U is for Underwear

So I finally decided I was going to do some "hard-core" potty training. A week of just wearing panties during the day time, unless we had to go some where, or if she was taking a nap.
Well that was a few weeks ago, and I failed miserably. I have to admit that my baby got sick that week and I spent more time dealing with a sick infant and left the pull-ups on, and just increased my asking if she needed to go. But sometimes I feel like I am no farther in my potty-training than I was before.
If I ask her if she needs to go, she always tells me no, even if she is moments away from going. If I let her wear big girl panties, she somewhere got the impression that means she wears them on the toilet. We have even tried letting her see Mommy or Daddy go. She understands what we are doing, she just doesn't seem to be able to do it her self.
One thing I did learn though is that my daughter is under the impression, that she has to have something covering her bottom to use perform those functions. I took her to the bathroom one day, I had her sit on the potty. We read stories. She just sat there. She said she was done. We put her pants back on her, there was a knock at the door, so I went to answer it. By the time I got back to the bathroom, there was a mess on the floor and wet pants on the girl.
We read somewhere that to help with preparing your child for potty training, you should take messy diapers and in your toddlers presence dump the contents into the toilet and tell them that is where that stuff goes. So we tried that. My daughter now messes her pants, takes them off, and dumps the contents into the potty.

So am I doing something wrong? Is my child just not ready for this step? Or do I just need to persist further?

J is for Jessie, Woody, and Buzz Lightyear

According to my 2 year old, this trio has been accompanying us throughout our day today. No we don't have any of these toys. It is strictly imagination.
Her imagination has been starting to develop a lot lately. We first noticed it one night when I was out somewhere, and my husband was at home with the kids. He was feeding a bottle to the baby, and needed a burp cloth. He then asked our daughter if she knew where one was. She said she didn't then turned to the fire place and asked "fire do you see a burp cloth? Thank you" held out her hands to the fire place, as if taking something from someone, then turned to her daddy and said "here ya, go".
She also will take things like our alphabet magnets and personify them. Carrying on conversations centered on things that happen in her two year old world. "Are ya hungry" "I need a nap" "can I have a sandwich" and so on.
She enjoys carrying on imaginary telephone conversations with different extended family members. The whole thing is just fun and enjoyable. It is nice to see children grow up, even though it can be hard some times too.

K is for Kwala

About a year and a half ago, shortly after my daughter had turned one, she started showing interest in the computer and playing the computer. Well we don't have any kid friendly computer games, and our finances were tight at the time and so I did a Google search to see what I could find on line. I tried fisher prices web site, but had difficulty getting the activities to work so I continued looking elsewhere. Then I came across a website called Up To Ten Kids. This website is full of songs, games, and activities, specialized for children under the age of 10.
They have 2 sections. One for kids under 6 and one for kids between 6 and 10. I haven't explored the older section yet, due to the age of my children, but the younger section has become a favorite in my home.
It features a dog named Boowa and a koala named Kwala. It is an educational site, but it is also entertaining and fun. Almost any time I sit down to the computer, if my daughter is in the room she comes up to me and says "I need to play Kwala."
At the age she is right now it requires me to sit with her and control the mouse, but she really enjoys seeing what happens on the screen. They have many different actives on their free site and even more available. But if you are not wanting to spend money they still have a lot available and more released ever month.
So other than having my daughter request it any time I sit down to the computer and making it hard for me to get anything else done. I really enjoy this website. If you have been searching for computer games friendly to young children I highly recommend this site.

X is for X-tra work

So we went out of town on the 20th of September and came back on the 24th. We got back to our apartment probably about 4 in the afternoon that day. Well Monday's are my usual laundry day, so getting back that late on a Monday put me a bit behind. I tried to get as much done that day as I could, but didn't get very far. Well I had a hard time getting back to the laundry for a few days and when I finally did, the clothing that I pulled out of the drier, which happened to be my light batch, was covered with pink spots. Somehow a chap stick had ended up in my wash. Thankfully not too much of the batch has spots, and most of what did, it washed out OK when I treated it and rewashed it. So you think I would have learned to check pockets right? Wrong.
So today when I pulled my white (yes white) batch out of the drier and every single article of clothing that was in there, from my daughters slip to my husbands white dress shirt, was covered in dark green melted crayon splotches. I put forth my best efforts. I used spray and wash, and Tide. Washed it twice in hot water. Went and bought Shout after my spray and wash ran out. Washed it again after treating it with the shout. And the only thing that happened was the spots on the tricot fabrics, such as my daughters slip, faded but all the others are still just as prevalent on the clothes. I have thought of using bleach but haven't got that far yet.
So does anyone have any tricks that they know of to remove melted crayon from clothes?

So the other item that happened today was we also melted a plate in our dishwasher. Our dishwasher has super strong water pressure when it is washing. Quite often I find my cups turned over and filled with water. Well if we put our daughters plates (small rectangular plastic, bought at IKEA). on the bottom shelf, they quite often will be flipped to the bottom of the dishwasher and land on the heater coils. Which happened tonight. I guess it has just been one of those days.
But to look on the bright side. All of the other dishes in the dishwasher are fine, and I did successfully wash 3 other batches of laundry today with no problems. Although there were some things I found in pockets.