My baby is totally growing up.  She is such a little girl now and I just am loving every single second of it.  She wild and she's sassy, she's hilarious and goofy, she's energetic and cuddly, she's totally brilliant and pretty much the best toddler ever. 

This little girl is totally into pretend play.  Pretend make-up (which is funny because she never ever sees ME wear any make-up), pretend cooking and eating and drinking, pretend tea parties and playing with baby dolls and stuffed animals.  I love seeing how her little mind is working and the things she comes up with.

She's started dance class this past month, and totally totally loves it.  She talks about it all the time.  Talks about her friends and her teacher, the things she does in dance class, how much she loves it, and she practices her move while we're at home.  She loves to put music on, and she loves doing her "shake your booty dance" and demanding that everyone dance with her.

She loves dressing up like a princess and accessorizing... or "getting super cute" as she calls it.  She wants to pick her own outfits, from the undies all the way to the headbands she wears.  She loves to sing.  She sings CONSTANTLY.  Everything turns into a song.  She knows tons and tons of real songs, and then she makes up her own songs too.  Some are to the tune of popular ones, and some are her very own version.  :)  And yes, she does have her very own microphone, so that makes it even more fun... and loud.

She has finally started sleeping better at night... more than half the nights she stays in her bed the whole night.  The other nights she comes down the hall and climbs in our bed with us.  She takes a nap 50% of the time, which I can't decide if I like that or hate it... if she doesn't take a nap, she gets SUPER tired in the later afternoon, but then she goes to bed by 6:30 at the latest.  If she does take a nap, she might not go to bed until 8:30 or 9...  so we take it day by day and decide what will be best for her (and us) as we go.  We also started a sticker chart to encourage her to stay in her bed all night, and it seems to be working (although it has only been 2 days so.... we'll see).

She loves copying us, and picks up on every little phrase we say, whether we want her to or not.  Some current faves include "Holy moly!" and "What the heck!?" (thanks Grandma for that one), "oh snap!" and many more.  She loves to do "photo shoots" with her animals/dollies, and she wants to use my iphone all the time to take pictures of things. 

She is currently obsessed with playing with marbles.  She is not allowed to play with them when jackson is awake, so the minute he gets put in his crib, she gets excited because "now we can play with marbles!!!!"  She also loves any and all art projects, particularly glitter paints.  She loves drawing and painting and playing with stickers.   She can draw circles and ovals (although they kind of look the same) and straight lines, and she can do a dot-to-dot if I make one for her and draw lines from one dot to the next... she was pretty pumped that she could make all kinds of shapes that way!!

She is still obsessed with Mickey Mouse, but has also decided she now likes Hello Kitty, Dora the Explorer and a few other random cartoons.  She loves going to the library, to target, to the supermarket... pretty much anywhere, actually.  She is SUPER awesome at riding her scooter, and can ride her tricycle pretty well too.  I LOVE watching her ride her scooter it is super cute!

I've been having fun teaching her all kinds of fun and random things, and I've been teaching her different faces and emotions... so I tell her to make a happy face or sad face or mad or tired face and she does.... Mark hates it though because after I taught her her "mad face" she now goes around and practices, so randomly she will just have this sort of creepy looking mad face on....  but then she also does her super happy and excited faces, which are pretty hilarious (see below).

Other things she loves: chasing baby around the house, having races, jumping off of things (like the couch, bed, etc), talking on the phone, getting her hair dried after bath, going in the hot tub, painting her nails, listening to toddler music on spotify, and lots lots more! Aaaaaaand a video... scooter super star...

We seem to be settling in to life in the US now.  I think the little ones are finally pretty well adjusted to the time change.  They were both in bed by 7:30 tonight, so I consider that a huge success (considering they were going to sleep at 10pm or later!)  Jackson, of course, is still waking up multiple times a night, and last night was pretty bad, he woke up and his skin was ll red and itchy and he was just a miserable little guy!  Poor baby.  His skin goes from almost perfect-looking to red and splotchy and irritated and we don't know what triggers it!

Riley is having a blast.  She's loving being with her grandma and grandpa... loves that we have a trampoline and a playroom, her very own minnie mouse chair, a playground right down the street, and plenty of people to play with her.  Our only issue we are having lately is the whole potty training thing.  We've taken a few big steps backwards in the potty training process.

