Potty Training & Learning Priorities

Well, I think it's finally safe to say that Mikaela is potty trained! She has gone about 3 weeks now with zero to minimal accidents each day!! She either goes on her little potty all by herself--usually without me even knowing she went, or she comes to me with potty in tow telling me she needs to go :) And everywhere we go, she goes in "big girl" panties, saying, "Potty pease," when she needs to go. Now I do still put a diaper on her at night--we haven't quite gotten there yet :) but I've even started trying to have her go diaperless during her naps. So this process only took about a year and a half--was it worth it? Yes! It's not for everyone, but having just turned 2 and already trained--I'm satisfied :)

I've even been pottying Elijah for about a month now! We have some days where I catch lots of pees and poops, so that's very exciting for me, especially since that means there's one less cloth diaper I'll have to wash out :) And then there are other days when all I get is spit up on and zero satisfaction of having him go on the potty! We'll see if he's as successful as his big sister :)

So I started thinking that it's kind of interesting how we as parents choose what we want our children to learn when. With me, the pottying is totally worth it, and the thrill I get when I catch them is indescribable! So I've decided that I'm willing to let them go diaperless at times and clean up those messes, but I don't want to have to deal with cleaning up the mess of a baby/toddler trying to feed himself. Thus my poor Mikaela is still not adept with a spoon or fork at the age of 2 :( Anything that doesn't require the use of a utensil though she can do by herself :) Mikaela also knows all of the alphabet (capital letters--we're still working on lowercase) and her colors, and we're learning how to count while putting a one-to-one relationship with objects, but she's still scared to slide down the slide on the jungle gym at the park! Just food for thought ...