potty train your toddler in one year!

We spent this past weekend reinforcing in three days what we've been gradually working on for almost a year: Elias now pees in the potty. We're still working on #2 - despite the fact that he's done it on the pot a handful of times, he seems to have little interest suddenly, saving that duty up for naptime or bedtime diapers. But as of Friday morning he's only worn a diaper to sleep (which, of course, meant no daytime diapers all weekend since he no longer naps at home and we rarely even enforce the in-bedroom quiet time these days). Even though our process has been gradual and in the end we didn't stick to this too closely (wearing underwear instead of running around naked, for example, and making it out of the house 1 to 2 times each day), I did look up information on the numerous variations of the three-day program, which goes a little something like this:

Day one: stay home all day, run around bottom-less, put portable potties in as many rooms as possible, feed your toddler lots of salty snacks and juice boxes you'd normally limit, repeat.



(Here he is enjoying some post-dinner outside time with Daddy at the end of day one. First potty training, now chores??)

Day two: follow the program for day one, adding in a short outing very close to home, i.e. a walk around the block, etc., preferably with bottoms so as not to freak out your neighbors.

Day three: follow the program for days one and two, adding in a longer outing, let's say an hour in duration, even one necessitating a short drive from home.

And voila, you have yourself a toilet-trained toddler. Or, you can do what we did, which is begin the process very gradually as soon as your toddler (and I say toddler because I'm skeptical babies [and by babies I mean 0 to 18 months] can express this interest, but that's just my completely unscientific opinion) shows an interest. For Elias, interest in all things potty related started pretty early, I think primarily because there were three bigger kids at his daycare using the potty from the time he started there at 19 months. Two of the three continued on to preschool this time last year and that's when his interest disappeared almost completely, seemingly overnight, and conveniently right after we spent forty bucks on a training potty that sat in our bathroom collecting dust for the next several months. His best buddy from daycare, Hazel, four days his junior, sealed the potty-training deal over winter break last year so I was hopeful he'd regain an interest in the process after the New Year when everyone was back at daycare, with the minor change of Hazel now trotting up to the bathroom instead of having her diaper changed.

Not so much.

But several months ago, Elias once again showed an interest, not so much in him actually doing the deed, but accompanying Neal and I to the bathroom, picking out underwear, and adding an on-the-pot Dora the Explorer potty training seat to our potty training paraphernalia. So since about his birthday, maybe a bit before, we've been encouraging him to wear underwear on the weekends and on daycare days when there are fewer kids and babies, to try going on the potty, of course, all the while using preschool as our impetus for the timing and sudden urgency. When my brother and his family visited earlier this month, we dropped the program altogether and sure enough, after they left, he had very little interest in getting back to it, explaining to us that he'd wear underwear at preschool. Um, not exactly how it works, there, kid. Every day at daycare I'd ask Eryn if he wore underwear. Occasionally he'd don a pair after nap, because by then surely he'd done most of the day's business in his diapers, especially during his Eryn's-only 2-hour siestas. Then, at the beginning of last week, even knowing Thursday was his final day in diapers, he flat out refused, telling Eryn, "No thank you. I have until the weekend." But on Wednesday and Thursday he seemed to be mostly on board and the weekend went pretty smoothly. Again, he's getting out #2 before his nighttime diaper is changed in the morning and/or after he's in a new one getting ready for bed, but other than starting to go once in his underwear, we had no accidents and, as I mentioned above, even ventured out quite a bit.

