Big Strides

I'm not sure if I just haven't been noticing the changes, but Phoenix seems to be making some really big strides lately. She has finally, after 6 months of work, figured out that sitting on the potty means we want her to pee. She loves everything else about potty time and has it down pat. The sitting, the throwing toilet paper in, the flushing and the washing hands. Everything except the peeing. But for the last week every time she has sat on the potty she has refused to get off until she pees. It often means sitting and waiting for 20 minutes or so until the feeling comes on, but she has been doing it! It makes  me feel really optimistic about trying to fully potty train this summer. The summer time is a good time for us to potty train because I'll be off work and i can really take the time to take her to the potty every hour or so. Of course, she can't yet pull her own pants up and down yet, but one step at a time, right?

The other big leap is in language. I am noticing more and more that Phoenix is putting two words together. And the more I notice, the more I am consistent with prompting her to expand her expressive language when she falls back to one word requests or sentences. I feel like we are really working as a team to help build her language skills. To use a very overused term, it feel like we have synergy. It makes me feel really warm and fuzzy inside.

Of course there are other areas which are not progressing at all. Eating for instance. Getting this child to eat fruits and veggies is really hard work. One of my recent shining examples of parenting involved Phoenix crying and me shoving a piece of orange in her mouth while exclaiming "It's not poison! It's just fruit!". Sigh. Not my finest moment, I'll give you that.

Big strides indeed.