Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Parenting Goals...

So here are the things Gemma will be working on in the immediate future, hopefully to be accomplished by March 23. (ha; Gemma working? I mean MOMMY working)

1) Going to sleep by herself. Yes, we lay down with her to go to sleep. She sleeps in her own bed, and when we first moved her into her own big girl bed she was doing ok but then we travelled and with jet lag, etc, it was just easier and more restful for us all to lay down with her till she went to sleep. Then after the summer when we got back and I was newly pregnant and so tired I couldn't stay awake longer than her anyway; I fall asleep reading stories half the time and so the habit of sleeping with Gemma was further entrenched. Usually I wake up about 10:30 or so and go to my own bed. Sorry New Baby, we won't be making THAT mistake again! So the plan? We got a whole bag of Hello Kitty figures from a friend, so at night when we are in bed she picks one. If she goes to sleep by herself she gets to keep it, if mommy lays down with her, then I take it away. MOnday was the firts night of this plan; not so good. She whined and cried and whined and cried: I want kitty! I want mommy! I want kitty! I want mommy until finally I laid down with her and took the kitty when she was sleeping. Tonight was better. She took the kitty, and I sat beside her bed with her for about 10 minutes as she got dozy, then she told me I could leave. So I did, and that was 10 minutes ago and no sound so far. I think its ok to take this in small steps; sitting beside her bed is different from laying in her bed so I will count tonight as a victory. This goal is a major one because when the baby comes and I can't sleep with her anymore I don't want her to blame the baby for the sudden change in routine.

2) Potty training. We haven't been super serious about this one, but we are talking about it a lot. We've had three pee pees on the potty in the last few days, so that's good. To be honest, I feel like diapers are more convenient than potties. We spend a lot of time out and about; diapers can be changed easily anytime anywhere but potties will not be so easy to come by. I am also not looking forward to the amount of time that will more than likely be necessary to clean up the inevitiable accidents. (I am truly the most selfish parent, terrible!!!) So we'll see how this one goes. We'll see if over Chinese New Year break next week we make some progress, but I am not really stressed about this one.

Wish us luck. Watch for potty reports and hopefully a growing Kitty collection.

2 comments:

Heather said...

Public bathrooms ARE hard to come by in Taipei so it'll definitely be troublesome in that respect. And DECENT public bathrooms are even harder to come by. Little kids aren't real adventurous when they're first learning and I'm not too sure it'd be very easy to convince a newly trained/in training toddler to use a filthy squater. Can be hard enough getting them to use a perfectly sparkling toilet that sings to them!

You're not a selfish mom. I'd have the same concerns if I was still in Taipei when I started Atticus down this potty road. Best of luck.

Shel said...

It's way harder to go out while potty training than in diapers, I totally agree, LOL!

There is definitely some great convienience in them!