We did offer "treats" along the way - fruit snacks, for example, and on Friday we shared a popsicle from the ice cream guy who cruises our neighborhood a couple times a day. We reminded him about his big reward at the end of the weekend, which could be either a trip to Fenton's or a new toy, book, etc. In the end he opted for a set of three new "vroomy toys" from Ikea (and one of our outings yesterday included a pit stop at Dairy Queen, so he really got both, in the end). Here he is somewhat reluctantly explaining his sweet, sweet reward for peeing in the potty all weekend:



We still have some tweaking to do. Elias doesn't want to sit on the potty but hasn't totally mastered the standing part. Instead, what he does is a sort of half-stand, half-squat, essentially straddling the potty while facing it. If he puts a step stool in front of either of our regular toilets, he can go there, saving us from the dumping/flushing/rinsing step. But of course he doesn't want to do that. In an effort to explain to him how he could, you know, sort of aim the stream as it came out without being directly over the toilet, I think I might have compared his penis to a fire hose. I have a feeling that one's going to come back to haunt me one day. What can I say, we'd just watched the Mighty Machines episode about fire trucks.



He also insists on completely undressing from the waist down but has a hard time getting his clothes back on.  All details we'll work on this week and next before he heads to his first day of preschool after the Labor Day weekend.

So we're not 100% there, but it's a solid start. It only took us a year to get here.

my pregnancy #2 bucket list

No, I'm not pregnant nor do we have any immediate, firm plans to get pregnant. I'm not even taking folic acid yet, for crying out loud.  But, despite all my "one and done" musings via Twitter, I have been thinking about a possible addition to our family quite a bit lately (as if to balance those only-child musings, I posted links to this article and this one over the past couple of days).  Elias turned three a couple of months ago now, so if we were going to have two kids roughly four years apart, as both Neal and I are from our respective brothers (give or take), we'd need to get pregnant within the next month or so.  Obviously, our kids are not going to be close together at this point.  In hindsight, I'm glad I had my first early enough (finding out I was pregnant on my 30th birthday) to choose and not feel rushed into getting pregnant again before I'm ready, but on the other hand, who knows if I'll be as lucky next time around.

At any rate, at this point, to be honest with you all, it makes more financial sense to wait until Elias is in kindergarten to be home with a baby again.  Depending on my work situation (my Etsy shops keep me busy but I continue to submit resumes to the rare job opening), I'd like to take another one to one-and-a-half years off (or working very, very part-time as I did during Eli's first year) but I'm not sure I can manage that goal and send Elias to any sort of paid daycare/preschool, as we have since he was about 19 months and will continue to do so for the next two years of preschool.  And what's another year, right?  And yet somehow I'm still torn between 4 and 5 years (or perhaps somewhere in between).  I'm not sure what sign I'm waiting for but I keep telling myself, well, let's see how the next few months pan out.

And on that note, I've made a list!  Along with thinking about having another kid comes thoughts of all the things I'd like to cross off that never-ending to-do list before chaos once again becomes the norm for three to four years.  Here's what I have so far:

1. find a primary care doc and have a good old-fashioned physical

2. lose a wee bit more weight

I'm about ten pounds lighter now than I was when I got pregnant with Elias, but part of my pregnancy/new baby PTSD revolves around my experience with my first OB/GYN who obsessed over my weight gain.  (I also went over a certain number I'd like to stay below this time.  And that's all I'm gonna say about that.)  I do think she went a little overboard and I bounced back to within about ten pounds of my pre-pregnancy weight pretty quickly.  So I'd like to lose another 15-20  10-15 pounds before getting pregnant again. I think of it as a running start.  But I'm also not going to put off family planning until I get to that magical number since I know that number may be a little elusive, especially considering it took me six months to lose 10 pounds.

3. hair

Grow it out so as to master the true "mom hair" eternal ponytail and/or find a style that's as low-maintenance as possible. (Does anyone know if this exists? If so, please leave instructions in the comments section. Thank you.)

4. get a pedicure

5. cut out coffee, splenda, limit artificial stuff like Fresca, etc.

We sort of arbitrarily went off coffee a month or so ago, only because we decided to let our Costco supply run out, but without a half-caf bridge we didn't do so well. And the thing is, there are a few reasons it would be nice to not be addicted to caffeine, but it's mainly a pregnancy thing for me.  Splenda, on the other hand, is mostly out of my diet.  I gave most of my Costco supply to my diabetic MIL, keeping just a handful of packets for myself.

