I'm Blessed

Well, we're back from Wisconsin now.  We had a very fun weekend.  I'm sorry I didn't get our homeschool post done on Friday, but it just got too busy with the packing and all.

I'm quite amused that my last post on the war against stuff got so many comments.  I actually wrote it out and scheduled it to post on that day, but planned to proof it better and rework some parts.  The scheduling "thing" on blogger hasn't worked for me for a few months, so I didn't think it was actually going to publish, and I didn't notice it actually had until I had a few comments.  I'm glad, though, that my rough writing resonated with so many people.

I have such a good list for today because I feel so overwhelmed by blessings.

-I'm so blessed to get away with Knut (and our tag-a-long Solveig) for a weekend.

-We were blessed to see so many fun things on our trip, and we were blessed with safety.  When our van broke down, it did so while we stopped for lunch and not on some back road.  When we were towed to a nearby repair shop they were able to find the problem quickly, had the part available, and 3 hours and several hundred dollars later, we were back on the road.  I'm blessed that we had an emergency fund so that delay did not ruin our weekend or throw us into a panic.  We are not always blessed that way, but I must say, it kept some peace this weekend.

-Knut was not injured during his race, even with his sparse training season.  He's actually in better shape now than when we left.

-As I'm unpacking everyone's bags today, I'm thankful for my in-laws who watched the 3 older kids for us without any complaint or grumblings that we sort of "expected" them to do this.  Not only that, but my mother-in-law washed all of the kids clothes so as I unpack, I just have to instruct the kids to put their clothes away.  No washing, drying, folding, etc.  She makes it so simple for me. May they be blessed with lots of rest this week!

-I'm thankful for Knut's aunt and uncle who let us stay at their cabin every year for this race, feed us gourmet food, and let us soak in their hot tub.  (That part is incredibly wonderful after Knut's race!)  We're spoiled rotten, I say.

-I was so blessed this last week in so many ways.  I need this today because every weekend away comes at such a price to the household.  The kids need to get on task, the house is covered with random bags with random things in them, and I usually have no meals planned.  It's chaotic, and takes us at least 3 days to have any resemblance of normalcy.  I like so much the routine of "normal" life, but I need to remember that sometimes we're blessed with a break to that normalcy. 

If you'd like to share how you've been blessed, leave a comment to share and/or link up with your blog.  To do so:
-write a blog post on how God has blessed you.
-put a link to this blog in that post (you can use the button to the right if you'd like)
-copy and paste the link to your post and leave it below for others to follow. 

War Against Stuff

We are so blessed where we live.  We have space for the kids to run.  Our house has nice closets.  I've lived in places with very few closets, and I think closet space is wonderful.

Being blessed with space and closets, and the kids having their own space to put their toys comes with its own set of problems.  Knut and I talk a lot about living intentionally.  This is not to be confused with living legalistically.  For instance, we watch very, very little t.v.  Knut hasn't played video games in...I don't know...years.

It's not that these pieces of technology are sinful, it's that we found them consuming so much of our time and we were constantly complaining to each other that we never had time to do stuff that we wanted to do.  So we jointly came to the point where we realized we didn't want to spend our lives watching movies and playing games.  We each had goals and interests.  We wanted a life that this stuff was keeping us from.  So we stopped using that stuff.

Did you ever notice that kids normally do better with less toys rather than more?  Our house is like a toy vacuum, and TWICE a year I go through all the toys with the attempt to get rid of half.  Half.  I usually end up keeping the same type of toys (the wooden train set) and getting rid of the same type of stuff (McDonald's Happy Meal toys, etc.). 

This last week I went through the kids' books.  I haven't done that in years, but they haven't all fit on the shelves for at least a year.  It's really tricky to teach them to pick up their books when they don't all fit on the shelves.  So I got rid of all the ones that annoy the grown-ups (pretty much all the Disney/commercial ones.  Again...nothing against Disney or My Little Pony, but when I'm going through books to decide which ones I'm keeping, The Velveteen Rabbit wins over something shallow.)

