Saturday, September 24, 2011

on Vacay...

We are on vacation and the scrolling on my phone really bites, so I will be back in October. You can always let me know you missed me! Love me! Please, for God's sake, LOVE ME!

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Trick Questions???

First of all, as we were getting out of the bathtub tonight I checked on Little M's forehead, which he bumped against the soapdish earlier when we were getting our first bath of the day to wash out the vomit of the second throwing up of the day (it was a rough morning, and by the way, I love how they conveniently place those at the forehead level of toddlers). He's fine, a little bruise, but it brought the episode to his attention and as I'm carrying him to the bedroom he says in a sad voice, "Poor little boy. Poor little boy Matthew." And I can't stop myself from giggling. He's just so overly dramatic! It was cute. Maybe you had to be there. Maybe I am a terrible person. Anyway...

We're reading The Runaway Bunny, like we do every night, with questions about the pictures and counting and colors, etc. And Little M decides he's going to test me, too! Fun! So we get to the end of my questions and have this conversation:

Him: What color are the red flowers?

Me: Um, Red? Is this a trick question? What color are the blue flowers?

Him: Blue.

Me: And what color are the yellow flowers?

Him: Red.

Me: What color are the YELLOW flowers?

Him: Yellow.

Me: Good job. Next page.

Silly boy! But I did learn today that if I tell him that he'll get a cookie later for eating all of something else, and then eat all the cookies I've brought over with me, he notices. ("Hey! Where's my orange cookie!" "I'll get you another one when you've finished your dinner.") So I'd better make sure it's not the very LAST cookie! Cause he's pretty observant these days...except for the trick questions...we'll have to work on those.

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Road Trip

First hour into a three hour road trip and we've got the iPod shuffle on, listening to the set of 10 copies of "Life is a Highway" per toddler request until he goes to sleep.

Me: OK, these cars need to get with the program. This is "Kassie's Lane". When I come up on you at speed, that means you are going too slow. GET OUT OF MY WAY. Thank you.

My loving hubby: Obviously they did not get the memo.

Me: Well, that's no excuse.

Him: So is Kassie's Lane a moving hundred yard area or does it just stretch out in front of you ad infinitum?

Me: Stretches out. And if I wanted to I could just flick them out of my lane like this (*mimes flicking bugs off windshield*), but I choose not to use my powers for evil.

Him: I see.


Sometime later...

Me: Oooh, a yard sale at that elementary school! Let's stop!

Him: Uh, no.

Me: Why not?

Him: Because no, and it's not till next weekend anyway.

Me: But that car is going now.

Him: Not unless they want to get a REALLY good parking place. Because it doesn't start until NEXT Saturday.


And later still...

Me: Oh. My. God. Get your camera out!!!!!

Him: Why?

Me: Because there's a GIANT METAL CHICKEN over there! Take a picture as we go past!

Him: No.

Me: OK, then I will just have to come back and buy it.

Him: Uh, no you won't.

Me: Um, yeah, I will. I can put it in the backyard. It will be fantastic.

Him: Not with our HOA.

Me: They can't tell us what to put in our BACK yard.

Him: I don't want to start anything with the neighbors. Please do not buy a chicken.

Me: But it's full of whimsy!

Him: They start fights with people. Over leaves!

Me: Fine, then I'm buying new bath towels.

Him: What?

Me: Exactly.


See why I love him so? You rock, honey.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Good Night (Abbreviated)

We were running behind, so tonight's good night routine was a bit hectic. But the kid knows his routine, I will say that for him. I tried to speed things up in the book department, but he knows that he usually gets to look at the pages in The Runaway Bunny and talk about what is going on in the pictures, so there was NO skimping on those pages. And there was no skipping them either, he was not having any of that, even if it WAS accidental. The first time, anyway.

