Potty Training

I feel comfortable enough putting this out here, because pretty much everyone has potty trained someone or something in their lives. If you have dogs or rabbits or kids or husbands (ha!)...so I hope you'll forgive me for the content of this post :)

I also have to preface this post with this: I'm not promoting any particular training plan and I don't expect this to work for everyone the way it worked for us. Every child and family is different, so I'm just sharing how this process worked for us in case it might help someone else.

For a few weeks now, Simon has been going up to the toilet, and "pulling" the front of his diaper down, like Daddy. A few times I've taken his diaper off and let him stand there, and a few times he was able to go in the toilet. But mostly, it's just been mimicry. This last week though, he seemed particularly interested, and I joked with L before he left for work that maybe we'd be potty training that day. And then I realized I should go all in if I wanted to help Simon (and myself), so I did some quick research, and fortunately had already bought stickers and candy for the occasion.
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Day 1:
We spent all day in the bathroom. Yes, you read that right. We have no area in our house that is not carpeted (ugh), so I figured hanging out in the bathroom would be a good limited area to stage this first day. I took off all his clothes but a t-shirt so there was nothing to mimic a diaper in his mind. We had n.etflix on the ipad, some toys, snacks and lots of water/juice. I asked him every 10-15 minutes if he needed to pee, and he always said no. So I learned to start saying, "It's time to pee." And he'd go stand on the stool in front of the toilet, and try. That first day he went 19 times in the toilet. One sticker was awarded per pee, and two would be awarded for poops (none this day). Getting three stickers in a row meant a piece of candy.
We did go outside after L got home, and I focused on dinner. His only accident of the day was then. And those are fine, because it's a reminder for him of why pee (or poop) goes in the potty.
Nap and Nighttime are still diapered. I dont' know that I'm going to mess with that right now...I can handle two diapers at the moment.

Day 2:
We spent another morning in the bathroom. Going poop in the potty is going to be a harder task, because it's not a timed occasion or Simon. It's sporadic and not always daily. So this morning I missed it happening, and we just worked on putting it in the potty after it happened. I still had him half naked, and that helped with ease when he went potty, so he didn't have to pull anything down. We still operated on a 15 minute schedule. 21 successful times today. 2 accidents.
We ventured to the rest of the house in the afternoon. And we did go outside in 20 minute increments. I put him commando in loose pants. No complaints about coming in to pee, as long as I reiterated that we'd be going back outside. Same with pauses in playing with toys, etc.

Day 3:
Simon started telling me when he needed to pee, and we knocked off our first sticker chart because it was already full! While at home, I still have him half naked. We went out in the morning to get the mail, and still had him commando in loose pants. No accidents. And another trip out in the afternoon with no accident. We moved to 15-20 minute increments between pee checks, when I had to remind him.
And this ended the "intense" potty training, because he seemed to grasp the concept really well.

Day 4:
We went to a friend's house for 3 hours this day, still commando in loose pants. Simon did great going in the toilet there, and there were no accidents. I checked on him every 30 minutes, or when I knew he was drinking more. We also went out to eat at a restaurant in town later in the day, and he managed fine there too. I'm pretty stinkin' proud of him at this point. My kid's a rockstar when it comes to peeing.

Day 5:
Today we went to my Grandma's house, and he was comfortable going there, with no accidents. Another day commando in loose pants. I might follow through with that for a while yet, just so he doesn't have additional underwear to try and pull down too, and maybe until we have a better handle on pooping. I don't want to throw underwear on him and it feel enough like a diaper that he doesn't bother trying to poop on the toilet.
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All in all, I feel pretty lucky that he has handled it so well so far. I'm kinda waiting for him to regress or something, and if he does, we'll just adjust and do what we need to do. But that's where we are at right now. The three day intense training was rather exhausting...I literally spent every waking moment at his side, on the floor or bent over him. But it seemed like a good move for us to do, and Simon responded to it well. If he hadn't, we would have tried something else.

So there's that. Look forward to some future posts about artsy related things. A good friend planted an idea in my head, and I hope to expound on it here. Happy Weekend to you all, and sending lots of love.