I also got rid of all the books that were drawn in, torn, or pretty much falling apart.  Our bookshelves now have a bit of space to spare.  Now when Knut eventually gets to building bookshelves in the den for school books, we can actually put next year's school books there.

It doesn't help that the kids are always wanting stuff, and they see their friends having stuff we don't get for them.  For instance, we have an xbox that I'm sure is very outdated from when we were first married and the kids don't play with it.  We don't have a Wii, or PS4 (I have no idea what number they're on even).  This is by choice.

It's not a legalistic issue, it's a intentional issue.  We've decided what kind of childhood we want our kids to have.  We want to hold back on the technological play, and rev up the hands on, imaginative, outside, make believe, forts-out-of-couch-cushions play.  We believe that when our kids are mature and developed enough to handle technology they'll be able to figure it out.  Silje now does some research on the computer on topics that interest her.  She's started reading this blog too.

When they go to friends' houses, we let them play video games.  We sometimes have family movie night and we all watch something together on the couch with popcorn.  Like I said, we don't want our decision to limit technology and toys in our house to be any resemblance of legalism.  I have no intention of teaching that.

I guess what I'm venting here is not my hatred of technology, or any sort of judgment on those who give their kids a cell phone and a DS (whatever that is) at age 6.  What I am venting is how choosing a simple childhood for our kids is such an uphill battle! 

It's really frustrating that even though we homeschool, our kids don't watch much t.v. and they go to the store maybe once a week, but more often every other week...they still are consumed with stuff.

I wish that when they ask for stuff I could say "we don't have room for that" or "that's too expensive."  I have no excuses besides "I don't want you to have that.  I want you to have something better.  There are better ways for us to use our money and our time and more than anything I want you to know that."

Because if we had some excuse, I'd use it.  Telling my kids this is a choice just feels mean.  They know that the only thing between them and junk is our will and determination. 

I don't want my kids to be limited to spending their days mastering a level of video games.  I don't want them to see the world only through the eyes of Hollywood. I want them reading about Michelangelo, and performing a play through the means of a flashlight and shadow puppets.  I want them to read library books about bumble bees, and not learn about the world through Calliou.   The tough part is the kids won't choose it themselves.  If you put vegis and cake in front of them, most kids (though I'm sure not all) will choose the cake. 

Finding that balance might be the hardest.  It would be so much easier if we made it legalistic and said "this is bad and we're not going to do it."  It would be easier to make the kids feel superior because they don't lower themselves to watching television.  It would be easier to label technology sinful and wrong.  That would be lying, though.  Technology is neutral.  It's how we use it that is good or bad.  It's how we manage ourselves and our time that is good or bad. 

I believe it will be worth it, though.  The simple life doesn't come easy.  It's hard.  That's another message I want my kids to learn: do hard things. 

I sometimes hear "you can't protect them forever" and "you don't want to shelter them."  I saw a tote bag the other day that said "Why yes, I am sheltering them.  Are you going to accuse me of feeding and clothing them next?"  I don't intend to control their lives forever, but neither am I loony enough to believe that they are mature enough to make some of these choices for themselves.  We will explain the "why" behind our choices.  Probably thousands of times.  We'll let them make some mistakes, because sometimes that's how we learn.

I know that some people roll their eyes at homeschooling, or having few toys, or constantly giving kids healthy snacks and not letting them "experience" junk food as much as their peers.  Hollywood says that parents should edit what their kids watch, not them.  Then when parents do edit, they're controlling, sheltering, oblivious and too idealistic. Our kids play by themselves outside for big lengths of time, and we choose that over gymnastics 3 times a week in a structured class, yet we are the controlling ones.

