Potty Training
For the past couple of months, Goose has been telling me when she needs a new diaper, "practicing" going on the potty chair like her big sisters, and begging for underwear. So this week I agreed, and we started potty training. I attempted the 3-day method, which Aunt A and I pulled off with much success with her big sisters. I confess I wasn't able to give her the hyper-vigilance we gave her sisters (I'm doing it solo this time after all), but by day 6 we determined that Goose's brain had outpaced her body's ability to get to the potty in time (only two instances of real success--all the pee in the potty, not the floor--during the entire week). On day 4 of staying home, we were all going a bit stir crazy (Picture Bug lying spread eagle on the living room floor, wailing, "I just want to get out of the house! I'm tired of stepping in peepee all the time! I just can't take it anymore!" Oh boy, can I sympathize!) I decided to put Goose in Pull ups, so we could resume our normal out-of-the-house activities, then back into underwear when we were home. By Friday, Goose wasn't making any progress, she wanted to stay in Pull ups, and increasingly told me to "Stop staying that!" (regarding reminders to tell me if she needed to potty) and "Don't follow me!" (regarding my trying to stay within arms reach to rush her to the potty). We discussed how frustrating it was to have accidents all the time and how we would try again when her body was a little bigger. I told her that I would leave her alone about it, but that she was still welcome to try going on the potty, which she's done several times since then, so I feel good about the decision to back off.

While potty training itself wasn't a success, the entourage did enjoy the first three days of just staying home with me not trying to accomplish anything other than sticking to Lucy. We put together lots of puzzles (Bug even conquered the big floor puzzle!), built lots of towers, castles, houses, etc. (I rearranged the playroom a bit, so all the various blocks and building materials are in one corner; this has inspired alot of architectural creativity), colored dozens of coloring book pages, sang lots of classic preschool songs, and read lots and LOTS of books (interestingly, a great deal of nonfiction this week on subjects ranging from shapes, colors, and opposites to geography and ancient history). I also came up with several fun cooking projects we could do together that the made the days just a little more exciting: We made chocolate chip cookies and even Goose got more involved in the process than usual (Bug even let her help hold the electric mixer). We made, built with, and obviously ate Jello Jiggler blocks. And, after reading the book repeatedly, we made green eggs and ham for dinner one night.

Reading
We missed a few reading lessons this week in my attempts to stay focused on Goose, but both Monkey and Bug got to read new sentences this week. During the latter part of the week, I realized they were depending mostly on sight reading (with just limited letter sounds to work with the same words do keep coming up, but they would do things like interchange "the" and "that" because the first sound is the same). So we spent the last couple days of this week using the white boards to review sounding out skills, which seems to have been productive.

Doctor Visit
Goose had her two year old well check this week, and she was very brave! We had talked a lot beforehand about what was going to happen, and I had recently weighed the girls on the scale at the Y, so that at least was a familiar experience. She also spent most of the visit clutching her "Daddy Buddy," a stuffed superhero with Daddy's picture on it. And, she is definitely Daddy's girl--very healthy, but tall and skinny!

Time
This week we hung the girls' calendar on the back of their easel in the playroom, and they have loved having ready access to it. The month of January is almost entirely covered in marker, and they have been very faithful about taking turns crossing off the days and talking about what day of the week it is. Particularly motivating this week was counting down the days until Saturday when Miss K, our new babysitter, came to stay with them while I got a morning out of the house to myself (it was lovely, and the girls had a great time too).

Bug also started wearing her watch again this week and has been asking what time certain things will happen and keeping track of how much time is passing. She can't actually tell time yet, but she's getting a much better sense of how it passes.

"Jobs"
I noticed this week that the girls took on recurring interest/roles. Bug decided to create games this week. She  drew several board games on large pieces of paper, and recruited Goose and I to play with her. I admit the object of the games were kind of lost on me, but the process was fun. She also figured out the ideal procedure for putting puzzles together (corners, edges, then inside pieces). Monkey was an event planner this week. At one point she actually took Goose and I on a tour of the house, showing us all the fun things we could choose from to do on our stay-at-home day. She also planned several "birthday" parties for either Goose or Bug, complete with picnics of play food spread out on a blanket in the living room or on the playtable, elaborate Duplo block cakes (so that she can actually "cut" slices with a plastic knife), and presents to open packaged in little paper boxes from their Tear-agami book. The only problem occurred when Goose wanted to tear into the "cake" before Monkey had declared it time.