NO MORE DIAPERS!

I have been on a looooong blogging break. Life with three 2.5yr olds suddenly gets very busy. A big part of that is that we are officially done with potty training! Woo hoo! Over the past 2yrs & 7mo we have gone through roughly 17,000 diapers. Seventeen THOUSAND diapers! My jaw was literally on the floor when I added that up. I don't even want to begin to add up how much money was spent either.


I did a lot of research before starting this whole adventure. Read as many blogs as I could about potty training multiples and scared myself to death about the whole thing. Alex, of course, was beyond ready to get started but that's easy to say when he's only here for a couple of days and then off to work while I deal with the chaos. So in an effort to help out some other moms out there getting ready to start potty training, here is our experience and what worked for us.


Method - I went with the 3 day potty training method, although I skipped the nighttime training. I spent enough time when they were babies getting up all night long and wasn't about to start that again. I figure they'll stay dry when they're ready and in the meantime, 1 pull-up a day is way cheaper than what we were spending on diapers.


For those that don't know, the 3 day potty training method is essentially ditching the diapers completely, giving them lots of water and trying to catch them when they're in the act and immediately get them to the potty. Through all my reading, I found that the people that got rid of the diapers and went all out had the best results. As far as our results sort of using this method, Ava had it in 2, Andrew had it in about 3 and Mia took about 4 or 5 days.


All 3 at once? - I think this depends on your kids and your personality. I know that some multiples have to do everything together or there are big fits all around. Thankfully my kids aren't like that :) We were ready to begin and my original plan was to do all 3 at the same time. Like ripping off a band aid right? But then it dawned on me that I was only going to have Alex helping me on the weekend. What if the kids didn't get it in those 2 days? I certainly didn't want to be alone trying to keep up with the chaos and cleaning up the mess. And there have been many moms of multiples that had success doing all 3 at once, but for me, I decided it was much easier on my nerves to do one at a time. That way I could give my (mostly) undivided attention to getting one done and then move onto the next one.


Who goes first? - I chose Ava first because I she not only had the best speech skills to tell me that she would need to go, but I felt she had a little bit better comprehension than the other 2 to really get it. We talked about it with her all week about how her diapers were almost gone and she would need to wear big girl panties and go on potty. I did this with all 3 as well as a special trip to Target for each one to pick out their own underwear.


When & Where - We waited until it was warm enough to be outside most of the day while we did this. No mess in the house was the biggest thing to me since we have a lot of carpet. I know not everyone can wait for warmer weather, but it made it easier on me to just hose off the patio. When we were inside I had the paper towels and carpet cleaner right by my side, although we only had to use it a couple of times throughout training all 3. Woo hoo!


Potty chairs vs potty seats - I wasn't sure about buying potty chairs or just making them use the big potty with the little seat, but ended up getting 3 potty chairs at Ikea. I figured it would make things easier to have a potty readily available at all times rather than try to rush them through the house to the big potty. And at $5 each it was not only my cheapest option, but guess what? They perform the same function as all the fancy potty chairs out there, meaning your kid is going to pee in it and you have to dump it out anyway. I really don't think that a potty that plays music when they flush is going to make them potty train any faster. I had the potty seats as well to use on the big potty, but found that they actually made it more difficult. Andrew has some issues with his aim and without the seat in the way I can set him farther back to help aim him down. The potty chairs were definitely helpful getting everyone comfortable going potty and then I just took them away and made them use the big potty and hold themselves up.


Rewards - I'll start off by saying that I definitely did not use a sticker chart with any of them. I don't have the time for that x 3. I thought about doing m&m's but read a lot about mom's having problems with kids just peeing a few drops so they could get the reward. Seeing as how my kids LOVE m&m's like a crackhead loves, well....crack, I decided this would not be the best reward for us. I decided stickers on the shirt or hand would be enough of a prize to go potty. Andrew was the only one who was really into the stickers and asked for one every single time. I phased that out by distracting him to go do something else and we would get the sticker later. Of course he would forget about it and within a few days stopped asking for them at all.