And we did do Lullaby, two times, as usual, with his newly chosen wording. Every since we watched the HBO special, Goodnight Moon and Other Stories (or something like that), with Aaron Neville singing Lullaby with some NOT Old English lyrics, Little M wants THOSE in his nightly routine. And since we've been singing the only lyrics I could find on the internet for as long as he's be alive it's hard to switch over, so we do it a verse at a time. We're up to one verse switched so far...

Then the good night. I told him, "Good Night, little man."

He says, "I'm not a little man." (*sniff*)

I said, "Are you still my sweet pea?"

He says, "Yes, I'm a sweet pea." (*phew*)

Me: "OK, then, Good Night, sweet pea. I love you."
Him: "Love you too, Mommy."

It's the highlight of my day.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The Story of Sandy

This is the text I sent to the SPCA where we adopted the greatest dog ever. If you can open your heart and home to a dog from a rescue organization, the rewards are endless.

My name is K****, and I was 10 in the summer of 1983 when my mother brought me and my 7-year-old sister to the SPCA to look for a dog to adopt. She had been researching breeds and we had decided on a cocker spaniel, but all the dogs we looked at kept barking at us, and didn't really seem very friendly. As we were about to leave a woman at the desk told us there was one dog that they had to put all by herself because she was too scared to be around all the other dogs, but that we might want to see if she was the dog for our family.

She took us in another room with some couches and brought in a small light brown mixed terrier who was just shaking from fright. When the woman put the dog on the floor, the dog went straight under the couch, crouched in the back, and we spent the rest of the time there trying to get her to come out. We finally managed to get her out, and Mom decided we would go home and talk to Dad about this dog, then come back the next day.
My sister and I were in LOVE. This dog needed us! So we came back the next day and picked up Sandy, named after the dog in the movie "Annie", even though she bore a resemblance only in color. I got to hold Sandy on my lap on the way home, and she shivered the entire ride from Salinas to Monterey.

We were told that she had been found on the highway by someone, and there were marks on her tummy that suggested that she'd been beaten. Even at 10 I knew that was a horrible thing to have to go through, and wanted to protect her from ever having to be hurt again.
There were some psychological scars as well. For the first two years Sandy would not go anywhere near Dad. She was afraid of all men for about that long, too. And we had to get a new leash for her after seeing that she was afraid of the chain one we tried to use to walk her, so we surmised that someone may have used one of those to punish her at one point.

After a couple of weeks with us, though, Sandy had learned her name, and was responding to it by wagging her tail with such force that we were afraid she'd hurt herself on the furniture. But we knew where she was! We'd just call her name, then look to see where the tail wagging thump was coming from.

We took her back to the SPCA Open House about then, and she was a little more comfortable being around other dogs at that point too. We even entered her in a contest, the Waggiest Tail contest. I got to be her human for that event, and while other contestants were being fed treats, I just stood with her and called her name and pet her, and she wagged like she was the happiest dog in the world. And she won first place. I truly think she was the happiest dog in the world at that point. She had a new home with a Mom, Dad, and two little girls that loved her unconditionally.

Over the years Sandy would sleep on my jacket, no matter where I'd put it, teaching me the only safe place was hanging in the closet where it belonged. She'd also put up with the indignities of little girls dressing her up and parading her around the neighborhood, but I think she may have secretly loved it. My Uncle T somehow found out that if you meowed at her she'd howl back at you, we're not sure if she thought you were singing and she wanted to sing too, but he made it seem like he was giving her pet therapy. He'd meow and get her going and then go, "There, there, let it all out. We know how your mom treated you like a cat!" It was a little bizarre, but we thought it was pretty funny, too.

Most of all, she liked to sleep touching me. In the chair on my lap, or in bed with me at night, it didn't matter, but she had to be touching me.
Sandy lived to be about 17, having to be put down in 1997 when her organs starting failing, but she went through a lot with our family. Lots of moves with the Navy, a divorce, college with me, and my first apartment. She was a loving and wonderful companion and growing up with her love meant so much to me.

