Chugga chugga

Tomorrow marks the two week anniversary of Emmett's decision to start the potty training process. All-in-all it has been good. Today Emmett and I went to a thing in the park where DJ's were playing and they had a bouncy house (we went for the latter reason), and Emmett was rock solid for the two hours or so we were there. He apparently had an accident today at Andrea's school (pee) when he and Andrea were there, but we never have more than one of these and usually have zero. It has changed from something I am a little paranoid about when we leave the house to something I don't have to think about too much. Emmett has done a great job.

Well, mostly. The one sticking point with all of this has been day care. During the first week of training I didn't even try to have him go without diapers at day care because it was brand new to us and we hadn't thought through the transition. By the Tuesday of the second week, he had been training for about 9 days and I felt pretty good so we went for it. He has not gone to the bathroom without either Andrea or I being there yet and has had a number of accidents there. Luckily we only have one more week of day care and then we don't have to deal with that challenge again until August or September.

During this whole process I have realized why it is a good idea to have a kid wear underwear around the house. If naked, and not being paid too close attention too, Emmett will suddenly announce "poop finger" holding a sometimes unclean up in the air for inspection. Not a fun sight. The underwear at least mostly prevent this unpleasant occurrence.

Emmett continue to gets smarter---thankfully not going the other way. He is putting together longer and longer sentences with more complex thoughts. Much of what he says is understandable---not all, but much. Also, his memory has improved a lot...along with his ability to be sneaky. Anything mentioned just before sleep is the first thing out of his mouth when he wakes in the morning (e.g. we will see Belinda and Nick after nap, then waking and calling for Belinda and Nick). Today at the jumpy house he had been carrying around a bulldozer and wanted more than anything to take it into the house. At first he asked and I would always say no, then he would just try and do it and I would take it away, then he started taking all sorts of circuitous routes and accidentally ending up back at the mouth of the house and trying to go up before I would notice. What made it seem a little more sneaky (and impressive) was that he was able to do this without looking back to see if I was watching or if his trick was working. He's getting craftier.

I don't think there is too much more to report. It seems like all of our time has been spent thinking about potty issues and just recently have been been able to get back to doing normal things without worry.

Potty update

We have finished day three of the great potty practice period. Tuesday I had class and Emmett was in day care, so he went with diapers then. Today (Wednesday) Emmett and I were home. We stuck around the house all morning and Emmett was diaper free. He actually was peeing in his little potty rather than a cup, so that was a big step forward. I spent much of this morning sitting on the bathroom floor reading Emmett books as he tried to poop but had no luck. Around 10:00am or so I got a string of calls for someone that doesn't live here, and was pretty angry by the time the third or so call came and was arguing with the person on the phone. Emmett took off (I was in the living room) and then a couple of minutes later (I was still on the phone) he called to me. When I went to him in the bathroom I found that he had taken himself to his potty and gone poop all by himself. Pretty big day for the big boy.

I didn't mention this, but much of the driver for this whole bathroom thing was the fact that Emmett was given a pack of Thomas the Train underwear by one of Andrea's co-workers and he was dying to wear them. Thomas the Train saves the day again.

We spent a lot of today playing hide and seek while waiting for trips to the bathroom. Andrea has gotten Emmett hooked on hide and seek. He is actually pretty good about keeping his face hidden rather than peeking around to see where we are when we are looking for him. However, both Andrea and I search the room he is in by asking "is Emmett under the couch?", etc. while we look in these places, but Emmett has taken to answering each of these questions when we ask them from his hiding place---I guess he doesn't realize his voice gives away his location.

Emmett is learning things at a blistering pace. Today at lunch he was eating some crackers I made and held four up and noted (correctly) that they were in the shapes of a rectangle, square, triangle, and diamond, respectively. He has also gotten most of counting from one-to-ten down (Augie and Ethan are both counting to their teens at least so he is a little behind in this).

Oh, and the singing continues. Andrea was surprised to hear Emmett singing along to "Yellow Submarine" by the Beatles yesterday when it came on the stereo, but that is one of the many songs we sing on our bike ride to school each day.

In the cup

Quick post here as I am expecting the kid to wake up any minute. Yesterday Andrea decided that it was high time Emmett was going potty in the toilet, so starting first thing in the morning she had Emmett peeing in a cup. Andrea set up a paper on the wall on which a sticker was to be attached for each successful pee, and by the end of the day there were nearly 10. Emmett had one pee accident when I took him for a walk in the backyard, and other than that had no wet diapers or anything until bedtime (including a dry diaper at nap). It was a huge success for Andrea and Emmett, but not me so much as I couldn't get him to pee at all (which resulted in the accident outside). Emmett was super excited about the sticker reward system and even more excited that he gets to wear underwear. He did poop in his underwear yesterday, so there was no luck in that department.

Today, however is another day, and first thing in the morning Andrea got him to go poop in the toilet. It was a little traumatic for him, but he was excited once the clean-up was done. Unfortunately Andrea has to work today which meant that I have had to be on pee patrol (he is peeing in a paper cup, standing, by the way---we don't have the right toilet set-up). I was having no luck until 9:30 or so (a long time with no peeing), when I tried an Andrea recommendation and gave him 3 or 5 glasses of juice. He could hold it no longer and we have been successful with the pee all day. We even made a quick trip to the store in underwear (well, with pants over them---he was upset about the fact that he finally gets to wear underwear and then we cover them with pants). Luckily both today and yesterday have been somewhat rainy so it is easier to keep him indoors.

So, today has been dry completely with a poop in the toilet and an unexpected second one in his underwear later on, and yesterday was dry all day except one outside one. We are getting somewhere.

Here is a picture from Saturday where he brought his potty out and put it on the coffee table to show how things were done. The picture is from my phone, so not so good, but the good news is that our camera was found and when we get it back there should be more pictures coming.

Our singer

When Emmett and I used to go to the the singing library time over a year ago, I learned a song called "Ladybug" where I sing to him about the lady bug landing on him, crawling up his leg or arm, and then flying away. While singing it, I was taught to land my hand on him like a bug, then have it crawl up by walking my hand up his arm on my fingers. This inevitably gets him to squirm because it is ticklish. Anyway, I never thought that he really liked the song very much, but I took to singing it to him when we are riding the bus together because it will capture his attention for a few minutes. Well, the other day I walked into the living room where he had been playing by himself and found him crawling his hand up his arm and then having the ladybug fly away as he did his best to sing the words. He didn't see me there, so it was all for his own entertainment. It was pretty cute stuff.

He has actually been singing a lot of songs to himself recently. It must be the case that they are singing quite a bit in day care (which makes me feel good) since I haven't been doing very much (which makes me feel bad), but I think that Andrea has been doing quite a bit too (again, makes me feel good). Andrea commented, and I agreed, that Emmett hasn't developed such a pretty singing voice just yet. Hopefully he will get one like his mom, who performed at Bimbo's this past Saturday night. She was really good, as was the band. The bad part was that we ended up losing our camera there, and especially tragic was the fact that it had pictures of Emmett in the mirrored glasses and clip-on earring that were part of my George Michael outfit. Sad.