Poop issues - It seems like pooping on the potty is a common problem for most kids and mine were definitely no exception. They got the peeing down great, but each of them had issue with the poop in their own way.
- Ava really seemed to beat herself up about it. She knew that poop goes in the potty, but was scared to sit down and do it. She would hold it until she couldn't anymore and then poop in her pants and start crying that she was sorry. It was really awful and I felt bad for her. It took a few weeks and then finally one day I had to sit there with her and hold her on the potty and rub her back through all the tears and then she finally did it. Not a single problem since that day.
- Andrew was a lot more stubborn than Ava. He also didn't want to poop on the potty and instead was doing it in his pull up at naptime and bedtime. It took 5 or 6 weeks for him to FINALLY poop on the potty and then another couple weeks to really be consistent with it. Alex was the one who got him to go. Andrew absolutely adores his daddy and I think there were some deals made about Cars that got him to do it.
- Mia has always had poop issues. She gets constipated very easily and it's super hard to get her to drink. She takes tiny little sips and then she's done. Don't even think about offering her more or she will scream her little head off. So combining constipation with the fear of the potty and I thought we were really going to have our work cut out with her. Surprisingly she got this down much faster than the other 2. It's still not easy for her and I'm constantly offering her something to drink to keep her from getting constipated, but it's always a battle.

A few tips
- Specifically for my moms of multiples out there, be prepared to have help the first couple of days. It was so much easier to have Alex handle the other 2 as well as meals while I just focused on the potty training.

- I carried around 1 bag full of clean underwear, 1 empty bag for the wet ones, a roll of toilet paper and the potty chair. I don't mean that I carried this around everywhere, but I had these things with me outside, downstairs and then upstairs. Basically in the vicinity of where we were. That way I wasn't running back and forth for clean undies or taking the wet ones to the laundry room.

- No shorts/pants, just underwear and a shirt. The less you have to pull of the better. I waited until we had a good 3 or 4 day stretch with no accidents before I allowed shorts again.

- LOTS of water! This gives you lots of opportunities for them to use the potty. I used my big white hospital cup so I would constantly have to refill it.

- Have a lot of patience. Easy to say, but much harder to do. I think one of the things that kept my stress level low was my low expectations. I expected way more accidents those first couple of days than we actually had and being outside where I didn't have to worry about clean up really helped too.

Now that all is said and done, potty training the trio wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. The anticipation was much worse than what it actually turned out to be. Kind of reminds me of those schedule changes in the first year and how traumatic they were before I did it and then once it was done, I realized it was really for the better.

Good luck mommas and happy potty training!

I'm "sew" crafty!

Okay, so I'm not really that crafty and I'm very much a beginner when it comes to sewing, but in the past couple of weeks I have managed to create some cute stuff for my girls.

I have always loved shopping and I have found that I love shopping for my girls even more. Its an addiction really. My girls have so many clothes that sometimes they only get to wear something once before they outgrow it. Even worse when you consider how much their cute little clothes cost. I figured I would start with something simple, like a pillowcase dress. I read a few tutorials online so I had the basic idea of how they went together. Then I decided I would just take one that Astrid made and use that as my guideline. This is how it turned out.

Wearable, but not perfect. Wanting to get it done in a hurry made me skip some things like turning the bottom hem under so it wouldn't fray and the arm holes were a little snug, but all in all I was happy with how it turned out. Hopefully I can get the other one made this week, now that I have the correct measurements from Astrid :)

I also happen to love t-shirt/onesie dresses. The girls don't wear onesies anymore, but I have quite a few sitting around that I thought would be easy to make into dresses. Again, being kind of new to sewing, I started to look for a tutorial. I found a super easy one for $5 on Etsy, grabbed some scrap fabric and a long sleeved onesie. It took me a couple of hours, especially since I had never ruffled fabric before and I have since learned my lesson to knot it really well because it ended up coming out just as I was stitching the skirt to the top. I also cut the sleeves off because, well, its been 100 degrees for weeks now. Here is my first attempt, again not perfect but wearable.

I found the girls had a couple of tank onesies that would make perfect little summer dresses. I managed to find some cute fabric at JoAnn's and this time they turned out great. Not to mention it took less than 1/2 yard for each dress and without coupons I spent a total of $5.60. Woo hoo!

The girls were so excited to wear their new dresses! I can't describe how good it feels to make them something and see how much they loved it. I'm happy to say I have a new addiction :)

1 down, 2 to go

Ava was ready. So ready I should have done this months ago. But I wasn't ready. Not ready to deal with the mess, frustration and the worst thing of all.........public restrooms. I've never even been in a restroom at the grocery store, Target, etc. or even know where they are. Then I think about having to take all 3 in there and how do I manage the other 2 while I'm helping Ava on the potty? I already have a hard enough time keeping Mia's hand out of Ava's little potty and can only imagine what things she would get into in a public restroom. But having put this off as long as possible, it was finally time to start potty training.