The month or two before we moved back to the US was extremely hectic.  Lots of moving around and little routine, and as a result, we got a little bit lazy with her potty training, and would put her in a pull-up quite frequently.  Now, she usually treated her pull-up just like underwear, and would keep them dry and tell us when she needed to use the toilet, but sometimes we couldn't get her to a toilet on time, and I think she developed some bad habits as a result of being in a pull-up so much.  DOH!

So the problem now is, she still tells us when she needs to use the toilet, but she is having a really hard time keeping her underwear 100% dry.  So by the time she says "need to use the potty!!!" she has already wet her undies a bit.  Sometimes it's a tiny bit, and sometimes it's a lot.  And there were even a few days where she just straight up peed on the floor.  Luckily that only lasted for a day or two, not really sure what that was all about.

Now she seems to really be trying, I just think she gets so busy and forgets what's happening until it's too late and she REALLY needs to go.  If we remind her constantly or make her sit on the toilet, she does a good job, it's just if we let her do her own thing and wait until she tells us, it's normally a little too late... soooo we go through lots of underwear each day, since even when she does make it to the toilet, her undies are still a little bit wet.  Sigh.  Lucky for us though, she always poops on the potty, so we haven't had to deal with that kind of clean-up! 

Then there is the issue of sleep.  Riley seems to be in this weird transition phase.  Like, she doesn't always NEED a nap, but if she doesn't have one, she needs to be in bed really early, and the late afternoon can have quite a few overtired toddler tantrums.  But then if she DOES take a nap, I cannot get her to sleep at night before 9 or 10pm.  Clearly not ideal.  So some days she naps (and those naps are usually 3 hours!), and some days she doesn't nap.

And also?  She requires ME to lay down with her to fall asleep every single time.  If she doesn't take a nap, that whole process (after stories and the whole bedtime routine) takes all of 2 minutes.  No big deal.  But if she does take a nap, and isn't totally 100% exhausted, it can take 30 minutes to an hour of me laying there with her.  She wants more tickles and more songs and a drink of water and to use the potty and to see daddy and blah blah blah.  The girl knows how to delay bedtime, that's for sure!

But the most important thing?  My little babies are just so so HAPPY.  We are having fun.  We are enjoying this new stage in our lives.  Riley is definitely loving having her daddy home every day!

And Jackson is just SUCH a joy.  He's a happy little guy.  He's super cuddly, and smiley, and he laughs and giggles and tries to eat everything and he talks to us all the time, and he's just our gorgeous little blue-eyed Jacky boy.

I mean, it doesn't get any cuter, right?

Today, my little baby girl turns TWO years old.   Two whole years.  At two years old, Riley is just the sweetest, smartest, cutest little two year old I've ever met!  I don't even know where to begin with this post.  I want to remember every little thing about her.  All her little sayings and quirks, her favorite toys and the funny things she does each and every day. Exactly how she is at the age of TWO!

Language:  She's a full blown talker these days.  It's pretty easy to communicate with her, and she doesn't hesitate to tell us what she wants and doesn't want.  She still likes to repeat everything she hears, which means she says some pretty funny things sometimes.  She's got pretty good manners, saying please when she wants something and thank you after she gets it.  Pretty cute to have her just blurt out "thank you, mama! thanks mama!"  Some of her current funny phrases include: (1) "no mama, no can do that, I don't like that" when you try to help her do something that she wants to do herself (2) "Hey-o" instead of "Hello" (3) Saying "Hi Daddy, how are you today?" (4) "Baby awakey awake now!" every time Jack Jack wakes up (5) During diaper changes: "Baby penis!  Don't touch the baby penis!" (yeah... that's what you get when you teach her the correct anatomical words for things) (6) saying "be careful, don't fall down you get a big owie, get a really big owie" (in reference to leaning over the edge of the couch) (7) "that's a bright light, it's really really hot, like a fire, don't touch it. that one's not working..." (in reference to the overhead lights in the lounge, where one bulb was out) (8) "that's an ooey gooey yucky yucky one!" (in reference to her pooping in the potty) (9) "okay here we go to do pee pee on the potty" when she needs to go.  She always says "here we go" as she's running to sit on the potty.

Books/stories: Riley still loves to read.  We read a whole bin of stories throughout the day, and then we either read stories or I tell her a made up story or classic fairytale before nap and bedtime.  She has countless stories memorized, and still loves all her Mickey Mouse stories the best.  Other current favorites include: Slinky Malinki Open the Door, Babar the Little Elephant, Cinderella, Peter Rabbit, Madeline, and a bunch more.

