Epic Potty Training Fail

On Monday, Grandmom put you in underwear for several hours. You didn't have an accident and Grandma declared you ready for potty training.  Um, okay.

So this past weekend we decided to give it a go.

Saturday, July 21: Mommy got up with you, removed your overnight diaper and put you in underwear.  Soon after you ran into the kitchen and announced happily: "Mommy, I want to make poopy on the potty!"

Wow, that was easy.  What is all the fuss about potty training, I thought.

Then I checked your underwear.  Damn.  Double damn.

Fast forward to avoid detailed descriptions of scraping poop out of underwear...

We went to the diner for lunch.  You had on clean, fresh underwear and felt like a big boy. You got your usual (grilled cheese).  Charlie got his usual (strawberry crepes).  All was right with the world.  At the end of the meal, daddy took your to the bathroom to wash your hands.  That's when he realized you were soaked with pee.  You just let it all out as if you had a diaper on.

Long story short, you spent the rest of the day soaking underwear, your clothes, anything you sat on and anyone who picked you up with urine. I believe the outfit change tally = 5. Spectacular.

Sunday, July 22: It's go time. No diaper. No underwear.

The dream: You will feel the cool breeze on your nether regions. You will see what happens when you need to go pee. You will finally connect the sensation of "the urge" with the act and then you will use the potty. It will be magical and glorious.

The reality: You will empty your bladder on the dining room floor. You will do a great job cleaning it up (great for a 3-year-old). You will pee again in the yard. You will not care. And, to quote you, you "will never use the potty!"

And we're back to diapers.

The end is nigh!

More specifically, the end of your tenure as an only child. Also, apparently, the end of the world as we know it.

To you, these events may prove to be synonymous.

It looks like you little bro will make his debut within the next day or two. This is my unofficial, non-medical estimate. From that point forward, you will no longer be the sole target of our attention. You will be forced to share the spotlight.

I have no idea how you're going to handle this.

You will be almost exactly 2 1/2 years older than your brother, which is the result of either carefully engineered family planning or utter chance. For the sake of argument let's assume the former. This 30 month gap should provide you with just enough maturity to handle the entire child-rearing process. Yes, we fully expect you to raise your brother, while your mother and I spend our days lazing about, eating bonbons and consuming alcoholic beverages. And occasionally dispensing parental advice.

I'm confident that this is a fairly bulletproof plan.

Two and a half years old!

Yesterday you turned two and half years old. Wahoo! Yes, you are still at an age where half years count. After all, we only recently stopped celebrating every single month of your life, so there's no rush to jump to an annual revelry schedule.... yet.

You saw Dr. Chen on Friday for your 2.5 year check-up.  She was majorly impressed with your language skills - full sentences and all that.  Apparently, that's something to get wowed over. You are ridiculously good at picking up new words these days and correcting mispronounced words too ("Ming-ah" became "Grandma" in about two seconds flat on Mother's Day and now you won't even accept the old name -- "No, it's Grandma!"). A thought occurred to me: you might want to slow it down a bit. Your parents are getting used to all this brilliance and, ya know, you don't want us to get jaded or have expectations that can't be met.  Just sayin'.

Speaking of Mother's Day, it was this past Sunday.  We had a good time at Uncle Mark & Aunt Melissa's house. Grandmom, Bubby, Pop-pop, Uncle Scott (formerly known as Uncle Knock) and Aunt Jaimi were all there. You and Caleb played in the tree house, ran around the yard, climbed through tents and played basketball in the driveway.

It must be nice to have a well-kept, flat, fenced yard with actual grass to play in. I really wish we had that at our house. Instead, we have this incredible steep yard, terraced in spots, with hills and valleys that have incredible ankle-breaking potential. It was all very quaint looking when we bought the house but it was never particularly toddler-friendly and many years of neglect haven't helped. We grow green stuff, but it's not grass. I'm not even sure if it's good enough to be called weeds. I was asked on Mother's Day why we don't have grass. Great question. I deferred it to Daddy. Taking care of the yard is daddy work! We also don't have a fence and you like to remind us of that regularly by running off. Awesome. 

In addition to the suckiness that is our yard, we have woods bordering one side of the property with a bunch of ivy that acts as a welcome mat to all the ticks. Hello, lyme-disease-carrying parasites, come on in, we'd love to have you! We had our first visitor about 2 weeks ago. It must have been on me because I found it in our bedroom right next to my laundry bag. Thankfully, no biting occurred.  However, our most recent guest found his way onto you... burrowed right into your head! I didn't come out easily. Nope.  It held on so tight that we pulled it apart in, like, 3 pieces. Can you imagine a creature that is so bloodthirsty (or determined?) it won't release it's grip even as it feels it's body being ripped in two??  It required lots of effort to fully remove the embedded head (yum!), but eventually we got it all out.  Hopefully it didn't transmit anything nasty to you.

It's enough to make me want to move to the city.  

Finally.

Today, April 29, was mommy's last day of work before starting maternity leave. Hallelujah! 

