Potty Training

We are finally making progress!

We first tried to get Aaron sitting on the potty last year.  He even managed to pee on the potty one time.  But after the initial excitement, he showed no interest in potty training.  With Audrey on the way, I thought it might be better just to wait anyway.  I'd read that it's not a good idea to potty train within a few months of a major life event, such as a move or a new baby.  But after Audrey was a few months old, Kim kept gently suggesting he was ready.  We knew he knew when he had to go #2, which is a good sign.  And he also went long periods of time with a dry diaper, another sign of readiness.

But whenever I asked if he wanted to go on the potty, he said no.  Even when I pointed out older friends of his who used the potty.  Even though I pointed out that "big boys" don't wear diapers.  But I didn't want to force him even though I believed he could do it if he tried.  I didn't want potty training to be something stressful for him.

So I waited.  And the truth is, I wasn't ready.  Honestly, I don't mind changing diapers.  With Aaron, I don't even need to change his diaper when we go out in the morning for a few hours.  He only poops at home or at someone's house, so it's easy enough to change him in those cases.  The truth is, I didn't want to deal with accidents and rushing to find a potty while we are out and about.  Plus Aaron hates public restrooms so I knew it would be stressful for both of us once he was potty trained.

I realized most of my incentive to potty train was coming from feeling like he was supposed to be potty trained by now.  I was looking at friends with younger sons who were well on their way to potty training.  But then I realized that what other people think doesn't matter.  We'd potty train when we were ready.  But I did set an internal goal of getting him potty trained by 3 1/2.

Since he wasn't interested in using the potty when we asked, I decided to try another tack.  I bought a pack of underwear, which he showed some interest in.  Yesterday, Kim, with his consent, put a pair on him after his bath and they went outside to play.  She tried to let him practice in the bushes, but he didn't seem that interested.  He was outside for over an hour before he had a small accident.  He was a little upset and wanted her to take him shorts off right there.  But Kim told him it was OK and that they'd go inside and get a fresh pair of underwear and shorts.  After that, when he felt the need to pee, they raced to the bathroom.  By nap time, he had gotten 3 stickers for peeing on the potty 3 times.  By trial and error, he was figuring out when he needed to go.  I was out of the house for a few hours, so I got the summary of events from Kim later.  She was so excited for Aaron I could hear it in her voice.

After nap time, Larissa was here to babysit.  She was just as excited as Kim about Aaron's potty training.  There were frequent trips to the potty, some false alarms, some not.  And only one accident during dinner.

But the best was yet to come.  Aaron hadn't gone #2 before nap, as he often does.  He hadn't gone all day.  So we knew he'd probably need to go before bedtime.  I know that it's common for kids, especially boys, to still want to poop in their diaper so I didn't really expect him to go on the potty.  But while I was getting Audrey down to bed, Aaron told Thom he wanted to poop in the potty.  It took maybe 10 minutes of sitting before it happened, but it did happen!  We were amazed and elated.  And he kept going.  For 20 minutes.  During which time Thom taught him about negative numbers and pronouns (it fit in with their conversation somehow).  We told Aaron how proud we were of him.  And he said "I'm proud of you Papa.  I'm proud of you Mama.  I'm proud of my parents."

Our friend Jessica who has a 4 year old said that once they decide to potty train, it happens pretty quickly.  I guess she was right.  We are amazed with how well he's doing.  We are sticking around the house today and probably for the next few days until he gets the hang of it.  I'm still not sure how it's going to work when we go out, but I'll probably put a pull-up on him the first few times we go out, just in case.  We did put him in a diaper last night, but we'll do a pull-up at nap time today.  Assuming it goes OK, we'll do a pull-up again at night.

But I'm not tired...

Most days Aaron still naps at least 2 hours.  Whether he sleeps or not, he has to stay in bed for 2 hours.  He has an analog clock in his room and we mark where the hour and minute hands will be when it's time to get up.  On Friday he was talking to himself well into nap time and Thom even had to take a few buddies out of his bed for being too noisy.  But by the time nap time should have been over, he was quiet.  Since we had guests coming for dinner and still needed to do shopping, we peeked in to see if he really was asleep.  This is what we found. 

Hand-made sweater

My mom made Aaron this beautiful sweater.  It finally fits and he wore it recently on an unseasonably cool day.  He's going through a making faces phase which is completely unrelated to the sweater.  :)

Horse swing

We bought this horse swing for Aaron's first birthday.  We put it away last year when he grew too big for it.  But now Audrey is just the right size so we hung it back up.  She loves it.