I want to thank the wonderful people at the SPCA, and especially that woman behind the desk, who cared about a scared little dog that someone had discarded on the highway, who went on to be a great set of paw prints on my heart.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Drinking and Assault!!!! It's a crime wave.

This day was crazy. After a quick breakfast we headed out the door to the local recreation facility where I volunteer in the daycare center to get a free membership. Today is one of the days where I can actually USE the membership and the free childcare I get by volunteering for four hours instead of just two, and so I do a class while Little M plays in the daycare with the other kids. He loves it, and is a little angel for the other women who work there, so it all works out pretty well.

We leave there and go to my doctors appointment. It's the pain doctor, and they do random drug testing since they give out the good stuff, so it's my turn to pee in a cup. I have to take Little M with me to the bathroom because he will FREAK OUT if I try to leave him in the exam room alone. So I grab the diaper bag and figure I'll at least get him a clean diaper, if not get him to sit and go on the potty while we're in there.

As I am walking to the bathroom it occurs to me that at some point he will be old enough that they won't let him come with me to the bathroom, lest he actually be able to do the peeing in the cup that they are assuming I am doing for the test. At the age he is now, he'd pipe right up and let them know EXACTLY whose pee was in the cup, so the jig would be up immediately, but they might not know that. I decide it's probably best not to mention any of this to the nurse.

We get to the bathroom and I try to convince him to go on the potty, but after a few minutes it is obvious that the conversation is going nowhere, so I go ahead and change him into a new pull-up, and get on with my test.

"Mommy, what you doing?"
*sigh* "Mommy is going pee-pee in the cup."
"Can I drink da pee-pee?"
"No, you cannot drink the pee-pee." (Another sentence I never thought I'd EVER have to say.)

The rest of the appointment goes just fine, and at lunch Little M reports to Daddy, "Mommy went pee-pee in da cup!" "Oh, she did?" "Yeah, and you can't drink da pee-pee." I have taught him well. My job here is done.

Later in the evening, after his bath, Little M throws this gem into the conversation, "M got hurt on da forehead!"
"What?!?!?"
"M got hurt on da forehead!!!"
"Did you hurt your forehead? Your forehead looks fine. What are you talking about?"
"M hurt da forehead!"
"OK, was there another boy named M at the today?"
"Yes, and he hurt on da forehead!"
"OK, did someone hurt him?"
"Yes!"
"Did you hurt him? Because if you hurt someone you're supposed to say I'm sorry."
"I'm sorry."
"Did you hit him with something? A toy?"
"Yes."
"Or did someone else hit him."
"Someone else."
"OK, I think I have the story now, sweetie."

I don't think I have laughed this hard in awhile. Poor M, whoever he is, I hope the kids' forehead is OK. But I don't think it was my child who hit him, or I would have been told when I picked him up. And I don't recall anyone crying. What a day.

Monday, September 5, 2011

I'm Naked!

I feel for those of you who have a child who refuses to wear clothes. Or one who takes OFF the clothes you have wrestled them into. I know not your pain.

My pain is that he likes to shout out "I'm NAKED!" and it's driving me up the wall!

Now, I actually have to nag my child into undressing himself every time we go into the bathroom for potty time, then help him back into his pants, and then nag him again every night before bath time. It usually goes something like this:

Me: OK, Little M, time to get undressed for the bath, can you take off your shirt?
Him: NO! You help me!
Me: I think you can do it, why don't you try?
Him: *grunting* Can you help me? (pulling one arm out of his shirt)
Me: You're doing it! Now do the other arm!
Him: *more grunting, shirt now wrapped around head* I'm a pirate!
Me: OK, take off your pants!
Him: *more grunting, takes shirt off head* I'm NAKED!

My problem is not that he spouts, "I'm NAKED!" at the drop of a hat, my problem is that it's not an accurate statement. I'd be fine with him saying that, any time, any place, IF IT WERE TRUE. (No, I really don't know WHY this bothers me so much, it just does.)