I try and make up at least one story for her during the day, and have her help me come up with the  details. Sometimes we use Mickey and his pals as characters, sometimes we use Riley and Jack, just depends.  I'll ask her questions to prompt her to help me create the story, and it's amazing the things she comes up with!  Then when Mark gets home I have her tell him about the story I told her and see how much she remembers, and she does very well retelling the main points.

Little video of her reading one of her fave stories: Mickey and the Pet Shop.
This was actually quite a while ago, and it's near impossible to get her to read the whole story while also
getting it on video, so it's pretty choppy and way less clear than normal, but you get the idea.

Songs:  She loves listening to music.  We play a lot of music during the day, and she loves listening to it and singing along.  Her favorite song is "the ABC song" and she would listen to it (and sing along) over and over and over.  She knows and can sing dozens of songs, including Itsy Bitsy Spider, I'm a little Starfish, Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, Twinkle Twinkle, Wheels on the Bus, and many more.  She also LOVES to dance.  She bust a move big time, and loves when someone dances with her.  It's pretty darn cute, I must say.

Little dancing video (sweet PJs, I know)

Independence:  She is potty trained, hooray!  She uses the little potty as well as the big toilet (with her elmo seat) and she is doing extremely well.  She is really into getting herself dressed and undressed these days.  She can get her underwear and pants on all by herself most of the time, and can get her shirt on with a little bit of guidance.  But just a little bit, very discreetly, otherwise she gets mad and wants to do it all by herself.  She can put her shoes and socks on by herself, and she can take everything off all by herself.  She wants to make her own PB sandwich, pour her own milk, pick out her own spoon and cup, put her own toothpaste on her tooth brush, buckle herself and her brother in their car seats... the list goes on.  Basically, she wants to do it ALL herself.  And if you forget that for even a second, she will very loudly and clearly remind you she did NOT like you helping her.

Food:  Favorites include: pancakes with syrup and bacon, pretzels, bananas, peanut butter sandwiches, hummus, raw carrots, "those vines" (fruit snack thing), weetbix, pistachios ("stachios"), and cheese, and chippies and sauce (or as us Americans call it, fries and ketchup).  She's picky with vegetables but she absolutely loves raw carrots.  Not cooked carrots.  She will also eat raw spinach if it has balsamic dressing on it.  She will eat bananas and oranges, and that's pretty much it.  We get fruit in her by giving her those pureed squeeze pouches, which she usually devours.

Favorite toys:  She loves to build towers (and knock them down) and play with her train tracks.  She loves any of her toys with ABCs on them (ABC tower, abacus), and still loves her shape sorter.  She loves playing with playdoh and bouncing on her pink poodle from Aunt Jennie.  She's really into throwing things, and loves throwing balls all over the place.  She loves riding on her various bikes and in the cozy coupe car we got from the toy library.  She does multiple puzzles each day, she just loves them... And of course, always up there, is the ipad. 

Favorite activities:  Jumping.  The girl loves to jump.  Mostly on the bed, but she LOVES trampolines as well.  She also loves running and "crashing."  She'll run up and down the hallway and fall down and yell either "crash!" or "kaboom!"  She loves painting and coloring and playing with stickers.  She loves going to the playground and LOVES going to feed the ducks "a sandwich" (or old stale bread).  She got really excited when Mark pointed out a pukeko to her, and spent the rest of the day saying "feed the pukeko a sandwich!!"  She also loves riding the firetruck outside the supermarket, and going to the local coffee shop to get a fluffy (frothed milk).  She LOVES playing with Harvey (Nana and Grandad's beagle) and thinks he's just the best thing ever.

Feeding the seagulls and ducks.

Favorite shows:  She LOVES watching videos of herself and her brother.  She would watch "Ri Ri videos" all day long if we let her.  Mickey Mouse is her favorite show to watch, and she's pretty darn funny watching it.  Mark and I disagree a little bit on how much TV she should be allowed to watch, but he's been getting her into some new movies this month, so her favorites are: Despicable Me, Mega Mind, Shrek, Tangled, and The Princess and the Frog.  She also likes Hi-5 (and loves all the songs she has learned from this show), and Sesame Street.

Smarty pants:  At two, she knows: all her colors, letters, and numbers.  She knows the sound each letter makes, and a couple of words that start with each letter. She can count to 20, but mostly stops at 15.  She knows that the number two represents a quantity of two, and "3" means she has three things, and so on. She knows tons of animals and the sounds they make and the foods they like to eat.  She has a crazy good memory and is able to recall facts and retell stories extremely well.  She know tons of shapes, and loves biting her pretzels into triangles and semi-circles.  Silly bug.

