wobbly, but she makes it. And she gets so happy. She laughs while she's walking. And when she makes it to her destination, she claps and smiles with a huge grin. It's so cute. I love seeing how proud she is.

Oh, and a couple more funny little things about Grace. In the past month or so she's been letting us know when she messes her diaper. She gets this funny, pained look on her face and then she kinda motions towards and/or grabs between her legs. It's pretty funny to see. And after I change her diaper, she likes to walk over to the gate at the top of our stairs and throw the diaper down the stairs. She's copying us. A lot of times we put messy diapers in a plastic bag, tie it up, and toss it down the stairs to the entryway (to be thrown in the outside garbage can later). We've come a long way from using a Diaper Genie every time Ryan messed his pants as a baby - or maybe I should say we've just gotten lazy. Ha ha! And lastly, Grace learned how to sign "more" when she wants more food or drink. I only showed it to her a few times awhile ago, but she started using it recently. It's cute to see, but hopefully she'll start using her mouth to speak to us soon. The doctor says not to worry. Many times the second child talks later than the first, and he says her speech will probably/hopefully take off after she turns two.