Potty-training! Yes, on this roller-coaster ride called parenting I am now in the land of "do you need to use the potty... no Hannah, pipi goes in the potty, not on the floor". "Such Fun!" Yeah, I love Miranda, but her funny, annoying, embarrassing single life has nothing on being a new mom ;)
I started potty training because Hannah was starting to wake up with dry diapers and was starting to show more interest while sitting on her potty. I bought her a potty when she started walking and since then I try to sit her on it whenever I go to the bathroom because another perk of being a new mommy and stay at home is that you are NEVER alone... even while using the restroom... TMI?! ;) Anyway, she started simulating using the bathroom while sitting on her potty. Well, I´ve been really lazy and procrastinating on the whole potty thing but I´ve recently made a new mommy friend and she encouraged me to try because, from what I shared with her, "Hannah sounded like she was ready to potty train". My new mommy friend came courtesy of Hannah´s new friend, a cute little girl 2 months younger than my little darling. We met Hannah´s new friend Sophie (and NO, not that Sophie!) a little over a month ago at McCafe on one of my weekly outings with my BF. We were drinking and talking when another couple with a girl who looked to be about Hannah´s age sat down beside us and Hannah went all "cuckoo for cocoa puffs".
Side note No.1: why does using that reference all of a sudden make me feel really old?! I just looked it up and those wonderfully funny commercials (the one I´ve referenced for goodness knows how many years when dealing with my sister and now my favorite for describing Hannah´s reaction to kids and dogs), the ones I grew up watching are described as "vintage" on Youtube... *good grief!*
Okay, so back to my story. Hannah immediately resorted to her most successful tactic from her bag of tricks to get kids to play with her: share a cracker.
Side note No.2: My baby girl is now very skilled at getting people to do what she wants them to. She mastered these skills at my BF´s vacation house, where we spent Semana Santa (Holy Week). Her first "victim", was of course my BF. Hannah wanted my BF to take her for a walk around the pool because she loves walking with her YeYe (her way of saying my BF´s name, Jennifer). Alas, YeYe was busy talking to me, so Hannah walked over to her, grabbed her hand and started pulling on it, but my BF is very clever so she immediately took off one shoe and hid it. Why, you ask? Because Hannah isn´t allowed to walk without shoes on, so my BF knew if she hid one of her shoes she could then tell Hannah she couldn´t take her for a walk with only one shoe on. Of course Hannah would then look for her shoe for a bit without success and eventually forget she wanted to go on a walk with her Yeye. This happened on several occasions and my BF´s trick worked like a charm every time. I swear she is a baby whisperer! :) Her second victim, my BF´s cousin named Ale, a very sweet tween who is great with children and was also spending Semana Santa at Yeye´s house. Ale innocently took Hannah for a walk without knowing she was officially giving my baby a green light for any future walking desires. Sure enough, every time Yeye didn´t have a shoe to walk with *wink, wink ;)*, and the desire to take a stroll was still strong, all she had to do was look for Ale. On one of these occasions, she came across a minor setback: Ale was looking through a magazine. No worries, Hannah´s a problem solver. She walked over to Ale, sweetly looked up at her sitting on the couch and very demurely took the magazine from Ale´s hands, closed it, placed it on the coffee table, turned back to Ale, placed her little hand in one of Ale´s and pulled. I am in no way exaggerating, it truly was like watching a pro at work, and you know what? it totally worked! Ale got up from the couch and took Hannah for a walk ;)
So anyway, Hannah and Sophie immediately hit it off and spent the next hour playing, with kind exchanges between myself and the little girl´s mom. We shared how they were both the same age (a difference of two months) and both only children. I was quick to observe that Sophie´s mom´s parenting style was loving but relaxed like mine and even wanted to ask for her phone number but my friends reminded me that we live in Guate and therefore not a good idea (people here are much more reserved with their personal information due to the insecurity we constantly feel due to high crime rates). Soon the couple got up to continue their outing and proceeded to say their polite good-byes while I secretly wished I would have asked for her number.