Other faves:  She loves her grandma and grandpa, and Nana and Grandad.  Every single time Nana comes over she wants to play trains with her.  It's like Nana = trains.  She asks to "kype with grandma" or "call grandma" every day.  She knows how to call daddy all by herself on my cell phone, and does so frequently.  She still doesn't say the "s" at the beginning of most s words, which I think is so very cute.  She bargains like crazy, and my favorite is after I finish reading her stories at bedtime, and I say goodnight, and she says to me "how about, mama can snuggle you ONE more minute?"  How can you say no to that?  She loves playing in the front seat of the car.  She loves helping me do the dishes, the laundry, and washing the counters and the floor.  Such a good helper!  She LOVES her baby brother and gives him kisses and cuddles, tickles him, and tells him stories.  She loves cracking eggs and helping with baking.  She LOVES having the bottoms of her feet lightly stroked/tickled, and will lay there perfectly still and say "tickle the other one, one more time?"  She loves playing in Jackson's crib and asks to get in there all day long.

For the most part, she is extremely well behaved when we're out and about.  She rarely has tantrums while we're out, and usually listens to me when we're in public.  She's really good with other kids, doesn't steal toys or hit or push or any of that stuff. 

Her hair is wild and fluffy and getting long, but she rarely lets me pull it back.  She no longer hates having her teeth brushed (thank you electric spiderman toothbrush) but she doesn't love it either.  She loves taking a bath with me, and wants me to read her stories before bed and naps, but is happy for daddy to do it if I'm busy getting Jackson to sleep.  She normally wakes up super happy and comes running down he hallway, BUT she needs a solid 20 minutes to wake up fully from her nap, we call it her "fragile time" and we try not to set too high of expectations or demand too much of her during that period  She still hates the sun in her eyes while we're driving, and doesn't like us to close her bedroom door at night before she falls asleep.  

I think that pretty much covers it!  Happy second birthday to my little buggy! 

Alright, so, time for a potty training update.  We have been at this for a week now, and, dare I say it... Riley is (pretty much) potty trained!  Hoooooorrrrraaaaayy!  Now, let me go back...  In the past 4 days, Riley has had a total of TWO pee accidents, and one poo in her underwear.  One time was today- she peed in the car seat on the way home from swimming, but in her defense, she did tell Mark she needed to pee but she was buckled in and on her way home, and she peed twice in the potty right after they got home, so she really really had to go and she was trying!  The other accident was on day 4- and it basically happened because she was running to tell me she needed to pee rather than just hopping on the potty, so she half peed on the floor, half on the potty. 

The bigger development is that she recognizes when she needs to pee, stops what she's doing, and goes to sit on the potty.  All without me telling her to.  I still suggest she go use the potty throughout the day if she hasn't gone in a while, but I trust that if she says "no" that she doesn't really need to go.  We've gone on several outings where she has used the potty before we left, stayed dry the whole time, and peed when we got home.  She also has pulled herself together mid tantrum to go and sit on the potty.  I've been totally impressed!

Now, onto pooping.  She went days 4 and 5 without pooping whatsoever, and then woke up in the night with a dirty diaper.  Not ideal, but better than on the floor I guess?  The following day she pooped in her underwear, which was less than pleasant, but actually much better than when she pooped on the floor!  And then this morning, she pooped on the potty all by herself!!  I was getting worried that she was going to have some aversion to pooping on the potty (as many kids do), but that may not be the case, so we'll see.

SO.  Things I think worked/helped Riley in this process.
(1) Being totally naked at first, but also getting used to wearing underwear and taking them off.
(2) Marshmallows!!  Her reward for using the potty.
(3) Praise.  Lots and lots of praise for her accomplishments.  Telling her how proud we are and what a great job she's doing, etc etc...
(4) Preparing her in advance for this- just talking about it, letting her get used to using the potty and seeing us use the toilet as well.
(5) Asking her frequently if she needed to use the potty, then slowly tapering off how much we were asking her/telling her so that she could figure it out on her own.
(6) Trying to get her to sit on the potty as much as possible the first day or two, even if that meant extra TV time.

Seeing how at some point, everyone has to potty train their kids, I thought I'd share our experience as we go through it.  What's working, what isn't working, how long it takes, funny stories, the whole bit.  So, here goes!