I hear comments muttered from both media and friends that we are depriving them.  I even heard on the radio the other day that people homeschool so that they can indoctrinate their children in one set religion and the government should put a stop to that.  It's un-American.  (Serves me right for listening to Ed Schultz).  It wasn't enough to say you couldn't talk about God in schools.  There are some out there who say we shouldn't be teaching it at home either.  It should be something that they learn...if they decide.  Religion doesn't bother liberals unless it's practiced.  Sorry...I'll stop that tangent before I get all political again.

If parents don't show kids how to live, I mean really live, and not just go with the flow then who is? 

It's hard, because parenting today is an uphill battle.  Finding that balance, having nothing holding you but but sheer will sometimes when your kids, the media, and the culture and sometimes yourself doubts your sanity.  The simple life is a battle sometimes.  Sometimes it's hard to know which battles need to be fought and which ones left alone.

We'll continue to do hard stuff over here.  I'm not sure right now what will come of it.  We'll wait right along with you for the next 18 years or so to see if what we're doing works or not.

Yarn Along

At the risk of being redundant, here I go.  I love this book that Silje and I are reading and I'm sneaking ahead at night after she goes to bed...again.  It brings me back to when I was a little girl and used to write chapters of novels and dream of getting published.  (The story is about a little girl who is a writer and wants to publish a book.)  I'm loving it.  Silje's liking it.  I think in about a year or two she'll love it.

Since our deal is that she cannot read a designated school book until it is assigned to her, and of course once we're done with it it's free game, I'm sure she'll read it many more times.  At this point she re-reads her assigned books about 3 times after we're done.  Some more, some less.

I got the variation to the Little Pearl Vest done.  It's just a little sampler fair isle on the body.  I made it a size too big for Solveig, but let her wear it to church last Sunday even though the shoulders were big.  Actually, after considering the "flair" in the shoulders as the size goes up, I'm adjusting my pattern slightly in the increase area so it will be more hugging the shoulders and less flaring, and am checking my adjustments with a vest for Silje.  I haven't made anything for her in awhile. 

The yarn I'm using for Silje's Little Pearl Vest is actually from a project I've been meaning to frog for awhile, but haven't had a chance.  So without the messy winding up the yarn business, I'm just knitting straight from the unraveling sweater on the left.

I've hit a bit of a wall when it comes to designing.  I finished the editing for the Buttercup pattern, and that got sent out to the testers.  I have one more edit, and as I faced this next pattern for Little Pearl coming up, I went ahead and got a tech editor so the stress about checking my numbers 15 times for each size would fall off my shoulders.

Although I feel very professional getting a tech editor for my patterns, and I am relieved that I have the necessary help for them, I find I'm still coming up against a hard place when it comes to designing.  It's not that I don't have more ideas.  It's that figuring out how to execute each idea requires so much measuring and planning and math, math, math, math.

I was talking to Knut about it the other night.  I love designing patterns.  I feel so creative and it gets my brain going and I think it's so important that as adults we continue to learn and think and not just coast for years on end.  I was wondering out loud why on earth I'm making myself do something so difficult?  Maybe it's easier for other designers (although I doubt it).

Still there's that little voice inside me wondering if I'm cut out for it.  I wonder if I'm just wasting my time.  If I could even describe the butterflies I get in my stomach when I'm getting near the end of a pattern.  I have 3 new patterns that will be done by the end of this month if all goes well!  That's a lot of butterflies.  What if they're bad?  What if I start getting floods of emails telling me the patterns don't make any sense, they came out the wrong size, I wasted their time and money...etc.

Knut lovingly told me that #1: if anyone should be stressed it should be him.  His biggest cross country ski race of the year is this weekend. I did note that. ;)  #2: Don't quit something because it's hard.  Maybe it's fine to quit if it's best for the family.  Maybe it's fine to quit if you hate it.  Sometimes you quit if you feel no desire for it or you have no time to give to it.  It's not fine to quit because it's hard.  If it's hard, it's worth doing.  He encouraged me to show my kids what following a dream looks like.  I shouldn't stop because it's scary or because the work is hard. 

