Our bird’s taken to this rather quickly. I was going to wait to potty train until August when she moves into Miss Christil’s class at school. She does an intensive potty training and it’s one of the biggest perks of our girls going to that school! Plus the Quail isn’t steady on her feet fulltime yet- so it seemed like she wouldn’t be developmentally ready. And her lil legs didn’t touch the ground on that first potty we were using from Zuzu’s training days. Lovey wanted to get the potty out and try though. I figured it couldn’t hurt. What she had going for her was the fact that most nights she stays dry and has for sometime. If you go to her when she hollars you find a dry dipe on the girl. That and it was not uncommon at tubby time in the evening for us to “get got” in the time between when we took off her diaper and got her physically in the tubby. Well we got it out and put her on it pre-tubby. She went potty (I’m still thinking that first few times were sheer luck on our part of when we happened to put her on the potty). We signed potty, her sister wrote her out a potty chart (and made a matching one for herself) and we pulled out a cupboard of stickers and let her choose which one each time she pee-peed. Well the second time we set her on the potty, she did her business, then pointed to it and declared rather nonchalantly, “Right there.” She chose her sticker and we were on our way. The next few times as soon as she peed she declared, “Ticker!” and pointed to where the stickers were. Then that weekend lo-and-behold- out came Mr. Poo-poo. In the meantime the girl couldn’t get more attention from her big sister if she tried. Zuzu was in her glory explaining the process of, pee in little potty, put your diaper in the trash, dump pee-pee in big potty, shut the lid, flush, lift the lid to wave bye-bye to your pee-pee and choose a sticker to then put on your chart. We’re only doing it morning and night right now- so we’re keeping it low pressure. I remember Zuzu loving it initially and then once the shine wore off hating it with all her might. We’re prepared for that possibility- but for now we’re just too stinkin darn proud of our Potty Princess’ Prowess! Pun intended. Go Birdy go!

I am dreadfully behind on my crowing over this dear girl.

Since the last update on what she’s up to so much has happened and every single time I go to write about it something comes up and I make a note, look at the length and sheer volume of things I need to document, get overwhelmed and decide to come back to it later. I’m talking 2 months worth of grand hoopla!

So this is a little promise to be back soon with more detailed descriptions and high-lights from the Quail’s days that include grand things like:

*her ability to heft an 8 pound bowling ball down the lane

*her baby steps become more steady and independant

*her added vocabulary both in sign and song

*her cruising mania

*her terrible teething troubles that have 16 confirmed and in place

*her super baby oral-motor strength and coordination that allowed her to eat her first piece of pizza and chicken nugget like the rest of the rock-stars in her class

* her first pee-pee in the potty on 3/21/11, and the subsequent pee-pee and poo-poo adventures which include an already full sticker chart, the additions to her vocabulary of potty and sticker, attempts to undress herself, her clear indications of where the pee-pee is (Right there!) and waves to the extrements as they swirl away…

*her playground bullying…don’t be alarmed…she’s the uberbaby in these stories, not the underdog. Ain’t nobody puttin this baby in a corner!

*her rock-star scoring on her most recent HELP assessment which blew itself off of its’ developmental curve with huge leaps to another curve in cognition and social/emotional. Who would have ever guessed that my baby who has Down syndrome would have the same cognitive functioning as other babies who don’t who are only a couple of months younger and have the social-emotional equivalent of a 23-31 month old. Stereotypes be-damned.

Much,much more to come and pictures galore…but for now this glimpse will have to do….