Potty Time

It’s Potty Time!

We have started to Potty train Little Man.  Yes to all of you who don’t know, it is hard and is a big commitment.  We had to start trying since he has on a number of occasions pulled off his dirty diaper.  Jynx did the research and she briefs me (pun intended) on what might be the best thing to try.  Never thought I would say it but sometimes it is just easier to say pull that diaper back up!

I called home one day just to check in and see how everything was going and I called at a bad time.  Jynx explained to me how she turned around to see Little Man sitting in his toy box with the diaper laying next to it.  She walked over found the dirty diaper and his toy box filled with several dirty toys. She cleaned up Little Man and was starting on the toys when I called.  Please, a quick moment of silence for those toys that lost their battle to the dirty bottom that day.  I must admit I chuckled when I got off the phone with Jynx and thankful to be working and not at home just then.  About a week later Karma bit me and you guessed it, I looked over and saw Little Man grinning from ear to ear and I knew even before I walked over what was happening.

We went to the store and bought a little potty.  We bought a potty designed like a truck that when you went potty, the truck would rumble and sound like it was starting up.  Surely the excitement of getting the truck to start would make the potty training simple.  Little Man quickly hopped off of the truck turned around placed his fingers on the connectors inside the potty and the truck rumbled to life.  Okay so the truck did not work since we spent more time with our fingers inside the bowl then our butt on the bowl.  The truck remains but has been replaced by a Thomas the Train seat that goes on the big potty.  I have to admit its kind of funny using a train for potty training.

Thomas does seem to work the best; he will go in the bathroom with us and sit on the toilet.  We have him tucking his sprinkler hose down, which is great since we usually sit right in front of him.  He has a book Elmo Uses the Potty he would read or rather he would sit there and hit all of the sound effect buttons, but now his favorite is a train magazine that Grandpa Jim gave him.  He will sit on the potty, reading the train magazine, living up to his nickname Little Man.  The next step was teaching him to grunt, while sitting on the toilet all tucked down with the magazine in hand.

Jynx read that if we put him in regular underwear and he wet them, he would not like the feeling and use the potty more.  Well that has not worked out so well, he has wet the underwear a few times and just kept on playing, wet britches and all.  I’m not too sure the whole underwear theory is going to work since little man is so easy going with certain things.

We got invited to a potty party.  Huggies was having a kick off for their new song the potty dance and friends won a party.  It was only Jame and his girlfriend Bayle that attended but they had posters and gifts for the kids.  They put on the video and the kids danced; to me the potty dance has always been those strange moves you do as you run to the bathroom, I don’t think it needs to be choreographed.  The kids were having a great time playing together and were fascinated by the two little potties in the front room.  They of course had to try each one of them and when one pulled down their diaper the other had to as well, maybe this was going to work.

Little Man stood up from the potty turned around and started to take it apart as he usually does to see how it works.  He took the seat placed it on the carpet and peed right next to it.  We all erupted with laughter and I was not sure if that should count or not.  They started to go and clean it up when I stopped them so I could take a picture.  This moment was too funny to forget.

The kids also got the lick’em and stick’em tattoos that were not as easy as I remember to apply.  Jame got Lightning McQueen on his arm.  He loved showing everyone the racecar tattoo.  Now Jynx who loves to worry about everything is now worried he will grow up and have tattoos all over his body.  Not to worry, at finding out this news, his Aunt Wendy has promised to buy him his first tattoo. 

The struggle still continues today and we still seem far from being potty trained.  We had a small victory the other day.  I sat Little Man down on the toilet had him tuck and handed him his magazine.  After a few minutes I got him to try his grunting, we sat there grunting back and forth when all of sudden his eyes light up.  I looked down to see that he had used the potty a bit.  He looked as if he thought he was going to get in trouble but I quickly turned my shock into celebration and his face lit up with that famous Jame Jack smile.      

These Boots are made for Walking

We took Little Man out shopping the other night and as we got out of the car he looked into the sky, pointed and yelled his now famous “Dat”.  I looked up at the big moon in the sky that night; it has been a long and dreary winter with little sign of the sun or the moon.   His eyes light up and his mouth opened slightly with amazement.  We stood there a bit and stared at the moon.  Actually he stared at the moon and I stood there watching his amazement.  I felt bad when we had to go into the store but as we walked in to the store he kept his eyes locked in on the moon repeating “Dat…Dat…Dat”.

That night after arriving home we changed Little Man and placed him in his crib for the night; he got up and quickly scaled up and over the crib.  Yes it was the end of the crib for little man.  The next morning I took one side of crib off turning his bed into a toddler bed.  Where has the time gone?  Our baby was now a toddler. 

Jame putting Dorthy Barbie in his bed

The switch to the toddler bed was not just an easy transition.  Our first problem was Little Man does a lot of tossing and turning in the night and he rolled right out of bed several times.  We had already had pillows down for his fall from the crib when the side was still on and they were still there but he was not happy about rolling out of bed and would wake up crying.  My suggestion was to go and get some sort of netting to stretch across to prevent a fall but Jynx had a better idea to stuff a long narrow pillow under the sheet and so far it has worked well.  The next obstacle was him waking up and walking away, most of the time he just wondered into our room but a few times he got up and started to play with his toys.  We took the gate that used to block the basement and placed it in his doorway, it reminds me of when Kramer from Seinfeld put a screen door on his apartment.  At night we close the gate and in the morning we open it using a bungee cord to keep it open for him.  The last couple of nights Little Man is back to sleeping through the night.

Last night we took Little Man to one of our favorite shops Once Upon A Child, a kid’s resale store.  Jynx picked out a few outfits for him and then went to see about shoes.  Jynx struck out in the shoe department but did comeback with some rain boots she thought were cute, they looked like a dinosaur.  Little Man made it clear that he loved them.  Little Man quickly put them on and did not want to take them off, after they rang them up we gave them back to him and he quickly put them back on his feet .  Yes even after we changed him into his pajamas that night he grabbed the boots again and placed them back on his feet.  Little Man went to bed with them on and after he fell asleep I tried to remove them but he started to cry.  Why was I going to

try and remove them?  I walked away and went to bed.  I’m not sure when he will take them off; in fact he is sitting next to me watching Thomas wearing his pajamas and his boots.