Potty Training

We may be potty-training around here. I'm just not sure. What I do know, is that the first drops of Gunnar-pee HAVE officially entered a toilet in our home, on three different occasions, over the course of the last two days. Umm.....we weren't going to do this until he turned 3. Unlike most mommies out there, I am really just in no rush to potty train. After 2+ years of changing diapers, I'm kind of used to it. It isn't that difficult, its not that time-consuming, Ok ok...diapers ARE expensive, I suppose, but still....I gave up my Ben and Jerry's Cherry Garcia ice cream a while back, and that stuff is so ridiculously expensive, it practically balances out. Honestly, potty-training just seems like a huge pain in the butt, not even to mention something that interrupts our oh-so-nicely routined days. BUT....Gunnar decided he's ready. I think this is mostly in part to the fact that while I was gone for the day a few weeks ago, Nason took it upon himself to teach Gunnar how to pee outside (like a real man), which apparently ignited an interest in all things "pee-related" for Gunnar (including but not limited to..urine itself, toilets, his man-parts, if you know what I mean, and toilet paper). It also includes visits to the toilet a million times a day, while he sits there for a while, toots, laughs, plays with himself, plays with the toilet paper roll, plays with the toilet water, and yes...occasionally...pees. If that's not toilet-training, I don't know what is! But.....I haven't read a potty-training book yet! I haven't made a plan yet! I haven't written out the instructions for "Potty Training Boot Camp" (everything I decide Gunnar needs to learn, from sleep scheduling, to table manners...still haven't accomplished that one, by the way....to discipline, to potty-training, gets labeled "Boot Camp" by me). So I'm not too sure what to do. I'm thinking about frantically reading through "PottyWise" over the weekend, and officially starting this Boot Camp up on Monday, but I'm not totally sold yet. Everyone says, "if he's ready, don't ignore it!". To that I say...."Uggggghhhhhhhh" and "You're probably right". So that being said, any of you have good, tried-and-true suggestions on Potty Training books or strategies that you care to share with me?

(We've perfected our technique since this picture was taken, and he sits on the toilet like a normal toddler would do. Much to Nason's surprise and disappointment, Gunnar isn't ready to stand and aim yet. Big shocker there.)

Changes

One of the things I spent some time doing on my Planning Day was to identify some ongoing things about my day (every day) that, well, for lack of a better way to put it, basically just sucked. In other words, what were some things that EVERY SINGLE DAY were either stressing me out, annoying me, annoying Gunnar, annoying Nason, making our day run less than smooth, etc. Here's what I came up with:

- Trying to rush out the door every morning to get somewhere
- Messiness around the house
- Not enough quality play time with Gunnar
- Attempting to get cleaned up and ready in the mornings, while at the same time entertaining and/or keeping Gunnar out of trouble
- Feeling like I didn't have enough down time
- Dinner time. Everything about it. Period.

So, here are the six, oh-so-simple changes I put into place, that LITERALLY have been life changing so far. I have NO idea why it took me this long to do them:

1) Wake up before Gunnar: Every morning this week, I woke up early enough to shower and get ready, AND do a quick straightening-up of the house, before Gunnar wakes up. Added bonus besides the obvious? I get a full cup of coffee in my system before I greet Gunnar for the day, AND I get to watch snippets of my beloved Today show, which I used to ALWAYS watch, while getting ready for work (in the pre-Gunnar days), and seriously missed.

2) 3 times a day, I do a brief "straightening up" of the house. Once before Gunnar wakes up, once right after I lay him down for his nap, and once right after we put him to bed for the night. This ensures that the house never gets TOO messy, BUT (and more importantly) it ensures that I'm not wasting quality time that I could be spending with him, cleaning the house (which I was SUPER guilty of before)

3) I sit down and eat breakfast with Gunnar (helping to achieve my goal of my quality, face-time with him)

4) With rare exceptions, we do NOT leave the house before 10 am anymore. This is HUGE. One of the biggest sources of annoyance, leading to me being unnecessarily short with Gunnar, was that every single day, I was rushing us to eat breakfast, get ready, and get out the door. To go SOMEWHERE. Anywhere. I like to be on the go a lot, whether it's errands, playdates, etc. This hasn't changed, and probably won't, but by committing to not leaving before 10, it ensures that Gunnar and I get to have a nice, leisurely morning together, void of unnecessary rushing and impatience. Also, since I'm already ready, and the house is already reasonably clean, we can spend the whole morning up until then playing (which addresses one of the other problems mentioned above).

5) Gunnar stays in his bed until 7:15 in the morning, and stays in his bed for 2 hours and 15 minutes at nap time. It matters not if he wakes up prior to that. He can read books, or just hang out in his room, but that door ain't opening until the time I set. That ensures that I have time to get ready and do my cleaning in the morning, AND it ensures that I have SOME (even if it's small) amount of free time, to do absolutely nothing, during his afternoon nap.

6) I'm doing dinner prep during his nap. Dinner time at our house has become SO miserable lately. Especially with this new vegan way of eating. It seems to take FOREVER to cook, eat, and then clean up the millions of dishes involved with whatever recipe I've made, and Gunnar seems to take advantage of this time where I'm otherwise occupied, to be at his very most disobedient/disorderly. So, I'm doing as much of the dinner preparation as is feasibly possible while he's asleep, cutting down DRASTICALLY on how much time I'm in the kitchen in the evening.

This week has gone SO smoothly as a result, and I just can't believe that it's taken me so long to begin doing most of these things.

Funny

Oh How I Love to Plan!

Once a year, in January, I spend one full day "planning". "Planning", for me, consists of:

- finding a fun, cozy location FOR my planning

-Praying

- Drinking lots of coffee

- Reviewing the previous year, and measuring how well I did, in terms of living up to the goals I'd set for myself

- Assessing how I can do things better in the coming year

- Deciding what new things I need to implement, in order to more closely align myself with my "life goals".

