Morgan says the darndest things Part II

While out for our afternoon walk after dinner last night Morgan said, out of the blue, "I want to get on the school bus and go to school. Then I don't need you anymore." After further questioning she revealed that by taking the bus I would not need to drive her to school.
Soon after spilling a bit of water on the carpet she said to me calmly, "Don't touch the water daddy, I'm going to get a towel." She went into the kitchen for a towel and came back, cleaned it up and said, touching my leg, "OK daddy, you can go there now."
She is also following politics and is quick to point out "Bara Bobama" and "MaAin", now if we can get her to pronounce "Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" properly we'll be all set.

A quick word about ads

I'm sure visitors have noticed we added advertisements to the Carriage House happenings in an effort to make a little side change for the girls' college funds. Well, it is working. Those of you who are simply loading this page with your ad blocking software turned off, are making quite an impression on the folks at google who manage our ads. That's right, those are OUR ads. We choose the size, color and location and google's advertisers scramble and compete to place ads on our site based on what topic we're discussing, hence all the ads for potty training. But you may have also noticed up at the top of the page is our very own google search bar. Now you can search the google safely from Carriage House and help us out at the same time. Every time a supporter of ours does a search, it helps. Every time you choose to click on a featured ad in the results, the girls are rewarded.

So sorry if the ads are annoying or detracting from the experience here, I gave it a try and we're doing OK so far. So if you see an ad that interests you, by all means learn more.

On a related note have you been over to Justin's therapy page? It's a place for me to tell all the hilarious and ridiculous stories from work. You can also find it down on the left here under "You called 911...for this?" Oh and there are ads there too.

It's Bath Night!

Morgan loves to help Eliza take a bath and on this occasion Eliza enjoyed every minute of it. The girls seem to always smile and laugh at one another and Eliza is quite curious ofthe camera as you can see in the video below.
Grand and Grandpa McDowell are staying with us this weekend and the girls are loving it. Kim and I are also enjoying a few moments of quite here and there I'm not ashamed to say. So enjoy the video of the bath and I'll pass along more soon.


Just a quick note on the potty training front, Morgan is now doing it completely on her own and when she decides it necessary. She's still in a diaper at night, but the day time is covered. Well done Morgan!

Potty UPDATE Update

Never count your chickens before they hatch.


That comes to mind as I review my day, which was going so well, as the previous posting suggests. If you have not read it yet, please do so before continuing here.
While I was passing along to the world how wonderfully my daughter was doing at potty training she was making quite the disaster area in her room. I won't go into details in case you're eating, but let's just say I deal with stuff like that at work and I hate it. She had done so well earlier in the day and then to have such a complete regression is indeed a bummer, but we will prevail. There was a glimmer of hope when, while I was cleaning up, I heard a toilet seat close, a toilet flush and the sink turn on. I ran in to see Morgan washing her hands, "I peed daddy!" with a giant smile. She did. Not in the toilet, but she at least made it into the bathroom and we're just down 1 more pair of training pants.

Potty UPDATE

Well shiver me timbers, yesterday was talk like a pirate day.

I digress.
Morgan is doing fantastic with her potty training and is even reminding us of when she should go. We wandered off to the farmer's market this morning as we often do and we left her in the cotton training pants, no liner. Brave, I know. She was fine walking all around and riding in the stroller and when we got to the car to leave she told us she wanted to pe before we went to our next stop. Luckily we still have the little potty in the back of the car. Kim led Morgan over to a quiet spot and she went potty all by herself, no trouble at all.

The sticker chart method was altered early on to include m&ms as a reward for dry panties and using the potty, but when we're out she never asks for them. Kim and Morgan put a lot of work into this thing and is sure does make things different. In a good way.

Eliza is still using her diapers and the cloth diaper service is working out easier than I could have ever expected. I wish we had gone to it sooner. More updates as they happen...

Potty training is here

And it has us all captive! Kim and I, well mainly Kim, took the initiative this past 4 day off of work to dive headfirst into potty training. Kim set up the idea a week ahead of time by telling Morgan we would be teaching her doll, Morgan Baby, how to use the potty. We've had a potty out and waiting such a moment for well over 6 months now and have never used it.

Kim also devised a sticker reward system to let Morgan celebrate certain aspects of using the toilet the rest of us have forgotten. 1 sticker for sitting down, another for pottying, another for flushing and the fourth for washing hands. Then there are the candy rewards for having dry pants at the start of the adventure and another candy for actually pottying. It's a brilliant system and has worked well for 3 days now.