6. have professional family photos taken

7. cats!

I go back and forth on this one.  I'd actually love to find them a new home but the chance of that happening is minimal and I won't take them to a shelter.  We'll jump off that bridge when we get there.  (They've been pretty mellow the last few days, can you tell?)

8. finish room makeovers and other house stuff

Eli's room and the office are mostly done, so we still need to do our room, both bathrooms, repaint the kitchen, relandscape the front and back yards, oh, and figure out where baby #2 will sleep.

9. go through all Eli's baby stuff (currently in the shed where a mama spider recently had seven billion baby spiders, so,  yeah, fun!)

10. go on vacation!

Yeah, okay, so we're getting ready for our third and final "vacation" of the summer in a week, and no offense to any family who might read this, but we'd also like to take a trip just the three of us.

11. buy a minivan (check!)

That's all I've got so far. There are a few other items that are more for when I'm actually pregnant, if we do go for #2, but these are the kinds of things I'm thinking about now, with baby #2 still a very abstract idea, as Elias once was, not so long ago.

So, readers, what is or was on your pregnancy #2 (or 3, or 4) bucket list?

Christmas in July

Yeah, okay, August. Before I blog about our recent stay-cation with my Dad, brother, nephew, and niece, let me finally post a few thoughts and pics from Christmas.  You know, now that we're closer to Christmas 2011 than we are to Chrismtas 2010. 

This past Christmas was our first in our old-new-to-us house and I'd say Eli's first that he somewhat anticipated and somewhat experienced a little bit like I remember holidays from my own youth. 

Mommy & Daddy and Santa Claus were on the same track with outdoor-themed gifts, giving Elias more things to do outside while we attempt to tackle yard work each week (this many months later, sadly I can't say we've accomplished a whole lot other than weekly maintenance and a small patch we re-planted in the front).

Elias took an impromptu picture with Santa right after Thanksgiving when we made a rainy-day visit to an indoor play space at a local mall, and then again (above) in a much more intimate setting at Play Cafe, closer to the actual holiday, both of which went more smoothly than in 2009. 

We saw festive light displays (one of mama's favorite parts about the season) in Alameda and at the Oakland Mormon Temple (on Christmas eve, as is becoming tradition).

New last year (and probably not happening again for a few years) was a long trek to Berkeley's Tilden Park where we stood in an even longer line to ride the carousel. 

Elias also had his first taste of hot apple cider while waiting in line. Maybe we'll try again but perhaps not on the last night? 

Elias sharing some of Santa's cookies with a Grinch "snuggle-buddy" that he received with his obligatory Christmas eve pajamas.

As for the day itself, while we celebrated Thanksgiving with Neal's brother and his family, we stayed put for Christmas, just like I like it.  What I didn't like, and it's hard to say this without seeming ungrateful, was the overwhelming amount of gifts.  I think it took us three or four days to open all the gifts since 1) Elias time and again chose food over gift-opening on Christmas day, drawing out the gift-opening process (based on birthday behavior I'm not sure this will be a problem in 2011)

Christmas morning cinnamon rolls before gifts.

...and 2) he actually wanted to spend some time and play with each toy before moving on to the next gift.  Crazy, huh? 

This picture says it all - Elias hanging on to one toy with a flurry of activity around him.

We complain about how kids have such short attention spans and then we overwhelm them with gifts and expect them to open one after another. 

So....What we'll do differently this year, as I wanted to do this past year, is celebrate Christmas eve and a bit of Christmas morning by ourselves, just the three of us.  Grandma can come over after, as well as any other family that might like to visit the Bay Area that time of year.  But from about 5 pm on Christmas eve until about 10 or 11 Christmas morning, we'll be hunkering down doing our own thing, just the three of us. And there will be a limit on how many gifts to give.  At least, that's my plan.  I have four months to make it happen that way.