Little Underwear

I was uploading pictures from my camera to my laptop last night, and I came across this batch from back in June.  We had just come inside from the pool, and I had asked Noah to go grab a pair of shorts for himself while I made his lunch.

He came back with a pair of tiny boxer briefs, handed them to me and said, "I wear these ones?!"

Obviously I had to take pictures, because he looked so freaking adorable.  I asked him to stand against the closet doors, and this sequence of pictures makes me melt and laugh at the same time:

I feel like he looks like a 4 year old!

He has a sweet life jacket tan.

He almost looks like he feels stupid doing this, but seeing at he was 27 months old I don't see how posing in his underwear could make him feel silly.

Trying to look tough??:

Seriously, I am dying laughing right now.

This kid just brightens my days.

Train Table!

You may remember that at the beginning of potty training we promised Noah a train table once he started pooping on the potty.  This seemed like a great reward, since Noah could not be any more obsessed with trains!  When we started potty training, the train table we wanted to get was on sale.  I kind of thought the poop thing might take awhile, so we didn't buy it at the time.

And then it took like 3 days and Noah was 100% potty trained (except for while sleeping, although he only pees in his nap diaper like once a week, and he's had a fair number of completely dry overnight diapers as well).

The problem was, the train table was no longer on sale.  And as thrilled as I was to have Noah potty trained, I did not want to pay $225 for a train table.  I also did not want the crummy train table that went on sale right after the good one went off sale.  It only cost $65, but it was basically a figure 8 track on a small table.  Too boring.

Last Friday I was heading into town to cash a cheque, and I thought I would quickly check the Toys R Us flyer to see if they had the train table that we were waiting for on sale.

They did!  And they even had it in espresso, which they don't normally carry, so it matches the rest of the furniture in my living room.

Honestly, this thing is so massive that I think I would actually be hating it if it were in natural wool. I'm not a hater of natural wood, but it wouldn't match anything in my living room.

In the interest of keeping things real, I should admit that this train table has not been that neat since I took this picture. Noah really enjoys making his trains crash off the tracks, so he's constantly taking things apart. 

 He has spent hours with it everyday. He's had it for almost a full week, but every morning when he walks into the living room he gasps, smiles, and says "Whoa, what I GET?! It's a train table!"

Onto the pictures.

Being introduced to the table after getting up from his nap... (we had spent the two + hours before his nap putting it together with him in the room (wow, that makes things more difficult), and then the 45 minutes he was sleeping we finally finished):

Smiling as he discovers the different noises the table makes:

In the mornings the sun comes through one of our windows and shines right onto a spot that Noah frequently finds himself in while he's playing with the train table.  So one morning he requested his sunglasses:

He frequently sings Thomas the Train songs to himself as he plays:

Checking out the roundhouse:

This is what I got when I asked him to smile:

I have to admit that having this giant train table in the middle of my living room is not totally okay with me.  I look forward to the day when Noah would actually want to go downstairs by himself to play with it.  Alas, that day is not now, so in the middle of the living room it will stay.

I am really happy with the purchase, though.  It's took bad it took a good month after he was fully potty trained for us to finally be able to reward him!

Potty Trained!

Well, I haven't been a very faithful blogger lately, but it's not for lack of things going on!  There are so many things happening, and I feel like they all deserve their own posts.  However, my child doesn't sleep very much, and therefore I don't get much computer time.  I was going to do bullets, but instead, I'm going to do shorter, separate posts.

Potty training is going FANTASTIC.  I barely consider myself to be potty "training" him anymore.  We can bring him anywhere.  He doesn't have accidents, he pulls down his own shorts, he poops in the potty without telling me first, and then brings the little bowl to me and dumps it in the toilet (the diaper sprayer sure comes in handy for cleaning that thing out!).

The majority of his naps since we started potty training a week ago he has woken up dry (we cloth diaper, so this is very easy to know for sure).  Night time diapers have gotten progressively less wet, and he asks to go pee in the potty in the morning when he gets up.  AND, this morning he was COMPLETELY DRY.  No pee in his diaper whatsoever.  He did his biggest pee on the potty to date when I took his diaper off, so he was holding it all night!  Man alive, I can't even not pee overnight! (on the toilet, of course).

I bought him some tiny boxer briefs to wear when he has to wear pants that are scratchy on the inside.  I think briefs would feel too much like a diaper.

Oh. My. Freaking. Goodness.  You don't know what "cute" is until you see your skinny little 26 month old wearing a pair of the world's smallest boxer briefs.  I pretty much died.