Now we wait... and prepare... for the coming of your little brother. You, dear Cole, will continue going to daycare as if nothing has changed.  It isn't that mommy doesn't want to spend every waking moment with you -- you are, after all, adorable, funny, smart and wonderful.  But there are three very good reasons for this decision:

1. Mommy is still getting a full paycheck and can afford to continue paying for full-time daycare. (For now, at least)

2. Mommy is large, slow, tired and doesn't sleep well.  These things make her not fun, irritable even.

3. Once a newborn is here, mommy will be a bit smaller, a bit faster, but still very tired and irritable.

Trust me, you will be happier in daycare playing with the kids and teachers.

We have discussed the impending arrival of a your little brother, a baby, with you many times. On some level, you get it.  You know that there is a "baby in the belly" and sometimes you kiss the belly or talk to the baby inside it.  You know that this baby is your baby brother.  But do you know what a "baby brother" is or how it ruins lives of big brothers?  I sort of doubt it. 

You know what babies are -- you see them at daycare.  But having mommy take care of one while neglecting your needs... well, that's a different story entirely.  This is a reality I don't think you fully understand or appreciate yet. But you will, oh you will.  And when you do -- in the immortal words of a drunk friend who threatened to 'come over there' -- "then none of us will be happy!"  

The Evolution of the Bedtime Story

First, let me say that we have pretty much always read bedtime stories to you (even when you clearly didn't understand and weren't interested) and, once you got into them, you got WAY into them. However, as happens with most precocious children, your tastes have changed over time... dare I say, yours have gotten more refined with age?

Pretending to read on cue for the camera. Good boy!

Anyhoo, your first real story was Where Is Baby's Belly Button? This was soon followed by Where is Baby's Mommy? The premise of both is similar -- flap lifting, several frustating pages of finding the wrong things, prize finally awaits you on the last page -- the only difference between the two are the types of items to be identified. You loved these books.

The next step up were books by Sandra Boynton, specifically, Oh My Oh My Oh Dinosaurs and the Going to Bed Book.  These are short, rhyming, sing-songy and filled with fun words and adjectives. Imagine my surprise when you busted out with the word, "exercise," on the one day during my entire pregnancy that I decided to exercise!  That night, I realized where it came from -- one of these books. Ahh, learning.

Soon after (not sure when - my mind is a little hazy these days given that all the blood in my body is flowing to my core to nourish your not-yet-fully-baked baby brother) we ventured into the land of bigger, longer, more word-dense books.  The first one of these that comes to mind for me is everyone's favorite rhyming story. Yes, you guessed it: The Cat in the Hat. The first few readings were touch and go but within days you were hooked. And then mommy and daddy had to tagteam the chore, er, I mean privilege, of reading this book to you EVERY night.... for weeks and weeks on end. I think we all may have had it memorized by the time you tolerated the mere suggestion of adding other books to the evening repertoire.

Another favorite that came on the scene around the same time: The Best Nest. Perhaps the most awesome part of this book is that Daddy made up a terrible tune for Mr. Bird's song, which you two would sing every night. Cacophony would be an overstatement, but let's just say neither of you would have made it to Hollywood on American Idol.

For a period of time, these two books were rotated pretty much exclusively. Then, one day.... you discovered your love of bears.  Beady Bear, to be more specific (yes, by Don Freeman). For a book written, like, 50 years ago, it certainly still stands the test of time (except for the whole reading the "evening papers" thing -- who gets the morning paper let alone the evening paper anymore???).

After Beady, we started introducing more books, more faster to give our nights a little more variety. This strategy worked; you accepted most of them.  Some of these new staples have included: Alfred the Bear (another oldie but goodie), the Sam stories (Sam's Bath, Sam's Cookie), Knuffle Bunny ("aggle flaggle klaggle!!") and your latest favorite, The Little Red Caboose (which echoes your current love of all things Thomas the Train). The latter has tons of detail to its pictures.  Apparently in this little town, every freaking woodland creature comes out to watch the train go by. Also, there is a camp of Native Americans just outside of the clearly much safer white village. Interesting.

So there you have it: your life in books (so far). You're welcome!

Ming-ah

Grandmom Sheil finally returned yesterday from an almost month-long trip to Spain and France. She spent much of the time in Barcelona but also visited the Mediterranean coast of Spain and various towns in Provence. More importantly, you were without your Monday caretaker for 3 whole weeks!

This pic is old - from Dec 2009 - but it was the only
one of you and Ming-ah that I could find quickly.
Get over it.

She came for a visit and for dinner tonight, but mostly she wanted to see you! Although you have called her various things, we we finally and definitively confirmed your name for her: Ming-ah. She isn't Asian (as far I as I know), but somehow the name fits and she likes it. And so it shall be.

"My ____!"

One of your newest phrases du jour is "My __[fill in the blank]__."  From food to toys to clothes to just about any item you can grasp in your hot little hands, you have begun proclaiming your ownership and dominion over material goods in a way not yet seen by your befuddled parents.

"My cupcake!"
"Yes, I know it's your cupcake, Cole."

"My Hiro!"
"Yes, that is your train, Cole."

"My shirt!"
"No, actually, I paid for that shirt. It's mine. I'm just letting you borrow it!!!"  Sheesh!