He still has his pants, diaper, and socks on at this point, so clearly he is not naked by any stretch of the imagination. He could even show up at some outdoor eating establishments, order food and be served so-attired. So not even in the ballpark, big guy!

So after my latest attempt at explaining this to him, I decided that I would attack it from another angle. I told him that he could say that he was "scantily clad". Then we practiced it. "I'm scantily clad! I'm scantily clad!" "Yes, you are."

I honestly can't wait till he busts that one out in public, and am currently thinking of more ways I can increase his vocabulary, and get rid of my own pet peeves in the process.

Sunday, September 4, 2011

Update!!!!

He's learning! And since I last wrote I also put my cell number on the insole of each of his shoes and told him what it is.

Now we are at this conversation:

Me: What's your name?
Him: I don't know.
Me: You know your name, what's your name?
Him: M McFarland.
Me; And what's Mommy's name?
Him: Cindy McFarland.
Me: And what's Daddy's name?
Him: Will McFarland.
Me: Good job!
Him: And you're Mommy McFarland.
Me: OK, and where is Mommy's phone number?
Him: On da shoe.

Good boy.

Now never get lost. Ever.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Teaching My Child About Not Getting Kidnapped...

OK, I don't want to scare him or anything, but I do want him to know what to do if he gets separated from me in a crowd, and screaming, "MOMMY!" at the top of his lungs is probably what he will do, but if I am not RIGHT THERE, he might need a better plan.

SO...I started off with just trying to teach him my name and his father's name. Since this is supposed to be more anonymous, I'll just call us: Will and Cindy McFarland.

A little bit of back story here: whenever Little M demonstrates his pretty impressive vocabulary, someone inevitably asks how old he is, and I answer, "He's two-and-a-half". So he's taken to doing the name. I'll ask how old he is, and he says, "He's two-and-half". He does sometimes know his full name, but sometimes that gets the two-and-half response, too.

So I'm trying for the second time to get him to practice his response to the What is your Mommy's name? etc., line of questioning, and this is how things went:

Me: ", What's Mommy's name?"
Him: "He's two-and-half"
Me: "No, what's MOMMY'S NAME?"
Him: "Mommy McFarland."
Me: ...

Well...it's definitely closer! I'll keep working on him. And I did put my cell number on the insole of all his shoes that that if someone cares enough to check, they can try to contact me. I'll try to point it out to him to tell someone that that's his mommy's phone number if he's lost to call her there. Hopefully he's old enough that it will work. Hopefully he'll never need to use it and this is all a "just in case exercise". Maybe I should talk to the police about what the best thing to do is.

Oh, How Times Have Changed...

I was recently chatting with my mom about keeping my son safe from all the crazies out there wanting to do him harm, and what I was planning on doing about it.

Not that he goes anywhere or does anything without me at this point, he's not quite three, for goodness sake, and I'm not completely crazy. But I do let him play unteathered at the playground, and just keep an eye on him while I either chat with my mommy friends, or find a bench and stay out of the sun.

But when my mom was a kid, she and her sisters would leave the house after breakfast, then go off and find whatever to do till they got hungry. If they were hungry for lunch, they'd come home and eat lunch, otherwise they'd come home at dinnertime and nobody sent out the national guard for them, it was just what people did.

Even when I was a kid, I can remember going from my house to the houses across the street, then behind those houses, through the woods, across this stream, up the hill to the park and we'd play there till around dinnertime, or we'd go over to the rocks by my friend Bethany's* house, or we'd go over to my friend Lisa's house, several streets away, just whoever's house we felt like playing at that day.