He's right.  We try to tell our kids not to be afraid of hard work.  O, I love my husband.  He never ever thinks my dreams are stupid.  I hope I can always do the same for him.  I'm looking forward to be standing at the finish line this weekend with my cow bell ringing loudly as he finishes this 50 kilometer race for his 3rd year.  He's earned his spot into wave 1 (out of 8 waves of starters in the classic style) this year, so he'll get to be right behind the elites.  It's a massive race with thousands of skiers.  At that point it won't matter that he's barely had snow to train in...he'll be skiing with the fast people so he'll have to go fast.

Little Chicken Update

It's been awhile since I've talked about our chickens, so we have some catching up to do!  So much has been going on.

First, though, I must tell you about Cali.  You see, last year we had this mice issue in our house.  It was our worst year yet for mice, and as we talked with our neighbors, we found out that everyone was having a big mice issue.  Knut and I don't consider ourselves "cat people" but we seriously considered getting one as a mouser.  The traps were not working, and the mice started bringing the poison from the part of the basement that the kids don't get to into, and building little poison nests in the kids toy bins.  I pretty much freaked out.

This winter, we never needed to get a cat, though, because Cali showed up.  She's a stray cat that came into our yard, and since she arrived we have not seen a single mouse.  This has been a no mouse year so far which is just fantastic.  So we encouraged her to stay by setting out warm water on bitterly cold days.  He/She has been around for a few months, although since she is a stray we have told the kids to not touch her.  That's fine, because she's pretty skittish around us and I doubt we could catch her if we wanted too.

Anyway, this winter has been unseasonably warm and the chickens have been allowed out of their coop much more often.  Lately, we've noticed their egg production drop.  It went down from 4-8 eggs a day to 1 a day.  Then we had 3 days of no eggs. 

Then I went to the coop one morning and there was Cali resting in one of the nesting boxes, licking her lips with egg shells all around her.

O, I yelled at her, and she ran like the wind.  The chickens did not like her around.  She didn't touch the chickens but she sure liked the eggs.  At this point our solution has been to leave Lena outside when the chickens are out, as she guards their coop like...a guard dog.  She doesn't even notice the chickens anymore, but she does not like that cat, or anything else in her yard.

I will say Lena isn't thrilled with this new arrangement, as she spends most of her day begging to come in at the front porch window.  She will growl and run off if anything enters the yard, though.

So for now it's not the season that mice flood into the house, and everything in that regard seems under control.  Except the chickens are being a bit naughty themselves.  I blame the cat.

You see, now they're laying eggs outside the coop.  I honestly think that's because the cat was all over their nesting boxes.  We're finding eggs in the garage, in the summer kitchen, and once outside under a tree.  The kids like to "hunt eggs" and are pretty good at it. 

So to retrain them, we left them in the coop for a few days where their only choice was the nesting boxes.  They in turn went canabalistic on us and started eating some of their eggs, which is very common in chickens.  However we're trying to put a stop to it.  I'm trying to make sure we're bringing them out some interesting slop to distract them.  I've read eating their eggs is what chickens often do when they're bored of being "cooped up."

So besides having a bit of an egg shortage around here (we only have one full 18 ct carton we keep up in our fridge these days.  It's starting to grow again.  Previously, we'd have 3-18 ct cartons in the mix in our fridge.)

Spring is on the way, and that means that we're about to see exactly what these girls can do.  You may remember that they started laying just when the weather turned cold and we have not yet seen them lay at full speed.  We've just been enjoying the winter crumbs of them laying.

New Year...New Stuff.
We are also starting talk of expanding our flock.  Well, our 17 girls can rest assured they won't have to share their little house.  No, we're considering this summer getting some meat birds and housing them in a portable "tractor" they call them on the south side of our yard.  These ones will not have names, and the kids won't play with them like the laying ones...although I don't think I'll be able to keep them away from chicks.

