Hmmm, I'm SAD!

I'll explain my title in a bit. First the diet. It was actually very filling for a cleanse. Lots of fruit, salads, some hearty cabbage soup, rice and beans. Brandon said he felt hungry the whole time but I never did. Laylah has been eating so well too. She's been eating all sorts of fruit and brown rice and chicken and peas and corn. I've been very proud. We're on phase 2 now that is to reintroduce stuff like meat. Last night we had a spinach salad, brown rice, left over cabbage soup and blackened chicken. The chicken was really good, I was surprised. Next topic, this will jump around a bit. We decided that since we didn't have any big plans over the weekend we'd make a a potty training marathon. We put the potty in the living room, put Laylah in big kid underwear and watched Elmo's Potty time about eight times. We sat her on the potty and read books and did puzzles and talked about when she needed to go. AND SHE WENT POOPEE ON THE POTTY!!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOO! It's a breakthrough! She was excited too, so happy, she helped me flush it and got a sticker and a Lindt truffle, which she calls a Daddy chocolate, they are her favorites and a good way to get her to do anything. Especially since we get the variety bag and she gets to pick the color and then looks forward to another color for the next time. Of course as we save money on diapers we'll spend it on chocolate. Oh well, worth it. We also took her to Borders to get "The Poop Book" as a reward for her first poop and also the reinforce the lesson. It's a lift the flap book with baby animals and their parents. They each have a special place to poop and you have to help find the poop, then the last page has a bathroom and a little boy who's pooped all by himself in the toilet. She loves it. So this happened Saturday. Sunday she peed on the potty, and Monday too. We sit on it several times a day to try and she gets a sticker for trying but a chocolate and a sticker if she goes. She's also had a few accidents but it's progress. She's wearing training pants now that turn cold if she pees to help her anticipate the feeling. Next topic, we got a really cool phonics book at Kroger for $2. It's called "Pat and the Bat" and has pull out tabs with the word next to the picture so as you go through you find the word on the page and pull it to see the picture. So you can kind of quiz them as they go. There is a whole set of them out there. Laylah recognized several words after just one reading! She already new DAD but she got Bat, Bag, and Man, which is pretty darn good. We'll do it again today and see if she remembers. I'm so excited that she's starting to read, she likes reading me books now, usually ones that she already knows but it's still impressive. I'm a very proud mama let me say. Then there's today. She pooped in her diaper right after she woke up so we didn't have the chance to try the potty but she did tell me as soon as she did it and wanted a change which is good. We got ready and went to the Library for story time, which is every Tuesday. I also wanted to pick up a few more books for her about her potty and one for me about methods of training to get ideas. We got there and the first thing the librarian does is sing "If you're happy and you know it". Now I don't know if it's just a matter of being in a bad mood or that she decided that she was tired of taking orders and wanted to rebel, but Laylah decided, "NO! I'm SAD!" and proceeded to lay on the floor in the corner almost the whole time giving me dirty looks and telling me she was sad and wanted to stay that way! When I asked her why she said, "Hmmmm, I'm Sad. I'm not Happy. I'm taking a rest and I'm sad, right here." It wasn't nap time or anything, she'd just eaten. She just wanted to be sad. I asked her if she was having fun being sad and she said yes. So I let her be sad. As soon as story time ended and the librarian was gone, she got up and started playing and running and smiling. We went and got our books, she was very good about being quiet in the adult section and helped me look for the letters to find the books we wanted. We left the Library and went to Kroger to pick up some mouthwash and she got a Lollypop. Then we came home and she read some stories and is taking a nap. We'll put on underwear after nap and sit on the potty to try again, probably watch Elmo again. If anyone knows of other good Potty movies I would be grateful. Dinosaur Train had an episode about it that's we've watched online a few times. She now knows more dinosaur names than I ever did. Crazy. Anyway, I gotta go, hopefully I'll write more soon. Oh and Brandon has a lunch/interview with a really family friendly firm today and a breakfast meeting with a headhunter (the good employment kind) tomorrow. Things are moving along. Hopefully we'll know soon where we'll be so we can plan ahead a little. Have a good Tuesday everyone and please, don't be sad!