Moments of success

So we sent Andy to school yesterday in just his underwear, no diaper. After screaming at Bjorn the entire way to school, he went the whole day without going in his pants. I am as stunned as you are. Granted, he didn't poop at school and that has been the barrier, but he did go dry all day and got lots of stickers and praise from his teachers, who encouraged us to do it again today. It's a start. Funny, I don't mind changing Meg's baby diapers so much, after all they're small and not quite human like yet, but somehow cleaning off poop off a real person is pretty icky. Go figure.

Speaking of Meg, she is a full blown infant now. With a huge crush on my ceiling fan. She lies under the fan and smiles and laughs at it, practically craning her head to get around me or Bjorn. It's just adorable. She's sleeping decently now, often just getting up once in the night. However, she wakes up and wants to play, rather than just eat and go back to sleep. It would be more annoying if she wasn't so darn adorable right now.

I have about a month left before I go back to work and I think I may be just about ready. We have the daycare lined up, I feel good about where the kids are going and the thought of spending the day talking to adults doesn't seem so bad right now. I may feel totally different when the time comes.

I'm also tinkering with Flickr trying to get more pictures posted. Bear with me, I have no idea what I'm doing.

I do it!

We have officially reached a stage where Andy wants to do just about everything himself. "No, I do it!" is a common mantra. Unfortunately, for a lot of things, he can't quite do it himself so I have to be standing close enough for when he's ready. Sometimes he gets quite revved up about it that it sparks tears when I have the nerve to do something, like put a straw into his yogurt drink or put the jam on his toast for him. It's cute. And annoying.

And after a few successes at potty training, we're back to him not wanting to go near the potty or even talk about it. Even my bribes of chocolate, cookies, Thomas underwear and crack cocaine aren't getting any interest. The other night, I conned him into sitting on the potty before his bath. He complained his "penis is empty" so after a bit, he got in the bath where he promptly told me he was peeing. Lovely. I am trying not to push, figuring he'll let me know when he's ready, but the other side of me is thinking he's three now and it's time to get moving on this.

As for the baby, she seems quite content where she is for the time being and is wreaking havoc on my system again. I've had some nausea off and on the past week (hello old friend vomiting, I haven't missed you) and I've now got heartburn with such force that I am trying to avoid just about everything except bananas and plain toast, which doesn't seem to be making a difference. In researching possible remedies, I picked up What to Expect When You're Expecting and their answer was that heartburn can be avoided by eating healthy and not gaining much weight early in the pregnancy. What good does advice like that do me? Nothing like kicking a 9 months pregnant woman when she's down.

Special cookies

Breaking news - Bjorn got Andy to pee on the potty twice today, both times resulting in the special cookies for the boy. Both father and son (and mother) are delighted with the progress. This is the first time he had repeatedly gotten on the potty and the first time with any success. Those Chips Ahoy cookies are quite a draw.

Bodily excretions

Andy came home from school last week with a new word - booger. It's not a bad word at all, it's just one I didn't expect to hear from him until, say, kindergarten. Clearly I live in a dream world. Fortunately, he's not into naming his other bodily excretions just yet, but I can see that pee and poop and the various variations (good and bad) are on the horizon for me, especially with potty training looming. Great.

I think I'm one of the few people in America that doesn't find pee and poop jokes funny, as evidenced by America's love affair with hideous Jim Carrey and Ben Stiller movies. To me, bathroom humor is just too easy. I want these folks to come up with some original material.

Meanwhile, the reign of the Special Cookies has begun in our house. When Bjorn was growing up, his grandmother in Sweden gave them "special cookies" for successfully going on the potty. Tonight, Bjorn told Andy he could have a special cookie if he successfully used it. So Andy attacked the Baby Bjorn with great gusto and actually put four drops of pee into the potty and he was justly rewarded with a cookie. He then spent the evening asking for more special cookies. Well, except when he was busy emptying out all the Q-tips and chewing off the cotton ends. I can't explain it, but I have photo evidence to post of it later.

Someone needs to warn the potty chair

After Andy's success standing up with the potty, he's now fascinated by it. Of course, he's never fascinated with it at a time when he could do anything with it. Rather, he usually does his business and then later gets an interest. This morning, Bjorn took off Andy's diaper and asked him if he'd like to go to the potty. Andy sprinted over to it and continued to thrust his body at it in the hopes that some pee would come out. He was practically mounting the poor Baby Bjorn potty trying to shove his boy parts at the potty trying to get them to work. Unfortunately, all this excitement made him poop. On the floor. It was totally gross and I couldn't convince him to turn around and actually get it into the potty. Clearly, we're a ways off actual potty training since I don't think he is able to recognize when his body is telling him it's time to go. The whole thing is pretty amusing. Well, when it's not totally disgusting.

Andy is also going through a bit of a hitting phase. Over the weekend, he kept hitting me and Bjorn and didn't get that it wasn't funny. I tried to give him a time out, but he still seemed to think it was a game. I eventually put him to bed and he seemed to forget about it overnight although this morning he hit me and smiled, waiting for a game to begin. I held his arm and said, "No hitting" and after about 30 seconds, he began to sulk, which is how he usually reacts when I tell him no. I definitely need to read up on this discipline thing.