Our next little hurdle to cross in potty training?  Getting him comfortable going on a big toilet.  I've only put him on the big toilet (with a potty seat on it) once, and he begged to pee on the little potty instead.  I didn't make an issue of it, because it was very early in the diaper-free period.  That will come.  For now, I am fine toting a little Baby Bjorn potty everywhere we go.


Honestly, I was not looking forward to potty training at all.  I thought diapers were just so much easier than having to worry about taking him to pee and poop on the potty all the time.  Especially when we were in town running errands (since we live 25 minutes outside of town).  But I find no diapers SO much easier!  I don't have to worry about finding a place to change his bum so he won't leak onto his clothes; I don't have to worry about having enough diapers and a wetbag with me.  I just have the potty in the car, and we're golden.  He would never poop when we're out in public anyway, so that's not even an issue.

I love having next to no diapers to wash, dry, fold, and stuff.  In fact, there's no stuffing anymore because he wears fitteds at night and a flat in a cover for his nap.  My diaper loads are tiny, since he's barely wetting one diaper in a 24 hour period.  And I don't have to spray out poopy diapers anymore!!

So, in short, I have loved potty training and I LOVE having a potty trained kid now.  I thought it would be a struggle, but I honestly think potty training is one of the easiest things I have faced in my 26 months of parenting so far.  And my life is so much easier in that area, now.  Especially now that my sore, pregnant self doesn't have to lift a 30lb toddler onto a change table 6 or 7 times a day.


I guess this post wasn't that short, was it?

He Did It!

Noah pooped on the potty!!!

Obviously this post talks about poop.  You've been warned.

I honestly thought this would take weeks or months.  In the first 4 days of potty training he pooped in his shorts 3 times.  By the third time I started to get the feeling from him that he was understanding this was not okay, and might be right around the corner from actually pooping on the potty.

Well, today after we got inside from playing in the pool I changed Noah into dry, loose shorts.  I went to my  bedroom to change out of my bathing suit, and while I was in there I heard him yell "OH NO!"  I came running out and met him as he was awkwardly walking toward me.  He looked really distressed, and I asked him if he pooped in his shorts.  He said "Yes!" in an upset voice.  I felt his bum, and it had a very small poop in it, so I knew there was more to come.  I told him "Remember, we don't poop in our shorts.  Poop goes in the potty.  So I'm going to put you on the potty and give you some privacy so you can finish your poop."  I did that, and went to my bedroom.  I felt like there was a 50/50 chance he would actually poop.

Within a minute he called "I pooped on the potty!" and appeared in my bedroom door.  I was very excited (but wondered if he actually had pooped on the potty, since 2 year olds aren't incredibly reliable about telling you the absolute truth about something).  I followed him back to the potty and sure enough there was a big poop in there!

If I wasn't 21 weeks pregnant I swear I would have done a cartwheel.

I made a huge deal about it, obviously.  He was proud, but he was also very distressed after the fact, and I'm not totally sure why.  I think maybe he didn't like that his bum was dirty and needed to be wiped, because he equated that with having the accidents he's been having the past few days.  He also may have been freaked out when he saw his poop sitting in the potty.  But I just kept calmly telling him that he did such a good job, and that everybody needs to wipe their bums after they poop to make sure that they're all clean.  He was happy once he was all cleaned up and had a clean pair of shorts on.

After we got everything cleaned up we called Granny (my mom) and Noah told her that he pooped on the potty.  She made a big deal about it too.  He's pretty proud of himself!


So, to recap, we are on Day 5 of potty training, and doing extremely well.  In 5 days he has only had 2 pee accidents; both times he was very distracted by trains, but the second time he realized what was happening while he was peeing and stopped and finished on the potty.  And it was a big pee on the potty, so I was impressed he had been holding it and not at all surprised he had the accident, since it was his first time playing with the new train we had just bought him (which, ironically, was a reward for not having any accidents - haha).

He also had 3 poop accidents, but after pooping on the potty today I think we have turned a major corner, and those will soon be a thing of the past!

Yesterday we even went on a shopping trip in town.  We spent 40 minutes in the van on the way there, about an hour in the store, and 40 minutes in the van on the way home.  No accidents!  We put a potty in the van and used that while we were in town.