Even when I was getting to be a teenager, after my younger sister had been with a couple of friends and had been flashed by some guy that the cops eventually caught. My mom still let me go by myself after dark up the street to my friend Misty's house to spend the night. Those were the days when it seemed like every time you passed one particular street lamp it went out and freaked you out so much that you ran the rest of the way to your destination. When in reality it was either coincidence or a different one each time and you didn't notice because it added to the drama of the story. I can still remember my mom saying how she was glad it was my younger sister who had seen the flasher guy, because she remember lots of details about the car he was driving, what he looked like, the coat he was wearing, etc. She thought if it had been me and my friends we'd not have gotten such good intel since we'd just have been looking at his penis. Thanks for the vote of confidence, Mom! We were 12, not sex fiends.

But we walked all over that neighborhood as well, to the different playgrounds they had, the convenience store, the elementary school my sister went to, my friends' houses. And we never called home to let Mom know we'd gotten there either. It was just assumed that we did, and that we'd be home later.

There was even a guy who was a former cop who said he ran a youth group for teenagers who was taking them to the local amusement park and would I like to go and take a friend. My mom let me go with them without doing any sort of check into whether he was even who he said he was. A bus full of kids showed up, my friend Denise and I got on the bus and off we went.

Today Big M and I have double and triple checked the daycare that we will be trusting to look after Little M, and have not even let anyone but family or other Mommies that we know personally watch him for any length of time. He's barely been out of sight of one of us his entire life so far, and when the time comes for him to be able to do some unsupervised play in the backyard, I expect to have the gate locked at that time. Right now we have a 5-foot-tall privacy fence back there. So someone would have to work hard to get in or to even see in and know what's going on back there.

But if Mattie will be playing at other kids houses, I play to know the parents personally, and I plan to know if there is alcohol in the home, and whether it is locked up, same with firearms. And if there are firearms, I will suggest that the playdate take place in our home.

It's just not the same world that my mom and her sisters pranced around the front yard in their "Liger's Club" dance. And my baby is too precious to risk. I know it won't make me very popular with him, this overprotective mama-bear stance I've chosen, but I'd rather him be angry at me, than me be explaining to the police that "he does this all the time and nothing's ever happened before..."

*All names have been changed to protect the young and possibly stupid.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

Man's Best Friend

I will just come right out with it - I am a dog person. I won't even deny it if you ask me in front of my three cats. We had a dog since I was 3 years old, not the same dog, but always a small dog. We had a beagle when I was 18 months old, apparently. I've seen the pictures but I don't remember him. We had to give him away because he kept knocking me down. I'm sure that would have stopped as I got bigger, but we got smaller dogs after that. Toy poodle, then a mixed terrier that we had until I went to college and brought her with me. She was even in my first apartment.

When she had to be put down due to old age, I got a cat, and we've been masquerading as cat people ever since. But deep down inside, I am a dog person. So I have been teaching Little M the proper way to approach a greet dogs that we come across in public.

Every time we hear a dog barking or see a dog when we're out riding the bike or walking, he asks if we can say hi. If it's in a house, the answer is usually no. But if we're walking, I'll tell him that we have to ask if we can pet the dog, then we hold out our hand to let the dog smell it, then we can pet the dog gently.

It's been awhile since we've been out walking and had this conversation, but we're at our friend's house today with their black lab and the minute we walk in the door the dog comes bounding over to us and Little M panics. "Up! Up!" So I pick him up in my already full arms, and poor Ben gets relegated to the other side of the baby gate for the next hour or so.

Then we're done with lunch, and Little M has warmed up to Ben, bringing over the xylophone to show off his mad skills. Then his friend E opens the door where Ben is being confined, and Little M says to E's Mommy, "May I pet Ben?" and waits for permission.

E's Mommy makes Ben lie down. Then Little M holds out his hand and lets Ben smell it, at which point Ben licks it, making him giggle. Then I think Little M got enamored with something else and he abandoned the whole petting endeavor.

But I felt SO completely validated as a parent. I taught him how to do something, he listened, remembered, and executed it flawlessly! It almost makes me want to teach him about drugs and the dangers of texting while driving while he's listening and doing what I tell him! But I do have to know my audience, and he was totally interested in the dogs topic.

