Potty Training the Bean, Update

Be warned this is a very fact filled post on the process I have taken with training my girl to use the toilet. The info is my experience for this one child. Each child is different and I know that. 

Okay so for week one a lot of you saw updates through out the day on what was happening. The Bean (Jade) was getting a training on what the toilet is used for and that she was indeed going to be a user. Week two you heard less, if anything at all. Here's why. She gets it. She knows what it's for. Does she have accidents? Yes but let me say this. NOT usually. She can go for over 36 hours in the same underwear. So here is the news.

The first three days were of course the hardest. It is a learning curve and it takes a bit for them to recognize the feeling of needing to go and then waiting. Diapers means, need to go arises and they go. All in one smooth motion. Toilet means, need to go arises and they need to wait to get to the toilet and then sit and then go. More steps in between. I will say it is amazing the motivation they will get when they are wet though.


So for the first three days She was in panties or even bottomless during the day. Then at night it was into a diaper. When she was using diapers all the time I had her in cloth during the day and disposable during the night. The cloth do not hold everything at night and I hated changing her in the wee hours of the morning. I purposefully ran out of disposables two nights into the training so that I would then change over to cloth at night. I was unsure of how many nights it would take to night train her but I knew that if she was in cloth at night it would motivate me.


Boy was I right. It worked for her too. She has always woken up at least once during the night and as I started into this I thought that maybe it was cause she needed to go. She has always disliked being wet and so I believe that was a big help in her training.


So when she woke up at night, instead of just putting a blanket back on her and helping her sleep again I would whisk her down stairs to the toilet and put her on. First few times this made her angry. How would you like being pulled from your nice warm bed and plunked down all bottom exposed on a cold toilet when you have never done this before? Yeah her too.


But here's the thing. She was dry. She was dry when I put her on and she was dry in the morning.


For three nights her diaper was dry and that was it. I put them away. She is now a panties only kind of girl.


Nineteen months old. And the thing I think that really makes this work is that at this age she probably can hardly remember anything else. This is soon to be the only thing she has ever known.

Now the one thing about night training is the absolute frustration of undoing snaps on a sleeper to put them on the toilet. They are hating every minute out of bed and snapping them back in is not something they want to take the time for. Thus the sleeper turned pjs. I Have always loved the green of these sleepers and was not looking forward to packing them away. So solution, revamp.


She can pretty much pee on command so when I go to town I will be sure to put her on the toilet at each stop and she will do fine. As long as I tell her before that I am going to put her on and that I need her to pee. If I ask her if she needs to go and she says no and then I put her on I believe she is confused and even a little upset that I did not take her word for it. So if I think it has been long enough since she last went I will just tell her what is going to happen and she agrees fully. No struggle.


Potty training can be done. The hardest part is the transfer. For my mind to go from cleaning the messes in a contained package to cleaning them off the floor, it took about three days to get used to. And now here we are two and a half weeks later and I have not cleaned pee off the floor for half of that time. Just a few soaked pants and even that she does not fully release, she feels a bit down her leg and holds it to get the rest in the toilet. I believe that might be a bit easier cause girls can stop mid stream while boys cannot.

And there you have our story the second time around.

Camping prep, some more

Next up for camp prep is the food. That is a long list of junk food that needs to be picked up and then a few items of healthy things to make me feel a little better about all the junk. No camping does not have to give freedom to this sort of thing but it does. A bit of junk food while camping just makes for some fun times.

How can you not roast marshmallows over and open fire? So needless to say I won't be bothering to write out a list here of what all we bring just cause I think I might be a bit embarrassed. But I will show you the granola I made to have as a snack or breakfast.


If you follow me on instagram you will have already seen hints at the fact that I like to use old jars to store things that do not in any way pertain to what is inside. Case in point. Nescafe jar full of cereal. Yum!!


I haven't made this stuff in so long and had forgotten how much I like it.

I got the recipe from somewhere on the world wide web but that was long before I kept close track to these things and so I have no link to the original. If this is your recipe I apologize for "stealing" it. I did make a few changes so I guess that gives a bit of freedom to re-post it here.

Here's what I've got.