"Mama, Broken"

Tonight Andy did something that will haunt him the rest of his life. As I undressed him in the bathroom for his bath, he started to pee on the floor. Quickly, I grabbed the plastic insert from the potty chair and put it under his stream and caught what was left. He was fascinated. Seriously. I moved it over and put it back in the potty, directed him over to it and encouraged him to keep peeing. He squatted, bent his knees, leaned forward, bounced on his toes a bit and generally hung over the potty. At one point, he was pushing his stomach out so far he couldn't see his penis, which confused him. After a bit, he turned to me and said, "Mama, broken" and pointed to his penis. The whole scene cracked me up so I had to call Bjorn en route from the George Mason game (they lost to Hofstra) just to relate the story. It was truly amusing.

The good news is he's showing an interest in the potty again. The last few weeks/months, he's really wanted nothing to do with it.

Praise yee heavenly portable DVD player

We are out in sunny (but chilly) southern California for the next few days. We flew to LAX yesterday which which surprisingly smoothly, thanks to our trust friend the portable DVD player. Watching "babies" (his code for TV for babies as Bjorn calls it) kept him occupied off and on for the 5 hours and 30 minute flight. He took a decent, but small nap but was generally in good spirits and not overly hyper. Although he did manage to drink about four full sippies of juice requiring frequent diaper changes. Thankfully, I thought to make an extra change of clothes once he leaked through a diaper due to all the water.

Speaking of diapers, we need to figure something better out because if he really needs to go, he can easily fill a size 6 diaper full of pee yet often a diaper change three hours after is almost dry. He's not taking to potty training at all so perhaps more laundry is in order until he is ready? Any thoughts, let me know.

Movin' on up

I've been in denial for some time now, but I think it's officially time to move up to size 6 diapers. This disturbs me because this is the final frontier for diapers - they don't make size 7 diapers. This is it. This particularly scares me because while we've had some successes with the potty, he's not ready. Take a look at this list on the signs of readiness to potty train. I don't think he can do any of these. Although we have been practicing with him pulling his pants up after a diaper change, he can't quite pull them off on cue. Not that he knows what that cue would be necessarily. The good news is that he's been in size 5s for ages now, it seems, so I'm not expecting him to blow through these they way he did size 1 diapers for example. Still, it's unnerving to know we've maxed out. It also sucks because not all companies make size 6s. I have really liked the Costco/Kirkland brand diapers, but they only go up to size 5. It seems that it's generally the more premium (therefore more expensive) diapers like Huggies Supreme that go to size 6. I think the manufacturers are trying to get him into Pull-ups, but from what I hear, they're confusing for potty training since they're not quite a diaper and not quite real underwear.

Speaking of pants, getting them onto his increasingly strong little body is turning out to be a challenge of late. The good news is that I think I've figured out that he'll wear pants, so long as they're sweats or pajama bottoms. I can't really argue with him as I'm sure they're way more comfortable than jeans. My main argument is that he has some cute pants that finally fit and that I don't have enough sweats to keep him in clean ones. I stopped by Target this weekend to get a couple birthday presents for him and stocked up on a couple pairs. They're not as cute as the Old Navy version, but their Hanes sweats were on sale for $1.88. Hard to argue with that price.

Code Brown

Me: Bjorn, we have good news and bad news. The good news is he didn't freak out when I gave him a bath. The bad news is we had a code brown.
Bjorn: Code brown, huh? Was it near the potty?
Me: Kind of. If you consider my leg near it.
Bjorn: Your leg? I'm not sure I even want to hear how that was possible.

That's right - somehow my kid managed to use my leg as a toilet. I had him undressed and ready for his bath and was in the process of talking up how fun his toys are and doesn't he want to get in, blah, blah, blah, when he came and sat on my lap. And proceeded to use it as his personal toilet. Odd, it felt warm, but it wasn't the same as when he's peed on me. Isn't this great? I can now tell the difference in his bowel movements based on the warmth it brings to my leg. Mad skillz, my friends, mad skillz. I know you're all jealous.

On a more positive note, we didn't have any temper tantrums tonight. I took him to Wegman's in the evening to get stuff for the office pot luck tomorrow and he was a good sport. We looked at the train, played with twist ties and he was helpful in picking out what he wanted for dinner later. And then when I got home, we put him in the booster chair at the table and when I asked him if he wanted things, he nodded and then ate them happily. He even asked for "addle-sauz" (applesauce) which I understood and brought him. It was pleasant all around.

Oh, and in case you missed Saturday Night Live this week. Check out this digital video short. It was on network TV, but still, you might not view this at work.

Once Upon a Potty

There is a semi-famous book in child-rearing circles called "Once Upon a Potty." It's supposed to help kids understand soiling a piece of plastic instead of their diaper. It's actually pretty straight-forward and good, although I don't particularly like using the phrase "wee-wee" for urine. I don't know why, I just don't. We picked up a copy at the seriously awesome Half-Price Books in Dallas and it has quickly turned into Andy's favorite. He now wants to read it over and over again. I'm totally supportive of the potty plan, but the plot of this book is rather lacking. "Goodnight Moon" doesn't have much of a plot either, but at least it's a story. It seems odd to be reading an instructional book as a good night story, but as my mother always reminds me, there is no accounting for taste.

Sleep has been an issue all week. Andy still isn't sleeping through the night. Last night, he got up at four and after I calmed him down, he did not want to go back to bed. I opened the curtains and tried to explain that it was still dark and thus sleepy time, but he wasn't having it. I finally left and after about 10 minutes of yelling, Bjorn got up to convince Andy to lie down and go back to sleep. He eventually did only to have to be woken up at 7:45 this morning. Why won't he ever sleep late on a day I could sleep late?