It was just freaking amazing to watch, though. And makes me feel better about the fact that it took him two months to forget that I also taught him to say, "God Damnit!"

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Toddlers are weird #15

I will never be able to figure my child out.

Tonight we met up with friends at a carnival run by a fire department in the next county while Daddy played board games with some friends. We tried to get Little M to ride a horse on the merry-go-round, but ended up standing next to the horse and petting it while trying not to be dragged down by the horse next to me. Later we tried to have Little M ride the cars that went in a circle, but one weepy circle later, he was back in my arms.

The bouncy house went over well, since we've done that before, and he loves to bounce! And he was lukewarm about the giant slide. It was very stop-start since it was kind of hot and humid, so it wasn't like we raced down the hill.

I could not get him to go in the fun house that was just for kids, even when 'Miss Debbie' offered to walk through it with him. And the fun house that Mommy could go in was only about 5 feet more successful.

So you could say I was surprised when he said he wanted to go on the Dragon Roller Coaster. It's the kid-sized coaster, but this carnival let parents ride with very little ones, so I sat sideways in the car next to Little M in the seat behind his friend, Princess C, and her dad. After Little M tried to get me to move my foot and knee, I told him that they were going to stay there or Mommy was not going to be able to ride, and that calmed him right down. With him buckled in and basicalled pinned by me to the seat back, we were off! Round and round and up and down we went, jerked around the curves in ways my chiropractor can hopefully fix on Monday. But Little M was thrilled! He was laughing and smiling, giggling and chatting and just having a ball! In fact, we went on it FOUR more times!

Still won't go on the merry-go-round horses, but give him Mommy and a Dragon, and he is good to go.

Friday, July 29, 2011

Our fun week

It just occurred to me as I was dealing with trying to get my crying child to go back to sleep that he is really one happy kid almost all the time.  I am pretty lucky that way.

And overall we've had a great week, too.  We went to class at Toddlin' Time, the local toddler gym on Tuesday.  I actually had him on my bike and rode from the house to class with him in the heat, which was not oppressive, but took us 30 minutes instead of 5 minutes in the air-conditioned car.  But he was a trooper!  And so adorable on the way there, just being his normal curious self, wanting to know about everything he heard.  "What sound, Mommy?"  And there I am, gasping for breath on the way up a hill, trying to hold up my end of the conversation.

That class had some ups and downs for him, since there was playtime AFTER class time, which is normally before, so that was different.  And Miss Melissa was not there to give out stickers after class, which he missed.  He did get his Teddy stamps on his hand, which he really likes, so that was great.  But he had a little issue when Mommy tried to get him to share one of the play cushions, and a bit of a timeout was needed, so there were tears, and apologies.  But he was right back to running, laughing and giggling. And saying, "Thank you, Honey." to me.  This was also the night that he was up crying and wanting me to change his socks.  That's all, just new socks, then he went right back to sleep.  Bizarre.

Wednesday was awesome!  We went to see Gigi and Papa, and when we got there and started unpacking the car, Aunt K, Uncle S, and Cousin E were there to play too!  We didn't know till the car ride over that we were going to get to play with them, so that was a really fun surprise.  I brought Little M's new water table with us, so Aunt K and I set that up outside and we got the kids decked out in swimsuits for water fun, and the giggling began!  Much fun and splashing later, and about half the water was on the kids and the ground.  But lunch was ready, so we dried of the little ones and went to eat.  Little M and E made their cute little noises and mimicked each other, hugging and dancing and playing, just having a blast before each going down for a nap.  Little M didn't sleep as long as normal, being not at home, but we just hopped on our bike with Cousin G, who came back with Aunt K, and went to the playground.  Gigi and Aunt K met us there in the car and Little M got to play, play, play and get dirty, dirty, dirty!  It was just what he loved to do, much laughing there!  A quick bike ride back, and some more playtime with E before dinner.  At one point Little M kept running from Mommy to Gigi saying, "I love you Mommy!", "I love you Gigi!" for whichever one he ran too.  After a late dinner and some finally goodbyes, a sleepy happy kid was packed into the car for the trip back home.  He slept very well that night.  And somehow over the course of the day he picked up the phrase, "I love you more!"  His Daddy blames me.

