Dear Bria,

You are absolutely the cutest right now. I let you and Crew ride your bikes inside today. You cracked me up with you held up a helmet and asked for help with the "seatbelt." You wanted me to undo the helmet strap. After spending a minute trying to figure out how to word that, I don't blame you for your wording!

You are finally FINALLY potty trained! I already told you about how we started. By the end of November, you went pee on the potty fine but would not poop on the potty. I bribed you like crazy but you were scared. I knew you had to poop because you would request a diaper. I made you wait one day and you waited all day until night came! I was scared of poo poo accidents. (Dallin went through a string of them when we traveled to Utah.) Therefore, I caved with the diaper requests.

When we were in Virginia, your Aunt Christina challenged me to not give in to the diaper. I was scared of regression but I knew I should at least give it a shot! It took you over a day and lots and lots and LOTS of unsuccessful potty tries. However, after all that, you did it! Each subsequent time has gotten slightly less dramatic. Today was the best time so far. You still want me to come with you but there was very little theatrics! Fingers crossed it sticks.

Now all we would have left to do is night time potty train you. That can wait for January! I'm just thrilled to only have one kid in diapers! You seem so grown up in you "undies." I can't believe you're going to preschool soon.

Have I told you about Crew's bunny? I've been putting Crew to be awake more often now. For forever he would breastfeed to sleep. I felt bad leaving him on his lonesome and found a stuffed animal bunny in a toy bin. Even thought the bunny was discarded and unwanted, the minute Crew had it, you wanted it! There were several day of meltdowns on your part.

You are a very good kid but you are three. The worst public meltdowns are over shoes. Your poor mom NEEDS a new pair of shoes. That is the one thing I really hate buying online. Every time, I try to find some in store, you end up throwing a colossal fit. You'll see a pair of shoes you want and royally meltdown when I won't buy them for you! You scream so loud that we get lots of stares. One Walmart employee looked at me pityingly as she let me exit without checking my receipt. I give up for now on shoe shopping when you come along shopping with me (which is almost always-sigh).

Okay, I feel like I have already written this to you but I'm going to record just in case. Ages ago (I'm thinking in the summer), you discovered that your hair had grown long enough that it bounced. This amused both you and me. Now I'll tell you to "bounce your curls" and you'll comply.

I LOVE your curly hair. I hope you always have it and that you'll love it too. Everyone always asks me where you get it from. It's a little frustrating to me because I have very wavy hair. BUT I've straightened a lot of the curl out of my hair. My hair will still curl but I've only owned a straightener for years. I'm getting a curling wand for Christmas and I'm excited for myself but also for you. It must be mentioned that your dad has wavy hair too. I'm actually more shocked by your siblings stick straight hair than by your curls!

Love you girl,
~Mom

Tuesday, December 10, 2019 10:31pm

Dear Bria-

You are growing too quickly and you are SO cute! You say the sweetest things. You talk a lot but your talking is still hard to understand. It's adorable to hear what's going on in that little head.

We spotted some deer last night (might have almost hit them-eek) and you were very excited to see the "reindeer." We saw some this morning in our backyard and you had to call your Nana and tell her about the "reindeer."

We checked out a book from the library called, "Anne's Feelings." The book is rather simple. Every page describes how Anne is feeling with pictures from the book, Anne of Green Gables. For example, one page says, "Anne is surprised." The picture shows Anne looking in a mirror at her green hair.

You woke up in the middle of the night sobbing last week. When Dad asked you what was wrong, you proclaimed, "I'm in the depths of despair!" The next morning you kept telling me about how you were in, "the depths of despair for a minute."

Your curly hair is getting so long. I love it when you talk about your "curly hair don't care." For well over a year I've referred to your hair as, "Curly hair don't care." I'll have you repeat it because it's the cutest thing ever when you say it. I'll ask you, "Bria, do your curls care?" You'll exclaim, "No!" And I'll chime in, "They don't! Your curly hair doesn't care." I'm a little bit of a weird mom. Ha, ha. It's all paid off because I love hearing you say, "Curly hair don't care."

Your hair has grown longer, mostly in the back. Sorry girl, your sporting a mullet. You realized the other day that your curls bounce. You've taken to shaking your head to make them bounce and it is about the most adorable thing I've ever seen.

Over the past week, I've started potty training you. I've despaired a little bit that you would ever be potty trained. To be honest, I'm still sweating about it a little. You had NO interest in going to the potty. I even bought you a special potty and new underwear.

You are clothes obsessed and I knew if anything would tempt you, it would be underwear. But, nope. You had no desire. Now I must say that I waited until you were three years two months old to push it. I was determined to wait until you were ready. My patience ended in September! Partly because you started (again) wanting to change your diaper all of the time. I went through a huge box of diapers in ten days. We can't afford that, child!

I'm ashamed to admit I threw a mommy fit or two after doing everything I knew and having you still refuse to even sit on the potty. Then I realized that my getting angry wasn't going to do anything. So I started talking up underwear and peeing on the potty. Oh, the conversations I've had with you!

Everyday I would talk about how much fun it is to pee on the potty. I talked about the "pleasant noise," the good feeling, and the rewards. Of course the rewards.

"Bria, you don't have to wear a yucky diaper when you go pee on the potty. You get to wear cute underwear. Do you want an M&M? Did you know that you get M&Ms for going on the potty? Oh, and you can earn stickers for your sticker chart to earn your Barbie! Going pee on the potty is so much fun..."

After a couple weeks of that, you wanted to wear underwear! However, you still wanted to pee in a diaper! The next day you went on the potty, though. It's been an up and downhill thing. Some days you do great, other days you're asking for your diaper. You're scared to go poo on the potty. That's definitely been a struggle. A lot of times when you ask for a diaper, you need to poo. You get a whole packet of fruit snacks for going poo on the potty.

I thought we had you trained on Saturday. You had gone two days wearing underwear all day and staying dry. You even pooped on the potty. However, you had an accident at Nana's last night and requested a diaper today. I don't fight you on the diaper. I really do believe you have to want to go on the potty. After wearing a diaper for a few hours, you were back to underwear.

You aren't prone to accidents. Your accident at Nana's may have been your first. I don't know why I have such willful daughters when it comes to toilet training. Fingers crossed that by 3 years six months you're trained!

Oh, and one funny story. One day when you were requesting a diaper, I told you that princesses wear underwear. Would you believe that kept you in underwear?! Ha, ha. You are such a girly girl it's crazy.

I'm sure I've told you about your church dresses. You wear dresses all of the time. You change clothes 1,000 times a day much to my grief! My house has clothes strewn all over and it often aggravates me. I know I'll look back on this phase as so cute and remember how quickly it went by. For now, it's a pain in my butt and never-ending and I'll admit it, cute.

I love you girly,
~Mom