I am so proud of Noah.  Only 26 months old, and I can't believe how well this has been going.  I have a feeling that in about a week it will be "He's potty trained," instead of "He's potty training."  And it's actually been fun.  I'm in the right frame of mind for it this time, whereas I wasn't in the wintertime.  This was clearly the right time for us to make this change!

The only downside?  Some of his pants and shorts are literally falling right off of him now that he no longer has a diaper butt.  He is just so tall and skinny!  He wears 3T/4T and unless I get the right pair of pants or shorts, they fall right down his butt.

However, I love that adorable little butt, and love not having the cloth diaper covering it up!

Potty Training

So, we are giving potty training another try.  Noah did really well with the pee part last time I "tried" back in the winter, awhile before his birthday.  He didn't have a single accident all day long.  But then I just didn't want to continue.  I knew the pooping on the potty part would be a struggle, and I wasn't minding the diapers at the time, so I just decided I wasn't into it.  Plus his bum got this weird pimply rash from being naked for the whole day, and I didn't like that.

However, I think we're giving it another shot now, and I think I'm going to stick it out this time.  This is Day 3 of no diapers (except at nap time and night time).  Sometimes he goes naked, sometimes he wears loose pants or shorts.  He has had one pee accident in those 3 days.  It was yesterday, on Day 2, and it was because he was hanging out with Justin watching videos of train tracks (which is very distracting for him), and Justin hadn't mentioned peeing in the potty for over an hour.  Noah was sitting on the bed, and must have forgotten he wasn't wearing a diaper, because he just let 'er loose.  Awesome.

The poop thing... I am totally not sure where we stand on that.  The first two days he had already pooped when I got him out of his crib in the morning.  This is unusual for him - he almost always poops within the first hour of being awake, but not usually in his night time diaper.  Then today he popped a squat in his nice loose pants and crapped.  I figured it out as it was happening and immediately ran over (he yelled at me for invading his privacy), pulled down his pants (the poop fell through the leg when I did this), and plopped him on the potty (which was literally RIGHT beside him).

I was not very happy, but thankfully it was the most solid poop he's had in awhile, and it was on the hardwood floors, so it was an easy clean up.  Noah sat there on his potty with his poop lying on the floor beside him and he was not impressed.  He kept asking me to clean it up.

Sooo, I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen with the poop part.  I have read so many stories of kids who take forever to start pooping on the potty, and I have a feeling that could end up being Noah.  He has a strong need for solitude while he poops, and he always has to be in a squat.

I guess we'll just have to wait and see.  He does so well with the pee part of potty training, though, that I don't want to just give up on that part just because he doesn't want to poop in the potty.  I don't want to ignore his ability to control his bladder for so long that he gets older and more stubborn and decides he doesn't want to control it anymore.  I've read that if you wait past 28 months it can get harder, and I know my brother and SIL didn't bother trying to potty train my nephew for a long time (they didn't even try to get him to pee on a potty at all, actually), and so when they tried he was incredibly resistant to it.  He is now 3 years and 3 months and only recently did his first pee on the potty, but he doesn't seem to have any bladder control, nor does he care.  I just don't want to miss a good window, since Noah is so ready for the pee-trained part.

I gave him an incentive: we'll buy him a train table when he starts pooping in the potty.  He is train obsessed, and constantly asks to see pictures of the train table he will get.  I am perfectly comfortable with the idea of bribing a kid to potty train - sometimes a little extra incentive really works!   Bribes worked with 3 out of 4 of my mom's kids (I was the exception - I didn't need to be bribed with anything except wearing pretty underwear), and we were all potty trained pretty early by today's standards (right around 2).  Who knows if this bribe will work on Noah, though.  The poop issue might be too much for him to overcome, even though he says he is going to poop on the potty so that he can have a train table.

Two year olds say a lot of things.

Potty? Meh.

That's my opinion, not Noah's.

I kept Noah in diapers all day today.  I really didn't want to deal with the stress of watching and waiting for him to poop.  I really didn't think he would do it on the potty, and I was worried about it ending up on one of our bedroom carpets.  Plus by the end of yesterday both his butt cheeks were COVERED with an angry red pimply rash.  It cleared up overnight on it's own while he was diapered.  It was like his delicate bum skin couldn't handle being exposed all day long.

Tonight Justin and I went out on a date and left Noah at my parents' house for a few hours.  When my mom was changing his diaper he didn't want a new diaper on, so she let him run around nude.  He didn't have a single pee accident (exact same as yesterday), and always went pee in the potty.

BUT, he pooped on her floor.

I knew it!  I KNEW he would poop on the floor before he would poop in the potty!

