We're Still Here!

I know that I referred to my hiatus as a diet, but it seems to have transformed into a fast. I didn't really mean for that to happen, but it did.

It's not that I'm not writing. I am writing a large amount of material, but not on a blog. I'm working on a project for church, and it's taking up more mental energy than I have stored up.

I have pictures, and I have every intention of posting them soon, but I have been ill (maybe with the flu?), so I have no desire to track down the card reader to load those pictures onto the computer, edit them, and post them.

I was going to write a list of all of the things we have been doing since I last posted, but I realized that there is only one big piece of news in our household:

Ella is officially potty trained! Even at night, she asks to get up and go to the potty, almost without fail. I have to say, though, it seems like a lot more work to constantly go through the potty process with her. There are a lot of steps involved, and both of us seem to have dry hands because of the increase in hand-washing. I'm still super-proud.

I was going to tell you about all of our other accomplishments, but my mind is either too fuzzy to remember them, or we're not doing too much to write about.

Blogging Diet

I'm sure that you may have already noticed this, but I will be cutting back on blogging for a while. I know that I've been inconsistant at best, but there are a lot of things that I need to get done, and blogging is an easy thing to reduce while I work on them. If I think of anything that really must be shared, I will definitely post it, but I'm not going to work too hard at thinking of things to write.

Gratefully,
Hannah

Ella's New Year's Resolution

This year I decided to force my own goals for Ella onto her. Her resolution for 2011 is to be potty trained (completely) by her third birthday. She's really committed... Okay, not so much.

It really helps to say the phrase, "just like DeLaynie" as often as possible.

"You need to go in the big-girl potty... just like DeLaynie."

"You're going to get to wear big-girl underpants... just like DeLaynie."

"If you have one more accident, I'm going to throw a giant temper tantrum... just like DeLaynie."

(The phrase is a pay-off for Ella, not a way of comparing her to her older sister. Ella would love nothing more than to be just like her big sister.)

She gets the concept, but just like DeLaynie, she can be too lazy to actually stop what she's doing and go to the potty. DeLaynie, however, can hold it way longer than Ella. We're using the old stand-by (M&Ms) as a reward for using the potty, which really seems to click with her. The only slight issue is that she tries to go a little bit at a time to get more candy. That's not like DeLaynie at all.

So that's my two-year-old's New Year's Resolution, even if I seem to be much more resolved than she.