toddler issues

Lately I've come up with a genius way to stop Rachel's screaming fits when she doesn't get her way (luckily she's generally a happy girl, so these tantrums don't happen all that often). Anyway, so when she starts screaming and kicking I tell her to go find a pillow to scream into so she can scream louder. So she stops her tantrum, runs to get a throw pillow, and does some fake screams (that sound like her happy squealing) for a half a minute or so. Then she comes and finds me and says every time, "*sigh* Now I feel better." while patting her chest like she had heartburn or something. She makes me laugh.

Unfortunately I don't think that'll help with her other screaming issue: trying to fall asleep binkie-less. Rachel went to the dentist the other day and did really well, not being too scared or crying at all until halfway through getting her teeth polished at the very end. Anyway, she has a slight overbite that the dentist said would probably correct itself when she stops using her binkie. Since she was 9 months old or so she has only been allowed her binkie for sleeping, so she's not overly attatched to it for comfort. But it is how she falls asleep, so I haven't been too eager to take it away. Even after talking to the dentist I was still thinking I'd just wait until Rachel decides she doesn't need it anymore (as the doctor suggested when I asked if it was a big deal). But a few times lately Rachel has woken up and not been able to find her binkie (usually she wakes up, finds it, and goes right back to sleep, unless it's fallen on the ground) and after waking me up too early because of the elusive binkie and not going back to sleep (and therefore being crankier than normal) Jake suggested we get rid of it. I still wasn't too keen on the idea, but when we walked to Walgreens yesterday I had Rachel pick out a toy she wanted and told her that she could play with it when she throws her binkie away. She chose some My Little Ponies. She was a little miffed when we got home and I wouldn't open the box for her, but she got over it and wasn't quite willing to give up her binkie. But this morning first thing when she woke up she said, "I'm gonna throw away my binkie so I can play with my ponies." And she did.
She had a ball playing with her new ponies.

Then came naptime. She was tired and had no binkie, so it was basically the end of the world for her and she cried and screamed and cried some more. She cried for 30 or 40 minutes. Finally she came and knocked on her door, having calmed herself down a little, and I offered to let her sleep on Mommy's bed and lay down with her. After about 10 more minutes of post-crying hiccups she finally fell asleep. And slept about half as long as she normally naps. When she got up from her nap she found one of her ponies and told her "I take a nap." So (I, acting as the voice of) the pony said, "Wow! You must be a big girl to sleep without a binkie!" Rachel replied, "I cried a little bit. I have one tear." If that's a little bit, I hope she's not getting geared up to cry a lot anytime soon.
We'll see how tonight goes. But it's got to get easier eventually, right?

And the other toddler woe: potty training. Rachel is very good at going potty and I can't remember when the last time was that she had an accident... out of the house. But when we're at home she sometimes gets really involved in whatever she's playing with and will not take a break when she needs to. I've seen her many times doing the awkward potty walk, but then when I ask if she needs to go potty she says, "No," and proceeds to have an accident 5 minutes later. So we are back to the potty chart with stickers, and I even made up another special sticker chart to look at every night for if she went the whole day without an accident. I sometimes have to remind myself how much better this is than changing dirty diapers all day. And one day the accidents will stop for good. I hope. :)

UPDATE: She went to bed without any screaming. Just a lot of knocking on the door asking for help getting a blanket, or one more song, or me to stay in the rocking chair. But she's asleep! Oh, happy day!