We even tried introducing an "on the road" element, using the potty at Costco, with great success. It has not been all "fun and games" however and there have been more than 1 accident, but she is only 2. This evening, while Kim was dealing with a fussy Eliza, Morgan decided to wet her training pants while looking me in the face saying, "No daddy, I don't need to pee." Then when she was put on the potty to finish that episode, I went in to put the wet pants in the bin and she wandered away. It wasn't until a few minutes later that I noticed the wet spot on the floor. "Did you have to go and pee on the floor? I asked if you were done and you said yes." "yeah." "Well, are you done going potty or do you want to do it on the floor again?" "Don't get mad at her!" Was shout whispered from the other room.

It is so frustrating when she won't do the simplest thing and yet so exciting when she wants to, succeeds and is proud of it. When she came running over to me screaming, "I peed daddy, I peed!" earlier today I got a big hug and told her, "All you need to learn now is to tie your shoes and drive and you're all set."
Since I started typing this post she has come out of her room, after bedtime, to ask if she can use the potty, event hough she is back in a diaper for the night.

It takes time I keep telling myself.

Kim read in a book today that the most important things in potty training are a positive attitude and patience. Yeah, patience, sure, whatever. I have patients at work I'm not allowed to scream at and kids at home who don't appreciate sarcasm. Day 4 tomorrow, let's hope it keeps getting better.

Dance Off! Morgan vs Morgan

Sure she dances, but I didn't notice until recently that her styles vary based on the type of music she's listening to. So here it is, the first Morgan vs Morgan Dance Off! Make a comment and tell us which dancing style you like better!



Vampire Weekend Morgan


OR



OK GO Morgan


Tell us what you think! Want to see Morgan dance to your favorite song? Mention it in your post and we'll see if she'll dance to it.

Morgan says the darndest things

Kim here again! Morgan says such great things from time to time that I thought I would share. And this way I will remember them after she stops saying them. I will update this post as needed in the future.

- Mispronunciations:
Cookie Monster is "Cookie Machachine," almost cookie machine, but not quite.
Popsicle somehow sounds like "parking lot." Not exactly sure how she does it or how to spell it, but if she asks for a parking lot while dragging you to the freezer, don't worry, she's not crazy.

-While Aunt Jennifer was visiting and we were watching Morgan ride her tricycle in the back yard, Morgan stopped and left for a minute. She came back and in response to "where did you go?" replied, "I just had to go change my mind." Of course, this was greeted by amazement and laughter so she did it repeatedly the rest of the afternoon, and a few times since. Jen and I thought it a wonderful way to get out of a conversation: "Excuse me, I have to go change my mind."

-The other day Morgan was playing with her Grandma and her magnetic letters. She said she was going to "build a word" (the TV show Word World, anyone?). She proceeded to lay out a bunch of letters, and a couple of numbers, in a big line. Once she was satisfied she ran her finger under the letters like she was reading them and pronounced, very authoritatively, "Peanuts!"

I'm learnin' me the internets

So it's obvious that the blog is undergoing changes. I'm slowly learning how to alter the code for these things and having interesting results, so if you check in and everything is out of whack, give me a few minutes, I'm "learning." Soon to come here in the pages of Word From Carriage House: Morgan plays air guitar, Eliza laughs at aforementioned activity, Kim knits and Justin juggles. OK, only 3 of those are real. As we say at work, "More to follow."

Morgan helps Eliza

When Eliza had a little bit of spit up, Morgan jumps in to save the day!

Auntie comes to play

Aunt Jennifer and Sufi came out to the suburbs to see Morgan and Eliza, and Kim too. On Monday we all went to the park.




It was windy but we had a lot of fun! Aunt Jennifer has a very busy schedule and we don't get to see her as often as we'd like and LOVE it when she comes to visit. Justin taught Morgan to say, "Hola Tia!" when she sees her, she has trouble with it in front of Jenn but acts like a native speaker alone. Jenn grabbed Justin's bicycle, which he used to ride in The City and has been sadly hanging here in the 'burbs. hopefully she can take it back home where it wants to be.

The family values candidate

So Sarah Palin tells the world that, no Trig can't be my daughter Bristol's son because, um...because she, um...IS 5 MONTHS PREGNANT! Yes, the teenage unwed daughter of the Republican Vice Presidential nominee is pregnant and marrying the father of the child, AT 17! That means she conceived this child while away from school with Mononucleosis. So she endangered the father with infection, had unprotected sex (way to go abstinence only education!) and is now carrying a child. Will this be the White House's first shotgun wedding?
I know you righties are all for gun rights but this is taking it a little too far. I smell a conspiracy here and those of you who know me, NONE of my conspiracies can be proven wrong.
So I will make this prediction: Bristol Palin will marry her "Sweetheart" and then suffer a miscarriage from the "media attention" that will then make family issues off the table. Anyone who tries to challenge Trig's actual birth mother will be labeled as trying to destroy an "already grieving family." ...OR...
Gov Palin did indeed endanger Trig when traveling 12 hours from Texas to Wasilla to give birth to a special needs child. Talk about not keeping your house in order.