3.30.11

Well, we are moving ahead in our remodel of Simon's room. I've been working on the pictures for his room, and below are some sketchbook workings of what I think I'll do. He's got so many monkeys and frogs and land creatures on his outfits and toys, I thought I'd bring out some sea creatures for him to get used to. Just because we're land locked doesn't mean he can't know about the sea :)

L has been working hard on getting the walls ready to paint. He got the wallpaper torn off, which has been the easiest part since it was like vinyl. Next came scraping the glue off, which the following picture shows in it's clumped and gross looking form after being scraped off.

The next step we're on is finding any left behind patches of glue and smoothing everything out. Then I think we'll be ready to paint...hopefully this weekend or the following week. I'm working on a wall pattern as well...though I'm still in the brainstorming process right now.

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I wrote this to a friend the other day: "I do like being a mother. It's fairly inexplicable the emotions I have for him. They are so far expanded beyond what I felt for Lyra...just for the sheer fact that he's a continually changing child. She's forever a baby, a memory. He's learning and growing and now smiling. It's interesting and confusing how I feel about my two children." 

Some days it feels like she never existed. And I hate that. Like it was just a bad dream. And yet it's a relief too (which I also hate). Like there can be good days, and even some all in a row. And being happy to some degree. Being in a new house and the time Simon takes almost makes it possible to look normal again. ALMOST. And looking normal doesn't mean anything. Because ultimately I know I'm just compartmentalizing my feelings right now. I know I'm still broken. I know there is a part of me that can't believe I have a dead daughter. And angry that it is true. And as most any rainbow baby mama will write about, it sucks to know all that you missed out on with your dead child, while you watch your rainbow baby grow.

I keep singing the same song...Simon is a joy and I miss Lyra.

Random: new house

It's been forever since I've blogged...and I feel justified in all that's been going on. But when I sit down to list what I do on a daily basis, it doesn't seem like I'm really doing all that much. I can follow blogs on my phone now, but it's harder for me to comment. So please forgive me for being so quiet in response to all that is going on with your lives.

We are all moved and "unpacking" and settling in. I love the part where we get to reorganize and plan and decide where things should go and how things should look. It feels like a fresh start and both L and I like that. However, it's been slow going for me. Simon nurses long and loves to be close to me if he's not feeding. He's isn't 100% keen on the baby bjorn carrier, and so it makes it difficult to find two free hands to unpack during the day. I had my eye on a moby wrap when pregnant with Lyra, but am planning on ordering one asap as I've heard such good things about them. (Any other carriers or wraps out there I should consider before diving in with the moby?)

I realized I needed to reassess my mindset about Simon and "doing things". The other day I was sitting there nursing him, waiting for him to be done so we could go to the grocery store so I could mark it off my list of things to do...to accomplish. Some days it doesn't look like I've done anything...if I manage to make something for myself to eat, and throw on a new shirt I'm doing good. But he's the important thing right now*. The grocery store can wait. L can go later, or watch Simon and I can go later. Right then, I was providing nutrition and love for my son. And there's nothing shameful in that, even if I don't get everything accomplished that I had hoped to for the day. He's only this size and snuggly and in this stage for so long. There will be time later on when he'll not need so much attention and I can have snippets of time to do "stuff'. We're still working out a routine and how things look now that we're all together. But I won't wish this time away...or rush passed it.

I didn't get this with Lyra. So I'm going to cherish every second with Simon.

*I don't have other living children or a job, so I have the luxury of having such a low key approach right now. Don't hate me.
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The house is great. Lucas did a fabulous job picking a house out. It's a pretty standard ranch style house, but it's one of the nicer ones in town that was available on such short notice. Simon gets his own room now, for which I'm glad. Now the fun part will be painting the walls of our house! We love color, and have some ideas about what walls we'll paint what colors. I'll get some pics up sometime soon hopefully.

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Things are different. My grief is different. It's changed since Simon arrived. Maybe it's more masked because he takes so much energy. I've been told I seem happier. He does make me happy. I feel good about the move, and our new house, and life in general right now. That doesn't eliminate the grief/anger/sadness of Lyra being stillborn. I don't really even know what to say about it all right now. I don't have a solid explanation for how I feel, or seem, or how things are.

But a new friend gave us a gift for Simon. It was an outfit with 'little brother' on it. I hadn't gotten anything like that for him...indicating there had been someone before him. But I immediately loved it. And I have to post a picture of it...Lyra's little brother showing off his new outfit.