Months ago Ava started going on the potty. She was doing pretty well for a couple of weeks, but not totally consistent and I still kept her in diapers and sometimes a pull up. Then she absolutely refused to go. She was crabby and throwing a lot of fits and come to find out she was cutting her molars. I decided it was best to put the potty aside for a little while and we would try again later. Later turned into last month.

We finally had a free weekend to completely dedicate to Ava. Well, I was completely dedicated to Ava while Alex had to tend to Andrew & Mia. I was telling her all week long that her diapers were almost gone and then she was going to have to wear big girl panties and pee pee on the potty. I had already stocked up on a TON of panties, more than enough for both girls, but decided to take her to Target and let her pick out some of her own. Plus it was a special shopping trip just for Ava and I, which rarely happens, and was so much fun and EASY with just one! She immediately spotted Yo Gabba Gabba panties and had to have them plus some Dora ones too. It was all she could talk about for the rest of the day.

The next day, Saturday, was day 1. I was completely prepared with paper towels, carpet cleaner, a bag of clean panties, an empty bag for the messy ones and a big cup of water to make sure Ava had plenty of opportunities to go potty. The potty was out and ready to go. Off came the diaper and on went the Yo Gabba Gabba panties. Alex and I were practically sweating the entire hour we were upstairs before taking them down for breakfast.

Ava outside in just a shirt and panties, all ready for the potty!

Posing with daddy

What Andrew & Mia were doing while I was following Ava around.

After breakfast we decided to spend the morning outside and that way we could avoid having to clean the carpet or the couch. I followed her around outside, just waiting to catch her and run her to the potty. This was not an easy task since Mia was in a mood and only wanted mommy, so I had to keep shoving Mia off on Alex. It was almost 10am and I knew that any minute she was going to have to go. Sure enough, just as she was taking a drink of water she started to pee. I immediately rushed her over there and she barely got any in the potty. This is pretty much how how the rest of the morning went. Five accidents before nap. Including one in her chair at lunch. I had actually expected more.

After nap she woke up a completely different child. About 30min after she got up, she suddenly got a look on her face, froze and said "I have to pee pee". I rushed her over and she made it in time. The rest of the afternoon went great. She was telling us she needed to go and I never had to use my carpet cleaner once :)

Day 2 I was ready for a much easier day now that I felt like she had it down pretty well. Unfortunately we woke up to find that Andrew had the croup. Really bad timing. His medicine from last time had expired so now I had to take Andrew to the after hours clinic and leave Alex to the potty training. We were gone over 2hrs, but Ava did really well even telling Alex during lunch that she needed to pee pee. She has done amazing.......with the peeing. Poop is another story.

The first few days she pooped in her pull up at naptime or bedtime. No big deal and I kind of expected that. Then she held it for a couple days and then she would try and sneak off and poop in her panties. If I managed to catch her in time she would cry and not want to sit on the potty, but then it got to where she would sit and then get scared and get up. She would hold it to the point where she couldn't control it and start crying about messing up her panties. She would get so upset and it absolutely broke my heart because I didn't know how to help her get over this.

Everything I had read online and talked to other moms about said that this was normal and they would just get over it. Hoping to help motivate her, I tried offering up some M&M's if she would poop on the potty, but that didn't work. A couple weeks ago when I was at Target, I saw Cinderella Barbie. Ava loves princesses and I just knew this would entice her to go. Um, Cinderella sat on my kitchen counter for 4 days and in the meantime, Ava's devastation over the poop in the panties was getting worse. Something had to be done.

We were on day 5 of Cinderella collecting dust on my counter and after breakfast, Alex was getting ready to take the kids upstairs when Ava said she needed to poop. She had already been on the potty a few times this morning and "tried" but nothing happened. He told her to go sit on the potty and she started crying. We knew she had to go so bad! So I sent Alex upstairs with Andrew & Mia and put Ava on the potty. It took 30min, a lot of crying, back rubbing, hugs, and consoling. But the tears stopped and she got a look on her face. Finally! Poop in the potty!!! She was so proud of herself! She hasn't had a poop accident since then :)

Since day 1, she hasn't had a single pee pee accident and I could count on one hand the number of times she woke up from nap or overnight wet with almost all of that happening in the first week. So now we are down to just a pull up at bedtime and that will likely be gone in the next week or so. All in all, she was pretty easy and we have even conquered public restrooms, but thankfully she can hold it a pretty long time.

Up next is Andrew. I have a feeling he is not going to be as easy as Ava. Wish me luck!