How I knew she was ready.
There are tons of books out there on potty training, and I haven't read any of them.  I've read tons of articles and heard personal accounts, so I wasn't totally clueless.  If you google "how to know your toddler is ready for potty training" you will find a ton of physical, behavioral, and cognitive signs.  Here's how I decided we were ready. (1) She always told me when she was about to pee or poo in her diaper (2) She was fascinated with us using the toilet (3) She hates having diapers changed and would rather go without diapers (4) She could keep a dry diaper for long periods of time.  Those were the major ones.  So I decided this little face was ready to say goodbye to diapers. Or, at least I hoped. 

Preparing (in advance) for the big potty training day(s)
We had been having Riley try and sit on the potty for quite a while (like, a few months).  Totally casually, just asking if she wanted to use the potty, if she said yes, great, if she said no, we didn't push it.  She peed on it a couple times, and that was pretty much it.  This past week, I told her over and over that on Saturday she was going to say goodbye to diapers and she would get to use the potty! How exciting! Yay! Just like Mommy and Daddy! That way it wasn't a huge shock to her when all of a sudden her diapers were gone.

What you might need/want to have
A potty would be a good start.  Some people disagree with the use of the little potty, and think it's best to go straight to the toilet.  That's fine if that works for you, but I had a feeling it would not work for us.  But we did buy a little potty seat to put on the toilet in addition to the little potty so that she would be okay with using both.  The potty we have is the Fisher Price Royal Stepstool potty. One awesome feature of this potty is that when she pees in it, it plays music.  That way you don't have to be sitting there trying to look in the little bowl the whole time to see if she actually peed so that you can praise her!  Other things we had ready: sticker chart for sitting on the potty and rewards for actually using the potty.  People debate whether kids this young can understand the concept of a sticker chart, and I wasn't totally sure if Riley would get it (especially since stickers are not really special treats to her since she plays with them all the time), but we thought we'd give it a go anyway.  Also, some people disagree with giving treats as rewards for using the potty, but I knew Riley would respond well to it and I have no problem with it.  We always couple a physical reward (in this case a marshmallow) with lots of praise and encouragement.  Also, we made sure to keep her rewards (marshmallows) in a clear jar right near her potty so that she could see them. 

Other things you will need: lots of liquids, even if it is special treats that they don't usually get to have (juice or chocolate milk).  Have some towels and clean-up supplies handy for accidents, and have lots of books and maybe even movies ready, things to get your toddler to stay in one room, and even sit on the potty for a few minutes at a time.

Now you're ready to go.  So, what's the game plan???
Basically, plan to spend a few days hanging out at home, staying near the potty (which we brought out into our lounge where spend the most time), and asking your toddler a million times if they need to go pee or poo on the potty.  We decided to have Riley be completely naked from the waist down- no underwear.  The reason was, while she is able to get her underwear on and off by herself, it takes her time, and she gets MAD if you try to help her.  She doesn't have the luxury of time when potty training and she realizes she needs to use the potty, and I didn't want her underwear to be the cause of any accidents.  Also, I've read that sometimes kids think underwear are similar to diapers at first and will treat them as such.  So to sum it up- naked toddler, hanging out by the potty, drinking lots of liquids, sitting on the potty as much as possible.  We decided we would give Riley a sticker for her sticker chart every time she sat on the potty.  When she filled it up, she got 1 marshmallow.  If she peed on the potty, she got three marshmallows. 

So... DAY ONE.  How did it go?
We woke up bright and early and reminded Riley that today she was getting to say bye to diapers and use the potty, yaaaay!  She had no problem having her (wet) diaper taken off (at 6am) and not having to put a new one on.  She sat on the potty, but didn't actually use it.  No biggie.  We went about our normal morning, just asking her constantly if she needed to go pee pee on the potty.  If she said no, that was fine, but if she hadn't sat on the potty in a while, we would get her to sit down by letting her watch a TV show or a Ri Ri video. 
6am take diaper off
7:30 am pee on potty (was sitting on the potty watching a video, and then she peed- hooray!)
8:50 am pee on floor: her reaction was "uh oh pee pee on the floor" to which I said "that's right riley, pee pee goes on the potty"  there was no reprimanding, no making her feel guilty, just a reminder that she needs to use the potty.
9:40 pee on potty