6 cups Oatmeal
2 cups whole wheat flour
1/4 cup flax seed (I grind half of them and leave half of them whole)
1/4 cup sunflower seeds
1/4 cup pumpkin seeds and almonds

Here's where I change things as I go. I found the original recipe a little too sweet for me so it is a to taste sort of deal.

2 cups brown sugar.
       I use 1cup and then add some light mollasses and honey, even a bit of real maple syrup.
       In the end my sweetner might add up to 1 and 1/2 cups. Could use even less next time.
1 cup butter
       again changed this to about 3/4 cups
 1 tsp salt

 Whether I add the next two depends on my mood that day. Sometimes just one sometimes none of them.
1 tsp cinnamon
1tsp vanilla.

Mix all dry ingrediants together
Heat to just bubbling the sugar/sweetner of choice and butter. Add remaining ing. to that.
Add the hot syrup to the dry ingerdiants.
Let stand for ten minutes.
Bake in oven for 30-45 minutes stirring in between in a 300 degree oven.

Wow that get's complicated, hey?  It's really not that bad it is fairly free to changes. You can do what ever you want in the end and that's what makes for all the words I just typed out.

There you have granola for any time of day or night. Next up, make some homemade yogurt to eat it with. YUM!!

Camping Prep!!

So with Camping coming up in our near future it was time to put together some things for the trip. Paul has often asked if I wanted to use this item that was found at the dump and brought home. I knew I wanted to give it a try but I have to admit I was nervous. I had no clue how to prep it and knew it was no good without being set up.

With this trip coming up and the reminder, once again, of this very item I thought, "yes it is time to pull it down from the attic. And so I set to work.

Some steel wool and a bit of a wash had it ready for the next step. When we looked up how to go about seasoning it I saw that really it can't be that bad. I just was not convinced that it could actually be that easy.


Now a week of use has me in love. In fact so much so that I was not looking forward to giving it up to the fire. When I saw the one to the right at a second hand store for $10, I snatched it up. Now there are two of them.


One for my home stove and one for the campfire. Eee!! Excited.


And seriously seasoning these things takes no time or real skill. Just rub it all over with some Crisco and heat it on the stove.


When it has warmed up a bit you can wipe off the excess grease. Let it cool for a bit then move it to a 300 degree oven for a few hours. Let cool and done. I know right? If you don't believe me you can find info all over the net for this and so much more. Some people have been using these forever and know a lot more than I do. So next time you see one of these in your local dump second hand store and wonder if it can be resurrected, know that it can indeed be made greatly useful. All it takes is a little time.

Linked this up here.

Tips and tricks

Really? Am I about to write in here about cleaning? This is not a blog about cleaning, or house keeping or anything like that. This is an all about our lives blog. A blog to tell you how life was when you were growing up. To give little pictures into the daily lives of you, Suzie and Jade.

Well here is something for later. For when you get older and these things will matter to you. (and really I am writing this because I am THAT excited about my two new cleaning finds). Yes, Excited! Why might you ask? Well think of it this way. You spend many hours a day in the kitchen and you work hard to keep it clean. You wash dishes AT LEAST once a day and more like two to three times a day.

I had always thought that the cleanliness of my dish depended on how many times that wash cloth went round the plate and how hard I scrubbed with that little scrubby thing. Well turns out there is more to it.


(this just made a whole lot easier to clean up because of that down at the bottom of the post)

In fact, those ridiculous adds on TV that go on about "no longer soaking dishes over night" and what ever lofty claims they make. They are right. There is something to be said for the dish soap you use. I have been a strong believer in cheapest is best. And don't get me wrong you can still do a lot of things for cheap and you do not have to buy the most expensive. BUT there is something to be said about trying different soaps. I know right, now I am going to start sounding like a commercial.
"Try our product it's the best!"

Well let me show you what I picked up cause I just did, I didn't really think it through I just thought I would try something a bit different.

I hate to think that I would start to plug products on this blog. I do not want to become a big add with a tiny bit of the important content hidden way in the back. But what can I say when something actually makes my dishes whiter. Even more than I could have done with a whole lot of elbow grease.
So there you have it. My very first Tips and Tricks. I hope you girls have fun when you are mommies and find joy in the most simple finds. Amazing how a mother can get such joy out of dish soap.