A New Pastime & Other Updates

Currently, the toddlers in this house have discovered a new pastime with those little fingers--turning the lights on and off. What's more, you just never know when the lights will turn out…it could be during a walk up the stairs at night with an armful of toys, laundry, shoes OR in the bathroom as you’ve stooped over to put toiletries underneath the bathroom sink and all of a sudden, it's completely dark. You just never know….'Tadah!’ the lights go out on you.

Oh, the joy Paige and Taylor have turning the lights on and off incessantly these days. It’s really very funny to watch how entertained these little girls are by a simple flip of a switch.

In other happenings, today, Paige started speech therapy at a nearby public elementary school in our district. (She is going to be seen by the school's speech pathologist once a week for one hour.) Paige turned 3 in December, and while she chatters and talks all day, many of her words are hard to understand. Paige was first seen by a speech pathologist for developmental delays in her speech right around the age of 2; and although we have seen improvements in Paige's overall speech and language since that time, she remains very difficult to understand particularly if you do not know the context of the conversation.

According to Paige's pediatrician as well as her previous speech pathologist, by the age of 3, most people should be able to understand the language and speech of a toddler. Paige's pediatrician commented that people should be able to understand about 50-75% of all speech and language of a 3-year old toddler. Well, Paige is now 3 and is still difficult to understand. In fact, there are many times when others will look to me for interpretation or explanation of what Paige is saying....Paige is frequently misunderstood by others. Sometimes, I can interpret and sometimes I cannot because even I have a hard time understanding Paige on occasion. Since my husband and I are generally the only ones who can understand what Paige is saying, we feel that it is important for Paige to continue receiving speech therapy, particularly as we begin to look ahead to her starting pre-school and later kindergarten.

Finally, potty training continues to go well. Taylor is using the "big girl" potty to pee-pee and poo-poo on a regular basis, although she is still not quite to the point where she is telling me in advance that she needs to go potty. She is also doing a great job at staying dry throughout the day in her "big girl panties" too. YAY!!! What's working for us at this point with Taylor is just making the "big girl" potty available and offering her lots of opportunities to go sit on the potty during the day and it's during those trips to the "big girl" potty that oila, we've had some success with Taylor using the potty. (We usually make a trip to the "big girl" potty during the day on the hour.) Taylor is always so proud of herself for being such a big girl and using the "big girl potty just like mommy." She loves being bragged on for each and every little toileting achievement.

Paige, on the other hand, is still a little reluctant to using the potty. Like, Taylor, she has had some good succcess on the potty but not to the consistency and frequency which Taylor has. I would describe it this way -- Paige enjoys tagging along with Taylor and mommy as we go into the bathroom and she will also sit on the "big girl" potty regularly alongside Taylor but Paige is "done" with the potty as soon as AND whenever her sister Taylor is "done" regardless of whether or not Paige has even done anything in the "big girl" potty or not.

Paige will get there eventually, but in the meantime, I continue to praise her for sitting on the "big girl" potty and usually, more times than not, I just end up saying something along the lines of, "Paige, great job for sitting on the 'big girl' potty...you can try again to go pee-pee and poo-poo next time you sit on the 'big girl' potty." Oh, and if you're wondering or asking yourself, "well, why not just make Paige continue to sit on the potty even after Taylor is done?" Well, ya' just don't know Paige...she is attached to the hip of her twin sister and if you try to make her stay on the potty after her older sister is "done" and off playing, you're going to find yourself faced with quite a battle from Paige. She is one strong-willed little tot. And, let me tell ya', a toilet-training power-struggle with Paige is something I'm just not going to take on...after all, it's just toileting and using the potty...all kids eventually get it when they're ready to get it.