11:10 outing- leave for swimming.  Now, I don't recommend going on an outing on the first day.  BUT, Riley loves swimming, and we didn't want to make her miss it, so we went for it.  Mark took her to swimming (5 min car ride away) in a swim diaper, and after swimming she came home in no diaper.  She did not pee before, who knows if she peed in the pool, and she peed a little bit in her car seat on the way home.
12:30 pee on potty This one was cool because she said "no pee on the floor" and then went to the potty and peed on the potty.  So she recognized she was about to go, held it, and went on the potty.
1-3:15 nap in pull-up.  We went with pull-ups rather than diapers just so it seemed a little more like she was wearing a form of underwear, something she doesn't usually wear for naps. I was hoping this owuld encourage her to try and stay dry, and she woke up with a dry pull-up! 
3:20 pee in pull-up.  She woke up a little out of sorts, and was upset and needed extra cuddles, so I didn't pull her pull-up off and stick her on the potty right away.  As a result she peed in her pull-up.

This is when things got crazy...  Mark had a soccer game so he was out, and so I was home by myself with two babies in the evening.  Riley required a lot of attention and encouragement, but Jackson was due to be in bed and was starting to lose it, so I tried my best to look after Riley and also do Jackson's bedtime routine and get him to sleep.  Well, I failed.  I was walking Jackson around in the hallway (rather than rocking him in his room) and Riley stood up and said "uh oh, pee pee on the floor." 
5:40 pee on the floor Jackson was almost asleep, Mark was due home in a few minutes, aaaaand Riley had peed on the floor, and was now running around the house.  I went to go put Jackson in bed, meanwhile Mark came home and reported that Riley had peed on the couch, a few pillows, the floor, on the ipad.... holy cow.  A mess.  But I think we take the blame for that one, as Riley really needed our help and we weren't fully available to her.  That's the trickiest part about this intensive potty training when you have also have a baby to look after! 
7:15 pee on potty Once things settled down and we were able to be with her, she peed on the potty again before bed.  And that was the end of day one of potty training.  Stay tuned for day 2 and 3...

A couple things have been happening here lately.  And there's lots to write about, but I seem to always be short on time lately.  Either babies aren't sleeping, or if they are, I'm trying to catch up on sleep, or I'm busy editing photos or trying to check one of the many items off my ever growing to do list.  But we still manage to find time for fun! 

Over the weekend, we went into the botanic gardens to scout it out as a potential photo shoot location.  Riley was your typical almost 2 year old, and wanted nothing to do with photos, which was fine because it was FREEZING cold.  Luckily Jackson was all bundled up asleep in his car seat the whole time, so was clearly unfazed by the cold.

Jackson has been SUCH a good baby lately (except for night time sleep, more on that in tomorrow's update).  He's a happy little dude, and I am SO thankful for that.  He smiles all the time, and he laughs all the time, and he puts up with all of Riley's antics, he's such a little sweetheart!  Can you believe he will be 15 weeks old tomorrow?  I'll probably do a 15 week update since it seems like so much has changed since he turned 3 months old (2 weeks ago).

And Riley?  Oh. my goodness. she gets funnier and funnier and smarter by the day.  Her new favorite thing to do? Color on her hands (and arms).  At first I didn't let her draw on herself, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized there is really nothing wrong with it aside from it gets a little messy.  I try to discourage her drawing on her face, but she can draw on her hands 'til her heart's content.  And so she does...

She literally wakes up from her nap, comes running down the hallway, and shouts, "wanna do coloring on da hands!!!"

I have so many hilarious videos of her, if only I could get a few more hours in the day to put them all together!!

We're also contemplating starting the potty training process for real- the other day she refused to lay still for a new diaper, so I gave her some minnie mouse underwear to wear, and told her that she could use the potty if she needed to go pee-pee, and not to go pee-pee on Minnie Mouse, etc...  She was wearing them for about an hour and a half, and mastered taking her underwear on and off by herself, and would sit on her little potty, but never actually peed in it.  And I would gently remind her every 5 minutes or so to use the potty if she needed to, and not to pee on Minnie.  She loves Minnie, so I thought that might be good motivation to get her to use the potty.  Welp, sure enough, when she had to pee, she took off her underwear, aaaaaand.... peed on the hardwood floor.  She then looked at me, and said very matter-of-factly, "no pee pee on Minnie. Pee pee on the floor."  I told her that we use the potty, not the floor, blah blah blah, and then I asked her "Riley remember no pee pee on the floor, where does your pee pee go next time?"  And she looked at me, thought about it, and answered: "On the rug?"
Oy, I've got my work cut out for me....