Vacation

We went on vacation last month to California. I didn't blog about it because we seriously had a thousand pictures and there was just too much. So I put all the photos in a photo book, however, I negleted to put these two pictures in the book and Chad suggested I put them on the blog.

Our vacation was a lot of fun, we went to Sea World, the beach (which was, in my opinion, the very best part of the whole week), California Adventure Park, Disneyland, and Chad went to a Dodger's game, it was a full and funfilled week!

First Day

Isaac and Debbie started school yesterday. After we dropped them off at their classes and were walking back to the car, Cosette skipped past us and said happily, "I don't have to see Debbie and Isaac all day!"

Starting School

Going Private

I've decided to go private. I just want to be able to post a little more stuff (I know, I know, you're thinking, "You're going to get MORE personal than POOP?! I'm out, thank you very much."), like more location oriented etc. So, we love you all (all 3 of you who actually check the blog) so if you could comment with your email address I'll send you an invite (I'll make the comments 'author approved' and then won't actually post your email address). Or, you can email me at rogers.leah@ymail.com. Thanks so much!
And, somehow I managed to mess up the blog format and for the life of me can't get my blog list and pictures to show up on the side... so if anyone has any suggestions on how to fix that I would love the help. Thanks :)

A Book Review

This book could quite possibly have changed/saved my life. By that I mean that it's shown me a way to live a life that's worth living. It's AMAZING (Yes, I did just CAPS, bold, italic, and underline that word, it's that great). If you've got some time to read a good book sometime in the future, I beg you, read this one. The Anatomy of Peace by the Arbinger Institute. I love it so much I want to buy a hundred of them and give it to everyone I know. It's written in a story format, so it's a pretty quick, easy read, and yet it's chock full of goodness and wisdom.

The story follows the parents of teenagers who are going into a sort of drug rehab program and what they learn during a class that they take the first couple days after their kids enter the program. Take the time to read this book, you won't regret it, I promise.

ANOTHER post about poop

Cosette is in underwear again, and is really doing fantastic, she went all day today without an accident! And we've made great progress with the pooping. My attitude towards that last statement varies greatly depending on the time of day. You see, we do what is called a "pooping hour" or "potty hour" with Cosette every night and if you ask me during that time how things are going I would probably respond that they are terrible. However, if you ask me during any of the OTHER 23 hours of the day I will probably tell you how fantastic things are going. But let's back-track a little here... back a few months when we were in the thick of our 'first' potty-training attempt with Cosette and she was having multiple poop accidents a day I was distraught and despairing and didn't know what to do or where to go. I had taken her to the dr. and came home with absolutely nothing helpful. So, in desperation I turned to the internet and came across other people dealing with the same issue and one of them highly recommended a book/website, Soiling Solutions. I went to the website and bought the book (for $100!!) and then promptly put Cosette back in diapers. Well, while we were on vacation, whenever she needed a diaper change I had to take her into the restroom and put her up on the baby changing table to change her. She did not like that. She felt like people were staring and her and laughing at her. When we got home she begged to be put in underwear. She's really done great at peeing, she's had plenty of accidents, but she's really doing great. So, on the first day we started this 'protocol' (as the good dr. puts it). The idea is that 1: you clean the bowels out enough that the child doesn't have enough stool in there to leak out for the next 23 hours and 2: you train the body to have a poop at the same time every day. And it works, at least it's worked for us so far. But it's been hard. Really, really hard. She doesn't mind the suppository so much, but she absolutely HATES the enema. So when we're giving her the enema and she's screaming and crying and wiggling I feel like a terrible mother, that I must be doing it wrong and I'm afraid I'm really harming her and I go through this crazy roller coaster of emotions all from a child not pooping! But then. Then she poops. She actually poops IN THE TOILET. And it's all worth it. She's happy and we're happy and she stays clean all the next day and it's giving her confidence and us confidence (at least for 23 hours of the day anyway). It's kindof a pain to have to be home EVERY single night at approximately the same time in order to make this work and get her on a schedule, but I'm thinking that if this protocol works the way it's supposed to, and we can continue to get her confidence up, it will all be worth it.