Adjustment update

I thought I'd add another update on Nugget since her chiro visits - it's been about a month since she was adjusted, and she is still just a completely different baby from the grouch she was from 6-12 weeks.  She is almost always smiling and cooing and laughing now, and loves to interact with other people.  She is happy to go to anyone else, and continues to gain weight like it's her job (which, I guess, for an infant, it is).  She has mostly good days at daycare, and although ANOTHER sickness (ugh, which hit all three littles, we were snot free for like a week, sigh) has her restless, she is generally sleeping good for naps and bedtime.

Speaking of naps, she has suddenly decided she no longer likes the Rock N Play.  She will no longer nap in it, and prefers to lay flat in her crib.  I'm a bit hesitant to sell it yet (what if I have a sleeping emergency and need it?!) but I don't think we are facing a battle to transition to the crib for naps.  Whew.

Step-parent titles - from both sides of the coin

I feel that I have a bit of a benefit for writing about step-parenting because I've had a step-parent and I've been a step-parent now for six years.  I recently saw a thread about step relationships, where people referred to these relation ships as "bonus" relationships as opposed to "step" relationships, and I'm trying to adopt this lingo in my life.  My step-dad always felt that he was somehow short-changed being relegated to the "step" title.  Although my first dad is still very much a part of my life, I grew up with the every-other-weekend visitation with my dad, so my step-dad was the primary father figure for my day-to-day life.  He came to my sporting events, took me shopping, came to my prom, helped me buy my first car, cooked me meals, gave me chores...he was another dad for me, and I think "bonus" dad is a much more apt title for the role he played in my life. He passed away two years ago, which I will probably write more about later, so I am disappointed I won't be able to refer to him as my bonus dad when he can hear it.

I've also been a step-mom for six years, and I struggle somewhat with how to define our family for others.  Out of respect for my stepdaughter and her very much present relationship with her mom (her mom and the hubs share joint custody), I don't want to completely "claim" her as my own.  However, I also very much believe that she is partly mine, and part of my family, which is why I like the phrase "bonus" daughter to refer to her.  Because she truly is a wonderful bonus that I received when I married the Hubs.  She is polite, kind, and witty, and I am happy she has been a part of her life.  We don't draw lines in the sand regarding her relationship with her sisters at our house - there is no "half-sister" designation.  My mom and dad embrace her as one of the grandchildren and loves spending time with her as well. Our littles are lucky to have such a great big sister.  She truly is a bonus.  Now I just need to train my brain to make the language switch.

I'll probably write more about being a bonus mom for my bonus daughter, as well.  It's a tricky area to navigate sometimes, but I think we're doing it fairly well.

Family photos

We had family photos taken.  I think we may have one or two where the teenager, the toddlers, and the baby, and the parents, are all smiling and looking at the camera.  Ah-mazing.

Nugget is a total camera-loving ham.  It's so fun to watch her personality develop.

I can't wait to put up a new family photo.  Although we had family photos taken last year in conjunction with SB and BW's first birthday, we've never printed any of them.  Hopefully one of this recent session turns out well so we can get a big canvas for above the mantel.

Potty-training success!

SB and BW sailed through their first few days of daycare wearing underwear.  I expect there will be accidents here and there, but it seems we are firmly in the underwear-wearing camp.  I am still so impressed with how  smoothly things went.  I think we just managed to hit the sweet spot with timing and them being ready to train.  I know I'm always anxious to hear what has worked for other people, so I'll share our potty-training weekend - although I make no claims I actually know anything about how to be successful at potty-training.

As a bit of background, we have had potty seats in our house since SB and BW were about 18 months.  We offered that they could sit, but never really pushed it. We also bought undies and allowed them to wear undies here and there, but didn't pursue anything.  Although I had originally hoped to have them trained before Nugget's arrival,  As I started to get closer to Nugget's delivery date, they started regressing and refusing the potty, or sitting for only a second or two, so I stopped pushing, figuring they would regress anyway even if we did get them trained before Nugget was born.

I decided to try a rough 3-day method because BW was definitely showing interest here and there, and I had a 4-day weekend coming up where we could stick close to home anyway.  I was a bit worried if we could make it stick at daycare though, because neither of the twins were using the potty at daycare.  I mentioned it a few times that we were going to start wearing underwear on Friday, and we picked out new underwear, but didn't spend a lot of "build-up" to wearing undies.

For our initial training weekend, I had two potty seats in addition to the regular toilet in our main floor bathroom.  Our regular toilet also has the seat with the built-in child seat.  I let them pick what they want to use each time.  Now, I have one potty seat in the main floor bathroom and one in the upper level bathroom near their room.  My "plan" was to have them try every 20 minutes for 5 minutes at a time, but we deviated from that pretty quickly.  Here's a brief summary:

• Offered potty.  Reminded them to tell me if they needed to go.  Offered every 20 minutes, if they refused reminded them to tell me if they needed to go, the first day.
• Kept them within 8-10 feet of the bathroom the entire first day.
• Cheered like crazy and encouraged them to cheer for each other.  Gave 1 m&m for pee, 3 for poop.
• Pushed drinks like crazy.  Mostly water, but some milk and some lemonade.  Played "tea party" to keep them drinking fluids.
• Used diapers for naps/bedtime (this has been a struggle, as they take their diapers off at naps, and don't nap.  I was also worried that BW would use this time to poop in her diaper, as she normally poops at naptime.  However, she has pooped in the potty since day 1.  We have switched to some leftover pull-ups from a friend for nap/bed, which the girls will leave on - so I guess the rest of their diapers can go into storage for when Nugget gets to that size).

By the middle of day 3, we were all a bit stir-crazy.  You can only paint and color and play with play-dough in the kitchen so long. I had wanted to try a short outing, so we decided to go over to visit friends (who knew we were potty training).  However, we needed to pick some stuff up to grill, so we also needed to make a short grocery store visit.  This also went amazingly well.  SB even used the toilet at the grocery store.

We were having such good luck that by day 4, I loosened the reins considerably.  We set up the kiddie pool and let them play outside most of the day, and still did a great job of telling me they had to go and running into the house.  Zero accidents. All poops in the potty.

I was really nervous to send them off to daycare because (1) they wouldn't get m&ms there (although by day 3 I was no longer giving them for every success) and (2) they would have to tell someone other than me they had to go.  I talked with SB and BW the day before about people they could tell at daycare if they had to go potty.  I packed up 4 pair of undies and 4 pair of pants per kid, told daycare how we had done and hoped they wouldn't be in diapers again at the end of the day.

I need to give my kids more credit.  No accidents.  3 days of daycare in undies and we haven't touched the extra clothes.  Woo hoo!

Potty training times two

Potty training twins is a bit scary.  We dove head-first into potty training over the long weekend.

And nailed it. I am so proud of my big girls.

However, SB and BW went back to daycare this morning for the first time in over a week - transitions are hard, especially for SB.  I am so anxious to hear if they continue their success, and worried about setbacks.