Light At The End Of The Tunnel

This post was originally going to be just about potty training, but with being offered a job this week it has taken on two meanings for me.

First the potty training.  Rylee and I started on this journey on February 24th.  At first it was pure hell.  Just ask my mom, I called her and informed her that being a person of no patience, there was no way I was going to be able to do this without a horrible outcome.  She talked me down off the ledge and away we went.

At first Rylee was excited about peeing in the potty, then she got lazy about it.  Then it was good again and so went the initial roller coaster.  After a month of accidents I’ve luckily managed on getting urine smell out of mattress and I watched a friend of Rylee’s for a few days due to some daycare issues for her mom.  I prayed that somehow Kayla’s time with Rylee would have positive potty results.  Well, let me tell you, we should have had Kayla spend time with us a month earlier.  Rylee would sit on her training potty and Kayla would sit on the ‘big’ potty and the two of them would have a great time on day one.  Then Kayla went home.  After she left Rylee informed me that she wanted to pee on the ‘big’ potty.  YAY!!!  That was the end of the training potty. I cleaned it up, put it in a closet and we’ve never looked back.

Yes, Rylee still wears a Pull-Up for her naps and an Overnite diaper to bed at night.  But we’ll take the small victories.  Like the fact that after being at this for only a month she started telling me when she needed to go.  This is just wonderful as it has put an end to many accidents.  Now we still have them, but most of the time I realize that it was my fault because I didn’t make her go before doing ______.  But it’s a learning curve for both of us.

Is she potty trained? Not by any stretch of the imagination.  But she is well on her way.  And after almost two months I’m pretty happy about where we are.

The other light at the end of a much longer tunnel is that after almost exactly a year I got a job offer.  Truth be told, it came not a moment too soon.  Last week was the last week of unemployment for me.  Talk about stress!  We all know that the money you get from unemployment is a big reduction from what your salary was, but anyone who has collected it is more than thankful it’s there.  That said, the money I got from it is money that is needed.  So looking down the barrel of that loaded gun wasn’t any fun for me at all.

I will be starting my new job on April 19th.  I will be working at a small pharmaceutical company in a support role that sounds exactly like what I did at Wyeth for five years.  I really like the company and the people I have met have been very friendly.  I’m looking forward to getting back into the work force for numerous reasons.

Rylee is also excited that Mommy got a job because she knows that it means that she will get to back to ‘school’.  She is ready to spend her time with kids her own age and I know she is ready to learn more than Mommy was able to teach her.  She’s also excited for Brynn to go to ‘school’ too.  I will say that Brynn won’t be nearly as excited as Rylee come the 19th.  She is very attached to me so I’m sure when I drop her off she and I will both be crying as I walk out the door.  But I know that she will stop and by the time Daddy picks her up she will be having fun with her new friends.

Rylee Time

07-Nov-2009 11:49

 

Since it’s been almost seven months since Rylee turned two I decided it was time to write about her.

Rylee has really enjoyed having me home.  When I originally talked with her about me going back to work she would tell me “Da-do work, Mommy home.”  We each had our place and she liked the current arrangement.

I have enjoyed being home with both girls.  I tell Rylee every day that she makes me laugh and it’s so very true.  She might just say something funny, do something funny or even just give me a look that just makes me crack up.  I enjoy being with her.  Well, most of the time, let’s not forget that she is two!

05-Nov-2009 07:38

 

Rylee is still as clutzy as ever.  I swear she can trip over a piece of hair on the carpet.  For the most part she doesn’t hurt herself and usually laughs when the clutziness occurs.  I will say this is something she comes by honestly as everyone knows I am certainly not the most graceful person myself.

Rylee has a great vocabulary and she is constantly figuring out new sentences and phrases.  She can count to ten and while she knows her ABC’s she doesn’t really like to sing them, she would rather have me take care of that.

She still very much loves to watch the Wiggles.  She knows all of the characters and also knows which skits she enjoys and which ones to tell me to skip over.  She is usually up dancing around while she watches the shows.  She has also ventured into watching Disney movies.  (Big shock, I know!)  As of now her favorites are Mike!!!! aka Monster’s Inc. and UP!  She also has a few others that make it into the rotation.

26-Nov-2009 14:33

 

One big thing in the last few months is that she no longer uses her Binky.  She went to stay with Bill’s folks for a few days and when it was time to put her do bed when she got home I couldn’t find them.  I took this opportunity to tell her that they must have been lost between our houses.  She took it in stride, talked about it for a few days, but has been Binky free ever since.  YAY!!!!!  Besides, Brynn was ready for that size Binky and Lord knows we weren’t buying more.

Rylee has also been telling us that she will pee in the potty when “Ho Ho” comes.  I cannot tell you how much we were looking forward to taking her to see Santa this year!  We went on Sunday night and let me tell ya, it wasn’t pretty.  Bill put Brynn on Santa’s lap and she just sat there looking at him. I put Rylee on his lap and she screamed.  Great!  I took her off his lap and we got the photo with only Brynn this year.  Afterward we asked her about peeing in the potty and and she said no “Ho Ho”.  I tried to explain to her that we had just seen him but she was having none of it.  So then we talked some more and it seems she meant that she will do it when Santa brings her new toys.  Alrighty then, a few more weeks won’t kill us.  Well, yesterday we got out the potty and she sat on it for a few minutes with no results.  No big deal, we will continue to let her sit there and hopefully soon something will happen.

Rylee really is a wonderful big sister.  She will play with Brynn and she loves to give her hugs and kisses.  She makes sure that Brynn has toys to play with and will also clean up Brynn’s toys before bed since Brynn can’t do it just yet.  I will say that there are times when she will take toys from Brynn to have for herself.  When this happens we always have a little chat and things go back to normal.  One of Rylee’s favorite things is to go into Brynn’s room in the morning and climb up on the side of the crib to ‘see’ her and to say hello.  Brynn always reacts with a big smile or laugh.  No one can make Brynn laugh like Rylee.

28-Nov-2009 18:31

 

Rylee is now to the point where she wants to be the one to pick out her clothes in the morning.  Thankfully I still have some input and we manage to choose an outfit that a mom can be proud of.  She even has to pick out the shoes to wear each day.  Boy am I in trouble in a few years!

That’s pretty much the update for now.  I will try to post updates on her more regularly if possible.