More news on the kids. They have made really large strides these last few weeks before the New Year.
After Jocelyn’s first exploration up the stairs, she struggled for a couple of days to completely master climbing the stairs and could not seem to get above 2 or 3 stairs. Then she saw the cat on the mid-point landing of the stairs. Desire and incentive play a large part in our life and Joss had the desire to see the cat and therefore the incentive to climb the stairs. She made it all the way to the landing as DominicsMom watched her. Then the cat slipped past her on her way down to eat. Apparently the look on Joss’s face was classic as she made the great effort to climb the stairs and then had the object of her desire brush by her on the way down… After that incident, she has climbed all the way to the second floor (accompanied by one of us!) several times now. She usually heads to Dominic’s room as he has all the toys.
I still have to find the kid’s gate and install it….
Well, we had another first of sorts last night… We are trying to potty train Dominic and have been actively doing so for the past two months. We haven’t pushed too hard as he wasn’t too interested initially. We give him a cookie when he sits down on his toilet and have promised him more cookies if he actually makes pee-pee or poo-poo into the toilet. Well the other day I was giving him a bath when I saw him look down at his pee-pee (nice technical term that) and noticed a small up-welling in the water. He was peeing into the bath. I asked him if that was what he was doing and he said no. (Little liar…) I asked him if could make pee-pee into the bath, so he stood up, made a bit of a face and then pee’d into the water! I clapped my hands and called him a good boy as this was the first time he had pee’d on command for us (then I added a bit more soap to the water.) When we were done, I dried him off and then asked him if he could make pee-pee into the toilet. He nodded yes and then stood in front of his toilet. After a moment, he let go with a small stream! We were very excited and Dominic got a bunch of cookies. Subsequently Dominic has made pee-pee into the bath and his toilet several more times.
(Side note for the girls: All guys pee in the shower so Dominic peeing in the bath is not that unusual. It’s very convenient because the urge to go usually only happens after you’ve started to run the water and it’s gotten nice and toasty. Stopping to go pee would mean shutting off the water, going pee, and then having to start over getting the water to the right temperature or leaving the water running which is a waste of water. This is a real pain, particularly if you have already disrobed and its cold in the house! Other causes of peeing in the shower occur because once you step into the shower and get wet, the urgent urge to pee will hit you. Now most guys do stop peeing in the shower when they get older. I promise I have not done so since I was a little boy-ish!!! Really, DominicsMom, you have nothing to worry about!)On to the point of all this. Last night I was giving Dominic a bath and he announced to me that he had to go poo-poo and pointed to the bath. (DominicsMom was downstairs with Joss making a bottle for her) I said no, make poo-poo in the toilet. I didn’t really pay attention because Dominic will often ask to sit on the toilet, he knows he will get at least one cookie and if he looks cute enough, sometimes he gets a second one. No problem, he continued on for a bit, playing in the bath. So I eventually took him out, dried him off, and placed him on the bed to put on his diaper and pajamas. He again said he had to go poo-poo and punctuated it with some gas, which sounded very, lets say wet. So I picked him up and took him to his toilet.
Now, for those faint of heart, I’ve written two versions as things get a little disgusting (and a bit graphic.) Skip down to read the short, sanitized version. To read all the details, highlight the blank portion of your screen under this paragraph (place your mouse curser under this paragraph, then hold down the left mouse button and drag it down to the bottom of the blank portion). I’ve changed the color of the font to black so it won’t show. Highlighting the blank portion of the screen will make it appear.At his toilet
I sat him down, but he said “No, no” and stoop up and assumed his position. Since he could stand, Dominic has always stood to poop. He’s had some, let’s say issues, with pooping so we didn’t seek to change this. But now he wants to poop standing up. In this case, I didn’t think that he would be able to do anything as he’s always made a lot of grunting noises previously. This time he was serious and actually had to poop, I just didn’t know it. I tried to arrange him a bit, just in case. Standing on top of his toilet was too shaky, so he got off. Turning him around so that he faced away from the toilet and his butt hung over the toilet a bit did not give him anything to lean against and he turned around. So he ended up leaning over his toilet and holding onto the bathroom cabinets (like a tired or drunk guy about to pee in the toilet) and made some faces. I wasn’t really too worried as I still did not think he would do it. But once again, desire can be a huge incentive! The desire this time was for a cookie (he really likes the circus cookies, you know the Mothers Brand white or pink animal cookies with the sprinkles on them.) As he worked at it for a bit, I lost interest (still not thinking anything would happen!) and turned to watch the TV. Then I heard a wet plopping sound. I turned and there was a big log sitting between his legs and a mess on his behind…As I wasn’t ready for this, I called for him to stand still as I went for the wipes. When I turned back, he had backed away from the toilet, but stepped into his poop. Yuck! I called for help. So it was a big mess, but we couldn’t let on as we wanted to encourage his pooping. I wiped up his feet and then the floor as DominicsMom dropped him back into the tub to clean his feet. Once everything was clean, we gave him cookies and dressed him, praising him the whole time. This was the first time he willingly pooped on command. Hopefully he will continue to advance and we can finish potty training him! I’ll have to work on the sitting down to poop thing, I think that will take a bit as he has had some pooping issues in the past.
(Sanitized version: )In short, Dominic has always stood to poop and did so this time, pooping on the bathroom floor in front of his toilet. After a bit of excitement, we cleaned him up and gave him some cookies. This was the first time he willingly pooped on command. Hopefully he will continue to advance and we can finish potty training him! I’ll have to work on the sitting down to poop thing, I think that will take a bit as he has had some pooping issues in the past.
DominicsGrandpa Frank gives Dominic some whip cream...
