I just spent the last twenty minutes putting a doll back together.  Cherry is her name.  It’s one of the Madame Alexander dolls like I grew up not playing with.  You remember the small ones jointed by rubber bands, right?  As a girl, mine sat on top of my dresser.  Germany and Spain.  That’s where they were from, of course.  Germany wore a black tuffet hat and a traditional peasant shawl.  Spain had the prettiest flower headpiece and an embroidered gown that I just loved.  I dusted around them each week, playing with them a little bit but remembering that they weren’t really to be played with.  They weren’t that kind of doll.  So there they sat, and there they sit now.  Still in my childhood bedroom at my parent’s house.

Not much has changed there or here with the Madame Alexander dolls.  Isabella knows that that doll in particular isn’t really one that we play with.  She likes to hold it and asks often for her father or I to take it off of her dresser for a hug and a kiss.  So we let her.  It’s a little treat, and then Cherry goes back.  Back on the dresser.  So you can understand my surprise as I found Cherry in pieces tucked underneath the sheets in my bed just a little while after we put Isabella to bed earlier tonight.

I knew I could fix it.  Well, me and a hair pin and a paperclip, that is.  Mommy can fix anything!   Sometime between the doll’s head popping off and getting everything back on I started to think of more than just this doll.   I wish she had just come to me and asked me to fix it.  Maybe we could have done it together, teaching her to be a little handier like her mommy in the process.  Did she really have to hide it from me?  (Well not so cleverly hidden on my side of the bed, but you know what I mean!)   I don’t want Isabella and Camilla to feel that they have to hide their mistakes from me,  and especially when they need help to fix those mistakes!  It wasn’t a broken doll for me.   It was realizing that because of my rigidity, my little girl couldn’t really come to me with her problems.   She knows I’ll just get mad and tell her she shouldn’t have done what she did.  Sorry, but *DUH!!*   She knows she shouldn’t have done what she did at that point.  The mistake was made and she didn’t know how to fix it, so she hid it from me.  Right now it’s broken dolls, but later it could be more important things.   I don’t want to be that kind of mommy or friend.  My husband and I always tell her that she’s out best friend and she says it back, but we need to be a little more best friend-ly I think.   You can tell your friends things, you know.

So I’m starting a new tradition with the Madame Alexander dolls starting tomorrow morning.   No more dolls you can’t really play with.  You’re all fair game now, so watch out my pretties!   All dolls are meant to be played with from this day on at Chez Bellaziza.  Oh and something else, we’re going to rescue the other dolls at Gram and Grampy’s house too.  There’s Hansel and Gretel, the Bride and Groom, Cinderella who even lives in a glass house to keep her really pretty (COME ON!!) and of course Germany and Spain!  I think that Madame Alexander would definitely approve, and as a mom these little dolls are teaching me a valuable lesson.   I can’t wait to see the look on her face when I tell her about freeing the dolls!

How about you?  Have you ever learned so much from a broken doll?  Was it a truck perhaps?   I’d love to hear!

Crista

This post is for Amy and Anita who very quickly replied to my Let’s Talk! post that they wanted to hear about potty training!  I trained three boys, so my advice will be leaning towards the little guys, but moms of girls might benefit here too!

All of my boys trained at different times and in different ways.  And I think that’s true with every child, they are all different!  My oldest, Chandler, was completely trained by 2 years old.  I showed him the potty, he went and he never had an accident!  I thought I must be the pro of potty training…boy was I wrong!  Along came our middle son, Chase, who was happy to sit in poo all day long.  Really!  He was!  He was finally trained just before his fourth birthday…yeah, yikes.  Then there was our littlest little guy, Charlie, who learned along with Chase (since he took soooo long).  He was trained by three years old.

NOW…since I basically potty trained for about two years of my life, I kinda figured out what works and what doesn’t.  So here’s what I found…

What WORKS:

Praise – Nothing motivates a child like a little praise!  I found that a little praise and encouragement would keep them, well, going!  Whereas pointing out their failures would just hinder them.  So if there was an accident, we would just clean it up and say in a cheery voice, “You’ll get there faster next time!”  And when there was success, we would act like crazy people, plain and simple!  And they loved that!

Rewards – This was the biggest part of potty training for us!  The rewards are what got us to the end result with Chase.  What we did is filled a glass jar with jelly beans and set them on the bathroom counter.  Every time they would go pee, they would get one jelly bean.  Every time they went poop, they would get two.  This worked perfect for Chandler who trained quite easily.  The candy was a HUGE motivator because I hardly ever give my kids candy.  One tip, just don’t think about the amount of sugar they have eaten by the time the jar is empty, just don’t do it!  If you are not keen on candy, maybe pennies or stickers would work (we tried those too).  As for my more difficult little guy, the candy was not cutting it.  He simply told me one day, “I don’t want to go pee, I don’t want any candy anyway.”  Uhhhh…yeaaahhh.  So we came up with another plan.  We let Chase search the internet at our favorite toy site and pick any toy (within reason!) that he wanted.  We then printed the picture and attached to a chart that we hung on the wall.  Every day that he stayed dry, he got a sticker.  At the end of seven days, he got the toy!  It took him some time, mind you, but he was almost four by that time so he understood what it all meant.  That idea would probably not work with a two year old.

Nakedness – What?!  Is that not a perfectly good potty training technique?  Well, it was in our house!  For about one week straight, I blockaded myself in the play room with the boys completely stark naked.  OK, let me clarify, THEY were the naked ones…ahem.  We played and read books and they became increasingly aware of themselves “down there”.  I kept a potty chair in there with me and when the pee started to dribble, we were ready!  We would then reward with a piece of candy.  After that week, we put on underwear and roamed the house more freely.  By the third week, we were wearing full on clothing and staying dry most of the time!  (That’s where the toy reward chart came in!)

What DOES NOT Work:

Pull Ups – I did not have good luck with using pull ups.  I would put them on the boys when we had to venture out for Church or to the store, and at bed time at first, but that was it.  I felt like it was too close to using diapers.

Trying too soon – I think this is what I did with Chase.  I figured since Chandler trained at two, that Chase would too.  Wrong!  I should have waited several months longer and it may not have been such a loooong fight.  You know your child is ready to train when they are staying dry through naps and bedtime and they are telling you that they are wet or dirty and not liking it!  At that point, I started using very cheap diapers.  The good ones keep them dry and comfy, the cheap ones kept them uncomfortable and wanting to be changed.  Then I knew they were ready, because they cared!

Inconsistency – Once you decide to train, don’t back down!  You HAVE to be consistent, you HAVE to!!!  If you find that there are more accidents than successes and your carpets can’t take it any longer and the empty bottles of wine are stacking up in your recycling bin, then take a break and try again in a month.  But while you are trying, give it your all!

OK, so I think that’s it.  Got it?  Good!  Good luck, by the way, you’re gonna need it!  Feel free to ask me more questions about this or other parenting questions ( I happen to be good at the mom of boys ones).  Email me at tasha@bellazizasfavorites.com or twitter me @BellazizaTasha!

  Tasha