Knut learned to "harvest" chickens last summer at our friend's house and he thinks he's ready to do our own this year.  He said he'd do the chopping, and I'll do the plucking.  I watched the plucking last year and I'm gearing up for it.  Deep breaths...

On the upside, I think I'll need some new specialty knifes in my kitchen to deal with our "fresh" meat and I'm all about new kitchen gadgets.  More deep breaths...

We want to be sure to keep the laying birds and meat birds separate as they require different things and can tend to bully each other.  We're hoping for some pasture fed meat and we might join in with Knut's cousin on this venture.  Anyway, I'm supposed to be researching meat breeds right now, so I should probably sign off.  Planning is half the fun sometimes anyway!

I'm Blessed

I have a list of some big things, and some small things that gather together into big things.

This morning I surrounded by little ones in footie pajamas with crazy hair and hypnotizing smiles.

What can I say?  I'm blessed.

Yesterday our family got to relax with friends.  You know, the kind of friends where your family can be their crazy selves and you don't have to apologize.

My husband has coffee ready for me when I wake up in the morning.  I'm spoiled.

I have a song stuck in my head from church yesterday.  It's a wonderful song to have stuck in your head, and may just make my Monday:

Jesus paid it all.
All to Him I owe.
Sin had left a crimson stain
He washed it white as snow.

I'm so blessed.

As always, if you want to join in by sharing how God has blessed you this last week, leave a comment!  I you have a blog and want to join the blog party, write a post on blessings, make sure there is a link to this blog in there so people can read more (you can use the I'm Blessed button I have on the right hand side of this blog if that's easier for you), and leave your blog post address below.  It's really pretty simple.  Thank you so much to those who participate each week.

Teacher Notes

It's not very exciting to write about school these days.  Whenever one of my friends who homeschools asks me how school is going, they have an expression of understanding.  I'm in my 2nd year, and I'm finding that nearly every homeschooling family I know goes through some sort of February slump.  The exception to that might be the families I know who educate year round.

I sure feel slumpy, though.  Things like Valentine's parties, and other antics are my small attempt to keep it exciting.

It's the time of year where we start to realize how much work we still have left to do this year.  I start to wonder if we'll get it all done.  It seems like it's going to last forever.

It's the time of year where I just try to keep us moving.  I'm trying to remember the different speakers I've heard for encouragement.  I've been mixing things up a bit to keep some drudgery out.  For instance, 2 subjects that I feel both Silje and I are glazing over are science and grammar.  Since we're studying botany, I picked up a bunch of library books on the subject, and we're looking at some of those.  The change has really been good for both of us.  Her favorite book has been one on official state flowers.

As far as English, I haven't done grammar in a few weeks, but instead I've had her work on memorizing poems, and I've been reading aloud to her several poems by Robert Frost.  She has been loving this.  We're not dissecting the poems really at all.  I'm just trying to get her to have a baseline of basic types of poems in her memory so that when we do discuss poetry in the future she has the knowledge to pull from and understand the concepts.  She does talk a lot about the rhythm of the poems, and she has really been enjoying this "unit."

It's difficult to find the balance between making changes when you see your child glazing over, and the possible downside to that: removing things that are hard.  I don't want to remove things that are hard for my kids.  I want to give them the tools to work through them.  We've actually been dealing with that in some other areas in our lives.  I feel like the theme of what I teach my kids these last few months is: do hard things!  'I know it's a mess, but you still have to clean it up.'  'I know you're hungry, but you need to wait until everyone is at the table.'  'I know you want to sit there, but we're going to let Great-grandma sit there right now.'

However, when I read a chapter to a child, and they cannot remember one single thing from what I read, I sometimes read portions again.  If that child still has no idea what I said, it's time to try something else.  It's not a matter of laziness, it's a matter of learning.

