I have been using the well-known 'My Utmost for His Highest' devotionals by Oswald Chambers for my quiet times recently. I have found this book to be such a blessing! Short readings and thoughts for the day, which are easy to fit in around my busy schedule with Chloe and they don't depend on you finding time every day.
Yesterday's passage was from Jude and all about building up your faith. Chambers acknowledged that so often we want 'exceptional' experiences with God or to do 'exceptional' things for him. He then turned this on its head and proposed that although Peter walked on water, his greater sacrifice and the more difficult task was to walk with Jesus every day on land. It's the every-day faith that we are called to live out, not to be impulsive thrill-seekers. Chambers sums it up by saying 'We have to be exceptional in the ordinary things, to be holy in mean streets, among mean people, and this is not learned in five minutes'.
This has been encouraging to me because I have been finding my life very trivial recently. Being inside and potty-training for a whole week has left my prayers for the day as 'God, please let Chloe make progress in doing her wees on the potty today!' or 'please help me to be creative and energetic in keeping Chloe busy at home today'. These prayers just seem so tiny and unimportant compared to all that is happening in the world today and in God's kingdom! Chambers has encouraged me that I have to keep being faithful to God and keep engaging with him during my rather dull day. Another quote from him which often applies to our lives: 'to live an ordinary, unobserved, ignored existence as a disciple of Jesus'.
Potty Training Diary
This is the last I will mention about potty-training in detail, as I'm sure there aren't many people who are interested in so much detail about Chloe's toilet habits! But I wanted to finish off the week and today marks a week, hooray! Often you see books in the shops claiming they can potty-train your child in a week. I didn't believe this was really realistic, or at least not for us. But here we are a week on and I guess Chloe is potty-trained, depending on how you define it.
On Saturday we had a funny day, as Chloe again went through a stage of not wanting to try on the potty. She managed some wees on the potty but also had several accidents, one with J when he took her round his parents whilst I rested - whoops! Saturday was also emotional because my parents left for their 6-week trip to India, which Chloe just couldn't get her head round. But more on that another time.
Sunday we had the obstacle of church. It was something that had been looming in the background all week and I knew I really wanted to try it completely nappy-free. Because Saturday hadn't been that successful I had resolved myself that when Chloe went to creche I would probably put her in a nappy, because our creche is relatively new and we haven't had much experience of children who are newly potty-trained. However when we got there I took her straight to the toilets (I had a potty just in case) and Chloe managed to go on the toilet! I was so impressed that she had practically 'weed on command' that I let her tell everyone she then saw when we got back to the meeting room; there were some funny reactions! She was then fine to stay nappy-free all service and made it home without incident. The rest of the day went very well, with just a small accident after leaving her nappy off for her nap.
Today has probably been the best day. I have started asking Chloe a lot less to try on the potty and this has been really effective. She has gone for a wee every 2 and a half hours-ish and almost immediately after being placed on the potty. The only accident happened when I had my shower this morning (we had a lie-in whoops!). When I came out of the shower I heard Chloe calling to me, saying 'I'm still dry!'. I thought this was a bit suspicious and when I came downstairs, found she had wet trousers and pants. I took her to the potty to see if she needed to do more and was very confused to find a big wee in there! The only conclusion I can come to is that she must have taken herself to the potty but forgotten/been unable to take her trousers and pants off and just weed straight through them! So I see this as definite progress if she is already attempting to go by herself. I might have to be brave and leave her bare-bummed if I need to leave her to shower in the future.
So we're still having an accident a day but I feel like we're nearly there. I feel much more confident about leaving the house, as Chloe is so good at holding herself and is getting better at using public loos. There's no turning back now!
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