Happy Halloween

DeRailed

Yet another illness has befallen our household. Young Master B had it hard, but Parental Unit 1 has had it harder. In fact, Parental Unit 1 is braving the whole mess using only Tylenol. Still, it has been hardest for the heartiest and healthiest among us--Parental Unit 2--as he had to be the sole caretaker.

Enough about the parental units, these germs have sabatoged young Master B’s potty progress. On the other side of the illness, young Master B has developed potty aversion. He will still sit on the thing, but only fully clothed. Of course, I’m thinking okay, maybe he isn’t ready after all. Yet, he still taunts us with calls of “Potty! Poop!” If we act on those calls, taking him over to the potty, he gets very upset and runs away from the bathroom. Part of me thinks, he isn’t ready and we should just give up, but then another part of me chimes in, but he has interest, keep encouraging him. As the old adage says, we are going two steps forward, one step back.

Why We're Flying High

IMG_3339, originally uploaded by hal(var).

I’ve been waiting and waiting for Bertram to put two words together in a sentence. Yesterday morning, he said…

“I pooped.”

His first sentence milestone was quickly overshadowed by our collective glee because ladies and gentlemen:

Our son pooped in the potty.

Let me back up and explain how remarkable this is because the whole potty process has been Bertram driven. A few weeks ago, young Master B began to take a keen interest in, ahem, our toilet time. Then, he started announcing “poop!” and “potty” when he had completed the deed. Before long, he would say his rallying “poop! potty!” cry, and we’d toodle over to check the diaper status—and it was dry. A few moments after…an all too familiar smell would waft past our nostrils. Young Master B now had what the baby development books call “bowel awareness.”

And were we ready? No. We didn’t even have a potty in the house. I had thought potty training or the even more popular term, “toilet training” happened some after after age 2. Apparently, not for young Master B. I don’t know why I’m surprised. This is the same child who, at 8 months, for whatever capability he had in his young brain to decide such things, decided “I will only drink from a bottle, no more breast.” Though I was heartbroken at the time, now I see other moms struggling to wean their toddlers and I am thankful for being slipped the early wean. All of this is to say that the trend I see emerging is that young Master B is a headstrong, determined boy, a quality I both respect and fear.

Well, once we procured the little red potty—things quickly progressed. At first, Bertram seemed a tad fearful, but then he was quite content to hang out with his new potty. We would try to make a big production of “let’s go sit on the potty!” Young Master B had a few early pee-in-the-potty successes, but nothing quite like yesterday’s main event, as it were. I would like to note that Mr. Fabulous/Parental Unit 2 made homemade waffles to celebrate the event. Now, if only we could get ourselves together enough to purchase some big boy undies?

Just Getting Coordinated

IMG_3341, originally uploaded by hal(var).

Recently, Parental Unit 2 quipped, “he is becoming so coordinated.” It’s true, young Master B can eat with a fork and spoon, reach up to grab a sippy cup off the table, put a book back on the shelf, run around the house in monster-feet slippers...

Now he does many of these tasks on the first try and without the intense focus of a boddler who is just learning to, for example, take the lid off a Tupperware bowl. And, just when I think we have a little southpaw on our hands, young Master B switches up and uses his right hand.