I'm not going to try and push it.  I don't even want him to be potty trained right now at this age, so I'm certainly not going to bend over backwards to try to get him to poop on the potty when it doesn't seem to be something he wants to do.  Yes, he can control his bladder and hasn't had a pee accident, but poops are an important part of the equation.

I'll stick with diapers for now, thanks.  Hopefully one day he will just suddenly be fine with pooping on the potty.  But like I said, at this age, I am totally fine with diapers, and I'm not going to push for it.

Potty Training(?) Update

Two posts in one day.  That hasn't happened in a looong time.

I've had an annoying evening. I've had no patience for some reason. I don't know why, but I want to punch a wall.

All day today Noah never peed in a diaper once. He went on the potty all day.  He pooped in his very first diaper of the day, literally within 30 seconds of getting off the change table, but he didn't wear another diaper the entire day, and he didn't have a single accident. Everytime he had to pee he went on the potty.  And he sometimes went close to two hours between pees.

BUT, other than the first poop, he didn't poop all day. And he normally poops 3 times. At LEAST twice. Almost never does he only poop once.

He has NEVER pooped on his potty. He just won't do it yet. I think it's because he wants to be in a squatting position and because he always needs complete privacy.

BUT, the not-pooping thing stressed me out, and I couldn't let him out of my sight.  Even though I trust him not to pee on the floor or furniture (like I said, he didn't have a single accident during the entire diaper-free day), I don't trust him to not poop on my floor if the urge hits.

Following him everywhere is exhausting, and I have no idea how people have the patience to potty train kids who are constantly having accidents.  I'm not expert, but it's my opinion that if a kid is having tons of accidents when you're trying to potty train, that means they're not ready.  But, like I said, I'm not an expert.  And I certainly don't have the patience to work like that.  If someone else does - go ahead and do your thing.

Anyway, Noah in bed right now talking and chattering and making noise, and occasionally whining. It's 9:10, and he's been in there awake for 30 minutes. So of course I'm concerned that he's pooping in there, and I'm going to have to deal with deciding whether he HAS pooped or not, just by listening to him over the monitor, and then I may have to have to change a poopy bum and put him back in his crib where he will probably start crying.

I don't know if I'm up for doing this again tomorrow.  True, Noah didn't have a single accident.  But waiting for him to maybe poop all day long is grating on my last nerve.  I don't think I want to do that again.  I'd rather change a poopy diaper than sit on the edge of my seat and wonder what's coming.

I feel like Justin is NOT going to get a very nice welcome when he gets home.

More Potty Adventures

This morning when I got out of the shower, Noah walked into the bathroom with only a t-shirt on.  I ran out into the living room to see his cow print diaper lying on the floor and a potty full of pee.

Do you think he might be trying to tell me something?

Since then I have left his diaper off.  He hasn't peed in a diaper all morning and it's 12:45.

I'm not sure I'm really ready for this.  I'm not ready for it to be a struggle, that's for sure.  Noah's been peeing in the potty for a couple of months, but so far he has refused to poop on the potty, and I don't really want to fight him on that.  But I may see how he does for today, and if he does well, I might extend it tomorrow.  If he decides to train and it's really easy, I'll go with it.  If not, I am totally fine with keeping him in diapers.  I feel like that is less work, somehow.  Plus, I love my diapers.  However, not dealing with poopy diapers when I have 24/7 sickness would be amazing (you know, since I'm hoping I'm currently pregnant, or at least will be in the next few months).

I guess we'll see where the next couple of days take us.  I have very low expectations and will not be at all disappointed if Noah doesn't end up potty trained.  This isn't even my goal during the next couple of days.  I just don't want to be holding him back if he is ready.

Much Better Mood, Much Better Potty

For the record, I got out of the house today.  I drove into town, dropped Noah off with my parents for an hour and a half, and ran some errands.  Then we had dinner at my parents' house, came home, and it was bedtime.

Both Noah and I really enjoyed the change of pace.  When he woke up from his nap he was cranky, but as soon as I asked him if he wanted to go to Granny and Gramper's, he said "Yah!!  Car!  Go!!" and started making his way to the front door.

I am feeling much better.  I am out of my funk, and no longer want to punch anyone (haha).  I also finally bought Noah the Baby Bjorn potty I've been coveting since I was pregnant.  I just couldn't bring myself to spend $40 on a potty (although now I'm realizing that the potty I did buy was 34.99... hmmm self... hmmm), but it finally went on sale half off, so I got it.