Thursday brought another trip to Toddlin' Time, this time as a drop-in to class.  He had just as much fun as on Tuesday, but Mommy had more because we went in the car this time and I wasn't exhausted!  Little M loved the binoculars for exploring the "campsite" just as much as on Tuesday.  And this time he didn't touch the fire or the snake, even though they are pretend.  And he didn't bean anyone in the head with a plastic ball either, so there was no timeout or apology.  And he did great at using the potty!  So Mommy was happy too!  Afterwards, we went to IHOP for brunch, and while we were waiting for our meal Little M decided to sing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star".  He was singing pretty quietly, not bothering anyone, so I just let him go, and after he finished the few tables around us all applauded.  It was really cute!  Then he kept going...and going...and going.  And getting louder!  I finally had to tell him to use his inside voice, and then the food came.  And the tables that had clapped each came over when they were leaving to thank him for the singing, which was really sweet.

Then today we had a pool playdate with our Mommy friends.  It's our Mommy Friday outing.  We used to do them every week, but lately we've all been busy.  One friend has an aunt who has a place in the mountains with a fantastic view and a pool.  The kids got to go swimming and we brought their lunch up with us so we could go in a little after we ate too.  Little M had to be convinced that he wanted to go in AT ALL.  But he warmed up and was really enjoying himself.  By the end he was laughing and having a really great time with his friends. On the way home he was chattering about all the fun things they did.  Then he conked out, and I drove around for two hours so he could get a nap.  When he finally woke up, I headed home so he could tell Daddy about all his adventures for the day.  I asked him if he could help carry in some things from the car and he says, "Of course I will!"

Ah the sweet days of agreeability.  Oh, toddlerhood, you have some moody, cranky, fickle ways we must put up with, but the rewards, they are worth it.

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Potty Training, For Real, This Time

OK, We have really started doing Potty Training Boot Camp, and you can too, right here.

Day 1, Hour 0
Salty snacks are available, milk and caffeine-free soda are ready, and 10 pairs of Sesame Street underwear are downstairs and ready for duty.

Hour 1
Subject appears rested, but woke crying, this does not bode well for the coming day.

I explained the plan for the day, Subject appears to be interested in the prospect of getting to watch Dinosaur Train, but not so much in the requirement to be seated on the potty while doing so.  Will have to work on the association.

Hour 2
Subject had his first accident, the carpet in the family room took the hit.  Subject "cleaned up" the mess, the carpet is still soaking wet.  Subject cried and screamed through Potty Drills.

Hour 3
Subject was able to make it through several 10 minute intervals with dry underwear, but after many long intervals of sitting on the potty with no results, then getting up and immediately having an accident, I decided to call for reinforcements.  E&O's Mom assures me this is normal, and is about control.  I proceeded to try to catch Subject after one such event, and put him on the potty, where we got our very first success of Peeing on the Potty.

Intermission
Blessed Naptime

Hour 4 through bedtime.
Subject spent the rest of the day staying dry enough to get some sugary rewards, while also having two more accidents, and two more successes.  Final data collection:

8 pairs of underwear
5 accidents
3 successes in the potty (one needing some direction...)
3 Potty Drills
1 sleeping toddler
1 exhausted mom
1 more day to do it all again to make sure we really have the concept down and he'll do it himself!

Oh, I forgot to add that I did use the bath as an incentive to get ONE more pee-pee in the potty out of him, since he was prone to going in the bath just as the water was draining out, and although he did not think I was serious until the bathwater was draining out and he still had not been allowed in the tub, he finally did sit down on his own and go in the potty upstairs.  Yay me, for sticking to my guns!