My little models

A few months ago, the photographer that did our Christmas pictures (Eye Candy by Candace) was going to do a photo shoot with Little Bunny Tutus and was looking for some models. I thought it would be something fun to do and a good way to get some cute pictures of the girls. Poor Andrew had to sit this one out even though he does look good in a tutu :)

The deadline was quickly approaching and I needed to send some headshots in of the girls. I looked back through pictures from the past few months and realized that I had been one lazy momma in the picture department. So I ran and got the camera, took a few pics and sent them in. How could they say no to these faces?!

Andrew had to get in on the action too!

I didn't think they would be picked, but much to my surprise I got an email saying Ava had been chosen to model. I was beyond excited, but then realized that they only wanted Ava. What? No Mia? How could they not choose Mia too? It was then I had my first little taste of what life will be like one day when not everyone is going to get to do the same things. I was so happy for Ava, but felt awful for Mia. Thankfully I got an email for Mia just a few hours later and all was right in the world again :)

The day of the shoot, I left Alex at home with Andrew for a little father/son time and brought my mom along to help with the girls. Good thing I did because with all the outfit changes and trying to contain Mia, I needed the extra set of hands! It was a lot of fun, but I was completely exhausted when it was over.

Here are some of my favorite pics from the shoot:

Uncle Kevin's visit

My brother Kevin came for a short visit a few weeks ago and the kids had so much fun with him! I have heard so much "Uncle Kevin" talk since he left. Mia thinks every tall guy is Uncle Kevin now, even Uncle Kyle!

On the swings with Uncle Kevin

Ava really took a liking to Uncle Kevin

We had to break out the splash pad for him!

Ava doesn't like other people to dump water on her. She has to do it herself.

Love it!

Ava snuggled up with Uncle Kevin

Andrew warming up with Grandad

Andrew & Uncle Kevin















Uncle Kevin can't make a trip down here without going to the ranch so we went down for the day too. I'm glad we did because it was so hot that we probably won't go back again until the fall when it cools down.

Uncle Kevin & Andrew

Uncle Kyle & Ava

Andrew went for a ride on the Gator with both of his uncles and that's all I have heard about for weeks. "I ride on the Gator in Uncle Kyle's lap. Uncle Kevin driving. Uncle Kevin gets the gates." Clearly he enjoyed it very much!

Mia & Grandad

And of course, a little pirate smile :)

We had fun with Uncle Kevin and hope he can stay longer next time and bring Aunt Kim too. We miss her!

Enjoying the weather

I can't believe I haven't updated the blog in almost 2mo, but since the weather warmed up we've been trying to spend as much time as possible outside. We'll miss these comfortably warm days in July when its 100 degrees and so humid it feels like a sauna as soon as you step outside.

The kids love the water and I've been trying to let them play in about 3 days a week. I say trying because its very time consuming coating all 3 with sunscreen, putting on 3 bathing suits, taking off 3 bathing suits, drying them off, getting them dressed, feeding them lunch, down for nap and cleaning up the backyard mess. A lot of work, but I am usually rewarded with the kids taking a nice long nap so I can have a little time to get things done around the house.

First and foremost, we needed to do a little Spring cleaning. They love these brooms and while they do like to push the dirt around, they haven't quite figured out yet that Mommy wants the dirt OFF the patio.

And in the water they go! This was actually after they had too much fun in the mud and I threw them in the water, clothes and all. They loved it!

Big smile!

Ava posing in her new bathing suit or "baby suit" as she likes to call it.

Everybody in!

Awww! Dancing in the water!

Shivering from that cold water

Ava's pirate smile. She is very into pirates lately thanks to The Wiggles and Jake & the Neverland Pirates. Now when I take her picture I have to say either "pirate smile" or "pretty smile".

Mia is a busy girl and can't take time for pictures. This is probably why she is such a good sleeper, always worn out!

I love this picture of Andrew & the water

We've spent some time at our neighborhood playground which was much easier when they were younger and just wanted to swing. Now they are all over the place! I only have a couple pics from one of the times I took them by myself. And the playground is unfenced. And trying to get 3 crying/screaming kids in the car one at a time while keeping an eye on the other two was enough to keep me from trying it again.....yet.

Daddy took a day off work for a trip to the zoo. It was an absolutely beautiful day! So beautiful that everyone else was there too. Sooooo many schools there for field trips it made it hard to get around and even more difficult to see some of the animals. We didn't stay really long, but managed to get a few pics in our beloved choo choo wagon before we left.

These next pictures are too funny. Within minutes of leaving the zoo, both girls fell asleep with their hands in their snack traps. And they both stayed like that all the way home! Love it!