Up until now Noah has been peeing on this Elmo potty:

As soon as I got this potty home and assembled, I realized I had made a mistake.  In order to empty the potty basin you have to remove the seat, and then lift out the basin.  And there are actually three separate pieces that pee can get on, and various cracks for it to get in.  Plus, because of the way the base is shaped, Noah has a hard time backing up to sit down independently on this potty without crushing his special parts on the splash guard.

I love Elmo, but this potty is stupid.

Now we have this beauty:

Much more comfortable, easier for Noah to get on and off independently, and much much much easier to dump out and clean.

I bought three of them.  One for home, one for the van, and one for Granny and Gramper's.

Sigh.  I'm in potty love.

~~~~

As a funny aside, when I brought one of the potties into my parents' house, Noah immediately wanted his diaper off so he could sit on it.  But apparently he had just peed - which my Dad confirmed by telling me he was recently saying "Pee!" to him - because nothing would come out.  Something always comes out when he sits on the potty, because he knows exactly how to relax that muscle.  But nothing came.  After about 20 seconds of sitting there, Noah threw both his hands in the air and said "Working!?" in his freaking adorable voice (seriously my kid has the most adorable voice).  As in "It's not working!!  The pee won't come!!"

He cracks me up.

More Potty!

Last week I posted about how Noah peed on the potty for the first time.  We've been pretty busy since then (Christmas), but he has peed on the potty once or twice pretty much every day since then, and has done it a total of 10 times now.  

But today was a new first!  Tonight before bath Noah peed on the potty, and then after bath he was running around, naked and hyper, and then he stopped, said "Pee!", ran to the potty, sat down, and peed.

It was his first time initiating peeing on the potty!  I was so proud.

Someone asked in the comments of my last post if I thought this was because of the cloth diapers.  I don't actually think that is the case.  Noah has never really cared if he had a wet or dirty bum, and he started out just peeing on the potty if I put him on, not initiating it himself, so I don't think the diapers has anything to do with him finally actually peeing when he was on the potty.

And to be clear, I am not actively potty training right now.  I think that at 21 months, he is still pretty young.  The whole point of what I'm doing is just to get Noah used to the potty.  My brother and sister in law didn't put my nephew (Elijah) on the potty until just recently, and Elijah is terrified of the potty and wants nothing to do with it (he'll be 3 in 2.5 months).  They think they waited too long.  I don't want fear of the potty to stop Noah from potty training, so back when Noah was 18 months, before I even found out about Elijah, we had an Elmo potty hanging out in our bathroom, which Noah would sometimes sit on.

I also want him to connect peeing, and the feeling of having to pee, with the potty.  Like I said, he doesn't care if he's wet or dirty.  Also, there have been a few times times in the last week that he has been on or near the potty (with no diaper on), and didn't pee, but then was running around in the bathroom or my bedroom, still nude, and started to pee on the floor.  When that happens, and say "Oh no!" (not in a mad way), and it makes him stop peeing.  I then swiftly place him on the potty so he can finish peeing in the appropriate spot.  Since he's been peeing on the potty for the last week, it seems that he has grown more aware of that sensation.  He pees more easily now when I put him on there.  And tonight he recognized the sensation before it happened, so he went to the potty himself.

I'm excited about the progress!  Noah seems to be, too, since we cheer and clap like crazy every time he successfully pees.  Then we give fist bumps, and he says "Pound it!"

I love that kid.

Potty Time!

Tonight, at 21 months and 3 days old,

Noah peed in the potty!!!

You can bet I was super excited!  We bought his potty (an Elmo one, of course) a few months ago, because he was so excited about toilets and peeing (we've been calling him the "Pee Spy" ever since he was 12 months and could walk around and open doors, because if you went to the bathroom in our house and didn't lock the door, you would definitely have a little visitor in there with you!).  I've put him on it a few times, but nothing has ever happened.  I haven't been in a hurry for potty training (at all), but I just got the potty to have around.  It's been in our bathroom next to the toilet ever since.

Tonight I had a long conversation with my Mom about her theories on potty training, why kids are potty training so much later now than they did a generation or two ago, and how she had all 4 of her kids (all born within 4.5 years) potty trained before they were 2.5.  Not that I am going to start hardcore training Noah, but a lot of what she said made sense to me.  So when I got Noah home tonight, while we were filling the bathtub, I put him on the potty again.  And he actually peed this time!

It was exciting.