Ingenue Mom

General Stats: 28 lbs, 35.75 inches tall   Movement: Obviously as a 2-year old, this is becoming a less interesting update. Isis loves to run & dance & she is absolutely a little climber! She loves to climb up on Lewis' weightlifting equipment. I swear she can scale some of that stuff! I have to keep an eye on her or she'll be climbing up somewhere she shouldn't! She is starting to be able to walk up and down the stairs like normal, alternating legs. But she doesn't do this all the time. She has had a couple of tumbles down the last couple of stairs if she starts going too fast, so she's not yet going down stairs alone.   Food: For the most part, she is an excellent eater! We were told that she would start to eat less this year, but we are still amazed at how much she can put away! She usually eats well for breakfast and lunch and then dinner is hit or miss. If we're eating Mexican food or pizza, she can throw down at dinner. But if it...

Having a little celebratory ice cream for pooping in the potty! We are successfully potty trained! This is an experience & a milestone that I have to record somewhere, if only just so I remember for next time! Also, this has lots of potty talk in it, so if you're not interested in reading all that...don't.  Readiness Isis has been going occasionally in the potty for pee since she was a little older than 18 months. This would happen more often with the grandparents because they seemed excited to do it & she seemed more at ease about doing it with them. We didn't push it almost at all at our house because I wanted to go all in or just wait. I didn't want to just go halfway with the potty training & drag it out forever. She also has woken up dry for naps pretty frequently for about the same amount of time. She has also woken up many times dry in the morning. She would also tell me sometimes that she needed a diaper change, so I knew she was ready. ...

We are having another girl!!! I am so excited that Isis will have a little sister. That is something I never had and I always wished I had. Having a brother was fun, too, don't get me wrong, but there was always something I envied about that bond of sisters. I look forward to seeing this with my girls!! Everything looked great with the 20 week ultrasound, so we are excited and well into nursery planning and preparing as I want to have everything done and ready before I go back to school at the beginning of August. Now, second reason for this post: Potty Training   We have also decided it is time to potty train Isis. I held off during the school year because I didn't want to make my babysitter do a lot of it. Isis uses the potty occasionally as it is, usually about once a day, if not more. She just doesn't really tell us if she needs to go all the time. She also wakes up with a dry diaper some of the time both at night and almost always for naps. So we feel l...

Image Source Lewis & I have definitely exhibited some outside the "normal" parenting decisions: naming our daughter Isis, using cloth diapers, etc. So it should come as no surprise to you that we have decided to try out another unusual parenting strategy: elimination communication. First let me explain what it is: it is a method where parents use cues from their baby to let them know when the baby needs to use the potty and they just take them to the potty rather than have them go in their diaper. It relies on the fact that before diapers and in countries without diapers, mothers have been using this method for centuries. In America, we train our children to go in their diapers and then train them not to at the age of 2 or 3. There are many benefits to this method including less diaper rash, reduces diaper use, keeps baby in touch with their own body, etc. The thing I do like about it is that rather than teaching a child to "hold it" like you do when they are ol...