"Life Goals" is kind of a cheesy little phrase, and I actually hate that I just used it. It really isn't even the right way to convey what I mean.

Basically, when I first started doing this, I sat down and listed out the four categories that I felt like kind of make up my life:

-Spiritual
- Marriage
- Parenting
- Personal

Then, I wrote kind of a "summary statement" for each one, summarizing what my main goals for each of those categories were. These are not goals that change from year to year, but "forever goals" (wow, that's even cheesier than "life goals"). Basically, I asked myself the question for each category, "Describe what it is that you are trying to achieve in this area". I spent a LOT of time last year thinking through those, prayed a ton about them, and then finally wrote them down. I won't share all of them with you (lest you die of boredom), but as an example, here is what I wrote out under "Parenting":

"I want to create good memories for and with Gunnar. I want him to grow up feeling loved, special, cherished, enjoying life, and enjoying time with his family. I want to take seriously mine and Nason's responsibility to teach Gunnar about Jesus. I want to help him discover his God-given purpose, and how to be a godly man, a responsible person, a good husband, and a good father. I want to cherish every second I have with him, and not wish for it to hurry by. I want Gunnar to love Jesus genuinely. I want Gunnar's biggest driving passion in life to be to find out what will please God most, and then do it. I want him to be confident and secure. I want him to enjoy and savor life. I want him to love other people well. I want him to know how to make wise and sound decisions for himself"

So anyway, every year, I revisit this and remind myself what I wrote in each category, and then decide what I SPECIFICALLY need to do/change/start/stop/implement/do better/etc, to continuously stay on track with that goal.

This system has worked great for me, and really helps me to stay focused, and be purposeful with how I spend my time and energy. Well, at least January through October. Come October, I start to get extremely lazy, and a lot of this stuff starts falling to the wayside. Not to worry though...January rolls around, and the process begins again!

"Worry....

.....Been Doggin' My Soul, Since The Day I Was Born" There's a little Ray LaMontagne for you. And really, the lyrics say "Trouble" been doggin my soul, not "worry" ("worry" is in the next stanza, and those words aren't as applicable to my blog post, so I swapped them. So what?) Anyway, as I mentioned in a previous post, I struggle a lot with worry, and always have. Pretty much for as long as I can remember, I go through these "seasons" of worry, where I ruminate on some certain fear, and like a hamster in a cage, my brain just keeps going around and around and around and around thinking about it. It's really quite exhausting. Then I go through seasons where I'm really not such a worrisome person, and that's a nice break for a while, but inevitably, something will trigger the worry, and back it comes. So, one thing I spent my planning day on yesterday, was thinking through some lessons I had learned in 2011, and ways that God had really grown me. I think I made some big strides in my "worry issue" this year, probably bigger breakthroughs than ever before, because God taught me some big things (some of these things seem so simple, obvious, and "duh"-ish, but they suddenly made new sense to me):

1) God actually COMMANDS me not to worry ("DO NOT BE ANXIOUS ABOUT ANYTHING....." Phillipians 4:6-7) So if I choose to worry, that is a sin. If God gives me a command, then He'll give me the ability to keep that command. So if I find myself worrying, it's because I'm CHOOSING to.

2) God DESIRES for me to live free from worry ("Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid" John 14:27)

3) I WILL have problems/trials in this life. There's no sense in sitting around worrying about it. I just WILL. It's not heaven, it's earth, so why should I even have the expectation that it will be problem free? God allows certain trials in my life, because it's a huge way for me to grow, and become more like Him (which is His biggest goal), and I need to want that, more than I want to have a comfortable, problem-free life.

4) "God gives us His grace [to deal with problems/trials/crises] IN THE HOUR THAT WE NEED IT. If we worry about the future now, we double our pain, without the grace to deal with it" (I can't remember where I read that quote, but I liked it, and it really stuck with me).

ANYWAY....I learned a whole lot more about this issue of worry over the last several months, but these are the main four points, I think. Bottom line is, it's encouraging to me to realize that I don't HAVE to be characterized as a "worrisome person". I actually CAN overcome it, and I intend to!

Inspired

Well, my blog still needs lots and lots of help....if expert bloggers have a master's degree, then I am basically still a blogging kindergartner. A preschooler, even. I did change my background, font and colors though! That was huge. Actually, I already knew how to do that at one point, way back in the early days of my blog, but I've regressed since then, and had forgotten how to even do that, so I feel hugely accomplished for having re-learned the skill. Anyway, recently, I have been re-inspired to get back to blogging. I should say, re-re-inspired, because I was re-inspired about a month ago and then I lost interest all of over again. This week though, I was re-re-inspired for two reasons:

1) My sister started up a blog, and reading hers has made me remember how much fun it is to blog (by the way, check her out here.

2) Yesterday, I did my annual Day of Planning, and besides thinking and praying through a bunch of stuff like goals for the year, priorities, ways to be a better mom, etc etc etc, I tried to think through some ways that I would most ENJOY spending the free time I have, versus simply piddling it away on Facebook and Pinterest, and I realized that I really do like to blog and write, and I think it would be a better use of my time (therapeutic, perhaps) than always zoning out on Facebook and Pinterest (don't misunderstand me though...eliminating Facebook and Pinterest ENTIRELY were NOT part of my New Year's Planning).

Anyway, I am excited to re-ignite this interest, and am hoping to become a bit better at it, as I do it more regularly. My sister and I even talked about taking a blogging class...although that seems incredibly dorky, and possibly like a huge waste of time and money (unless someone wants to give us some free private lessons, that is?)