Cut to about 4 weeks ago. I was feeling very stressed out over Hannah´s latest growth spurt breastfeeding marathon and decided to attend my local La Liga de la Leche group to get some much needed pep talks and support from other extended breastfeeding mothers. I admit that I only went to one group meeting early on in Hannah´s life, but I had schedule conflicts that meant I wasn´t able to keep attending the group by my house. But, lo and behold, the week I was feeling down and outs I received an e-mail from the group leader inviting all members with toddlers to a support meeting dedicated to extended breastfeeding. I was beyond thrilled, and the group was going to meet at a park near my house so double yey! I was excited to re-fuel my tank of breastfeeding resolve, but also hoping to meet other like-minded mommies with a child Hannah´s age in the hope of finding a mommy-pal for play dates. I have to admit that the McCafe exchange made me yearn for friends with babies. I love my friends, but like I´ve mentioned before, they are all single or married without children. I am thankful it has not hindered our relationships at all, but that day I realized that spending time with them means Hannah tags along without much to do. A friend with baby would mean that not only would I get my cherished adult talk, but Hannah would have someone to play with as well.
When we got to the park for the LLLI meeting, we made our way towards the group leader to say hello, and who did I see talking to her?!? Yes! Sophie´s mommy! I couldn´t believe my eyes and apparently neither could she because she interrupted her conversation to greet me and to share in my amusement at the hand of fate. We sat together and spent the rest of the meeting like two friends would, sharing and talking while our little girls played. I was over the moon and as the meeting was winding down I got her number and we made plans for our first play date! I don´t know if I´ve already written about this, but it bears repeating... Life lesson: Always be kind to the people who come into your life, even if briefly, because there are no coincidences and only God knows the reason behind every person you meet. So now my darling little Hannah has her very first friend named Sophie, Sophie has a small puppy that Hannah can play with named Tim (or in Hannah´s words "Pim", and you know how much Hannah loves her some puppies), and I have a new mommy pal with whom I have a lot in common... amazing, I truly am blessed!
The only down side to play dates is that they require a lot of patience and energy. It´s not like I had envisioned an outing with another mommy at all. You don´t really get to talk much because you are constantly chasing two very energetic girls and having to make sure the little darlings keep the peace, or rather in my case, making sure to actively, but not overbearingly, protect your baby from the her new pal´s hitting tendencies. Yep, Sophie, Hannah´s smaller and younger new friend, likes to smack her around, hahaha! It´s funny but a bit disturbing. I have to keep reminding myself that I can´t always shelter Hannah and that she was bound to run into a toddler who likes to hit. It´s unavoidable seeing as how it is a developmental stage all toddlers go through. Even my little darling has smacked me in the face once or twice. I am just really lucky she´d much rather pat Sophie´s hair while cooing "awww... nena" ("nena" is Spanish for "little girl") than hit her.
On our play dates I´ve discovered how calm and obedient Hannah is around other kids. Sometimes I get so overwhelmed at how defiant she is at home, but observing her during a play date is like watching someone else´s wonderfully behaved child. She´s had 1 tantrum during our 5 play dates, but it was due to getting a frozen lollipop taken from her by her mommy (bad mommy!) and didn´t last long. Besides that, she is anything but defiant, in fact she becomes downright compliant. I am also realizing how easy it is for me to focus on the negative things Hannah does and forget to be thankful for all of her positive traits. I know this has everything to do with my childhood, and so I know this is God´s way of reminding me of how important it is for me to break the cycle of impossibly high expectations and always feeling like a failure. I really, really hated not being praised for all of the good things I did with the same intensity that I was chastised for the very few bad things I did while growing up. That is why I have to remember to focus more energy on all of the truly wonderful aspects of my beautiful little girl than I do on the very few negatives because she truly is a gift from heaven!
Play Date No. 1: Sophie, balls, a puppy and a playground. |
Play Date No. 2: Sophie, balls, a puppy and an art session. |
baby whisperer
BF
Life lesson
LLLI
Mommy Pal
Play-Dates
Potty-Training
Puppy
Semana Santa
Sharing
Sophie the Girl
Tantrums
Tiger Dad/Mom
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