I'm confident that I made the right choice to wander off the curriculum path in those 2 subjects.  I really am.  However, I'm not sure what to do with the parts that we're not doing now.  Do I just pick up where we left off when we're done with our side notes?  We'll be a few weeks behind, and possibly have to go into summer.  I've honestly considered this.  It's either that, or I'll have to pick portions of the curriculum to skip.  As silly as this sounds, it feels so wasteful to skip portions of the curriculum.  I'm trying to justify that I'm not wasting them, because they'll likely get used for another kid down the road.  "Not now" doesn't mean "never."

All of these wonderings on how best to work through these curricula is playing into the beginning of plans for what we'll be doing for school next year.  I may make a few changes here and there.  I hope every year I make a few changes for the better. 

As far as David goes, he still continues on with his math at least every day...sometimes multiple times a day.  He's still obsessed with chess.  He's started reading to Elias.  This has been so heart warming.  I'll be reading to Silje, and I'll see David and Elias walk off into a corner with a Dr. Seuss book, and David will read the whole thing to Elias and they laugh over the whole thing. 

I'm really eager to incorporate David into our core lessons with Sonlight.  I'm anxious to start him on that.  My plan was to have him do more "major study" with us when he starts 1st grade next year.  This year my goal was to have him reading, and in the habit of doing a bit of school each day.  I was hoping that he would want to do some of the history/read alouds/geography with us, but he has not.  In fact, Elias does more with us than David does.

Next year the choice will not longer be his.  I'm going to make him do those subjects with us regardless of his desire.  That's fine because he's still just working up to that.  We'll be ready then.  I was just secretly hoping he'd want to join in early.  Who knows...the year is still young.

A Potty Story

Don't you just love how as a mother you feel free to talk about poop and pee like men discuss football?  There's such drama in the event.  When passing a major milestone like this, I feel the need to reflect on how it was with each of my kids.  Don't ask me why.  Processing maybe?

With Silje, I was under the impression that kids were supposed to be potty trained at 18 months.  So around 16 months or so I started putting on the pressure.  I spent hours showing working with her and trying to make it a game.  A few times she would go potty on the potty chair, so I switched to "demand mode" and required her to go potty from then on.

She fought me tooth and nail...for 9 months.  She would have accidents multiple times a day.  I would set timers, I would spend countless minutes sitting next to her while she sat on the potty.  We'd read books on the potty, we'd sing songs on the potty.  We lived with that potty chair for 9 long months.

So when it was David's turn, I was very nervous.  David's personality is quite different than Silje's.  If Silje fought me, I don't know what word they would have if I put David in that situation.  I knew that whatever he set his mind to he would do with all his might.  So my plan was to make sure he wanted it.  I knew that if he didn't want to be potty trained, I was wasting my time.  Some of you with very strong willed children know exactly what I'm talking about.

So I waited.  I waited and waited and waited.  We talked about the potty chair, and he knew all about it.  Still I waited.  I waited until he was 3, which at the time was getting embarrassing as my friends had started potty training their kids David's age.  When he turned 3, a light switched and he decided he didn't want to wear diapers anymore.  2 days of occasional accidents, and we were done.  Potty training over.

I liked that method.  It was so much less headache, and I didn't feel like I was tied to staying home and sitting next to a potty chair for months.  We were tied to our house for 2 days.  Done.  So for Elias, waiting was my plan.

Well, he's been 3 for a few months now.  Just before he turned 3, I was able to get him to go potty on the potty chair like clockwork before his bath.  He could go on command.  That was good, but he didn't like to go any other times.  Bribing wasn't working.  I honestly had no time to fight him on this, so we just waited more.

It felt like we were going backwards because when we got back from Christmas vacation, he stopped going before baths.  He would sit on the potty chair and say calmly "It's not working.  It's broken."

So I tried to up my game a bit.  David was more than willing to show him how to go potty several times.  The potty chair was brought into the kitchen and I'd have him sit on it where I could talk to him and still do dishes and cook, etc.  He's sit calmly "reading" a book on the potty for 45 minutes with nothing.  I'd put his diaper back on to eat lunch, and he'd go immediately in the diaper.