Cardboard box

Aaron wanted to play with this box that came in the mail. It was a taxi. Audrey enjoyed it, too. But Aaron got frustrated with her for trying to climb out before he found a parking spot.

By far my favorite moment was him drivin his wheelie dinosaur up her back and over her head. 

Cruisin'

Audrey has started cruising.  She pulls herself to a stand along the gate at the top of the 2 steps down to the living room then moves sideways along the gate.  She's still up on her tippy toes and very unsteady.  But she does manage to fall back to a sitting position without any fussing.

It's been amazing watching her trying to learn to walk.  We have for the most part not encouraged her at all.  Sometimes when I'm holding her up, she'll grab my thumbs from under her arms and I'll let her try to walk a little.  But we don't encourage her to stand.  If anything we discourage it!  I'm not ready for her to be running around the house!  But she is so determined.  There is no stopping her.

I can't help but contrast this with Aaron's journey to walking.  At 10 months, he still wasn't crawling.  He was rolling around to get from one place to another and couldn't even sit back up from his tummy.  By a year, he was doing an army crawl, dragging himself along the floor.  By 13 months, we had him in phyical therapy.  We taught him to sit back up from being on his belly.  We taught him to pull to a stand at the coffee table.  We encouraged him to walk with assistance and then on his own.  We pushed him every step of the way.  I remember each time we taught him a new skill, he picked it up fairly easily.  It was like "OK, this is what you want me to do?  I can do that."  He just never thought to do those things on his own. 

I wish sometimes that Audrey didn't think to do all these things on her own!  She'll be walking by the time she is a year old, we have little doubt.  And the other night after the kids were in bed, Thom says to me "She's not going to stay in her bed.  She's just not."  He's right.  She's not going to be as easy as Aaron.  My first thought on the bed issue was that we'll just leave her in her crib as long as possible.  But then I realized she'll be one of those kids that is climbing out of her crib by 18 months.  Oy vey!

We initially thought we wanted a girl first and then a boy, thinking somehow that would be easier, that the girl would be maternal and enjoy the baby.  But I think given their personalities, we had them in the right order. 

Uh-oh

Kim put Audrey in her crib today while getting Aaron ready for his nap.  She came back to find her standing at the end of the crib unsteadily.  I'm not surprised.  She's been trying to get onto her feet as often as possible, even pushing up onto her hands and feet when she doesn't have something high enough to pull up on.  Now will come the transition phase where she pulls to a stand and then cries because she can't get back down.

When Aaron was in bed, I said I needed to get Audrey fed and down for her nap.  He told me she stands up in her crib.  I told him that she would be walking soon and she'd chase him around.  He said "And then I'll show her my plants."  He's such a sweet boy.  I think it's adorable that the first thing he wants to do with her when she can walk is show her his plants in the yard.

She's Trouble with a capital T

Here's a picture of Audrey sent from Kim's phone.  She's at the park, holding her own sippy cup in her mouth, trying to get her brother's water bottle.  She wants everything.  She wants it now.  And she especially wants it if it is Aaron's.  This particular morning he was tolerant, but there is a lot of noise when she goes after his stuff.

Audrey has been eating baby food for about 4 months now.  Recently she has started eating Joe's O's (Trader Joe's version of Cheerios).  The first time I gave them to her, I think half of one ended up in her mouth out of about 10.  The rest went on the floor.  She just played with them more than anything.  A couple of weeks ago when I tried again, after eating a few O's successfully she got an O stuck on the middle back part of her tongue and couldn't get it over to her gums to mash up.  She had a funny look on her face and then looked like she might be choking.  I panicked, tried to pick her up, discovered I had buckled her in, quickly unbuckled her, turned her onto her stomach and hit her back.  She spit up a little and seemed fine.  I doubt an O could have blocked her breathing tube.  More likely it just slid down her throat and surprised her.  Either way, I  was freaked out and didn't give her any more for awhile.

But Kim tried giving her some broken in half last week and she was eating them without problem.  Picked them up and put them straight in her mouth.  She's finally figured out how it works and she likes them.  I've started feeding her O halves, too.  It's useful after she's had dinner and we are eating.  I plunk her down in the high chair and feed her O halves one at a time.  I don't even know if she's hungry - I think she just likes the experience.  It keeps her quiet and entertained for a long stretch of time. She is always watching what we are eating and shows a great deal of interest in "real" food.  I think she'll be a good eater like her brother.