So I was telling this to my mom, and she said that was similar to how my sister was potty training.  (Hehe, discussing my sister's potty training on my blog...I love it!)  My mom said she just told Heidi that the diapers were broken, and there was only the potty chair left.

Ironically that night, we ran out of diapers.  Since I sell cloth diapers, I should probably explain.  I may have said this before, but I have about 3 cloth diapers that still fit Elias.  I should buy/make him some more, but it has the feeling of putting expensive new tires on a car you're about to sell, you know?  We're supposed to be done with his diapers, I don't want to make new ones!

So I've been using Elias' 3 large diapers to round out Solveig's stash, and have put Elias in sposies for the last little bit.  It has been super annoying because sposies are not easy to 'spose of out here in the country.  Knut and I practically have to draw straws to who gets to pile weeks worth of stinky diapers in the van and drive the long, stinky way to the dump.  You don't want to make the trip unless there's a lot, and when there's a lot it smells so bad the whole way, and it's too cold to have the windows down.  Anyway...

In hindsight, I probably should have just gotten him a few more cloth diapers, but I didn't and this isn't part of the story anyway.

So I ran out of sposies that night, and Knut was going to have the van the next day so I wouldn't be able to run into town to buy some more.  I realized I was out about 10pm and really wasn't in the mood to go then.

So I decided that when Elias woke up the next morning, I would tell him we're all out of diapers.  We had just enough cloth ones for him to wear during naptime and bedtime.  Otherwise, he had to use the potty.

When he woke up, and I took his nighttime diaper off and told him we were all out of diapers.  He laughed and thought I was joking.  I let him run around with his bottom half naked.  He sat on the potty chair but again claimed it was broken.

About 30 minutes later, he had a small accident.  It was obviously he started going, then promptly stopped.  He was stressed out, and wanted it cleaned up.  I cleaned it up, and put him on the potty chair.  Again, he said it was broken.  So I let him continue to play.  About 5 minutes later, he looked at me with panic and said, "Mommy!  I need a diaper!"  I told him I didn't have anymore.  He argued while I put him on the potty chair once again that he didn't need a broken potty, he needed a diaper.  That's when the flood came out he'd been holding in.  A look of relief came over him, as nothing was broken, and there was actually a solution to the no-diaper problem his mommy seemed to have.

Once he went potty, I rewarded him with a pair of Thomas the Train underwear and a brownie.  Our kids rarely wear commercial figures like that, but for potty training, I pull out the cookies, candies, cartoon clothes...whatever it takes.  He got them a little wet once, but not enough to get on the ground.  He ran to the potty chair and that was a success later that morning that required another pair of undies.  And #2 went in the undies.  We'll be working on that for a little while longer, I think.

The rest of the day (besides a diaper for nap) he had no more accidents.  The next day, I didn't even have to remind him to go.  He went there by himself, pulled his undies down by himself, emptied the bowl underneath into the big potty by himself, flushed by himself, (he needs some help getting the bowl back and finishing up potty duties at this point).  Seriously, though.  Not bad for day 2.

I know some people (Knut included) think I'm crazy to let my kids be in diapers for so long.  I'm telling you, though: this is my favorite way to potty train and causes the least amount of interruption to the rhythm of our home.  I'm sure I could have poured more energy into it months ago and saved us hundreds of diapers, but in all reality, I just didn't have the time to devote to it, nor the desire.

I guess my goal in mind was to get him potty trained the easiest possible way, and my goal was not to potty train the earliest possible.  Different moms have different goals, and they all end up potty trained in the end.  Sometimes changing a diaper is just easier.  Sometimes you really need something in your life that is easy.

When they're ready, it's a snap.  When they're not, I'm just making it worse.  At least, that's my experience.  Like all things, I'm sure Solveig will have her own way as well.