This last week- a recap

This week has been an exhausting one! Between potty training, and looking for a job, and Mike officially finishing his BNSF training, we were ready for the weekend. Luckily my mom came to visit, so we also got a bit of a break from the little one as well. 

Potty training is still going good, but there was about 2-3 days in there where I couldn't get my head on straight, and I kept blaming myself for all of Sean's accidents. Then I found myself feeling angry, and I think all of the emotions rubbed off onto him and he started to not go on the potty at all. Of course that spiraled into me thinking I was doing everything wrong, failing as a mother, and so on and so forth. I am an incredibly rational person, can't you tell? 

Of course after a couple of chats with my very best girlfriends and some ego boosts from the hubby, I eventually got my priorities back in order and was able to relax a bit. I had to remind myself that even though I didn't expect to see my child get potty trained in 3 days, I probably wasn't going to see true progress after 3 days either. This is an ongoing thing, and the reason for starting this young isn't necessarily so you can throw all the diapers out at 18 months- it's so that when he truly is ready, the potty concept isn't a foreign one to him. 

That being said, because of my anxiety levels this last week, I told myself we weren't failing if I had to put a diaper on him during the day. And that when he told me "no" when it was time to go, that it wasn't the end of potty training as we know it. He is 1 1/2 years old....... let me repeat that. HE IS 1 1/2 YEARS OLD. His mood changes at the drop of a hat. Sometimes he will be happy and compliant, and other times he will be a total pill who wants to defy everything I say no matter what it is. Welcome to parenthood, right? Oh well, I guess I will learn. 

For now, he is still mostly naked during the day at home, and we can even manage to get out of the house 90% of the time in underwear with no accidents. I am working on taking him to the potty every 45 minutes to an hour, and seeing if he will pee when I tell him to. I would say he does a little more than half of the time. I figure once he can "pee on command" then he might be ready to start telling me when he actually has to go. That is the area he doesn't understand quite yet. I still think we are progressing nicely- he pees on the potty 2-4 times a day, and maybe has about the same number of accidents. 

Pooping is a whole other issue- he has been borderline constipated lately, so I have been ignoring the poop thing altogether. He is still pooping daily, so I am not really concerned. But I know that when people have problems with potty training, it usually stems from or leads to constipation. He pooped in the potty the first 2-3 days of potty training, but now even though he will usually pee in it without any problems, he is hesitant to poop on it. So I am letting him poop however it comes out (bare butt, diaper, or underpants, I don't really care!) until he relaxes about the whole concept a little, then we will start trying to get it into the potty. 

OK, OK!! Enough talk about poop and pee and all of that good stuff (isn't parenting a blast??) Mike is officially a conductor with BNSF now, and worked his first solo shift last night. He was actually working as a foreman (they were trained in several areas other than conducting), and he was working at one of the yards in South Seattle. A conductor is technically one that travels with the train, but he is trying to avoid those jobs for now if he can help it. I am so proud of him, and he really seems to be enjoying the job as well. The toughest part so far is the unpredictability for his schedule for the next year, or possibly several years. Eventually, though, he will be able to be on a set schedule for sure, and at that point we will be able to relax a little more, plan things, etc. 

I have still been looking for a job, but I have been back and forth with how hard I try. On one hand, money is tight, so I should be working. On the other hand, come next month Mike should be bringing in a lot more money than he was on student pay, so we really don't know how that will all pan out quite yet. So that leaves me to want a job sooner than later for two reasons: to either help make ends meet, or to make extra money so we can finally be ahead. It also reminds me that we might be ok if I don't get a job quite yet, and stay home with Sean for just a bit longer. Come this time next year, Sean will be preschool age, so I will have a lot more options for the schools I could potentially work at. In the meantime, when I visit a potential employer, I am also viewing them as a potential childcare/school for my son. This makes job searching much more stressful as a mom. *Sigh* I know it will work itself out eventually. But realistically it will not work itself out on its own- I WILL have to make some effort on my part. 

This weekend was a blast!! We went to Tiff and Dan's house in Shelton on Saturday. It was a bit of a drive, but it is so pretty out there, and it has been almost a year since we saw them, so it was totally worth it!! We have been talking about places to live that have acreage, and Shelton and its surrounding areas are less expensive, so it's possible we might try to make our way out there after Mike has enough seniority to move to another yard further south of Seattle. The baby shower was lots of fun, and my sweet friend Tiff was just glowing with her new mommy vibes : ) 

On Saturday night we went to our friend Brittany's house. She is leaving for China on Wednesday, and as of yet she has no plans to come back. So it was a farewell party for her. It was nice to get out for a few hours without a toddler on my hip! It made me realize that I didn't make anywhere near enough of an effort to hang out with Brittany since I got back to WA, and now I am really going to miss her. At the same time, I am very excited for her. I have always admired her ability to see what she wants and then grab it. She has accomplished so much in life, and I think that is just incredible. I really hope she gets everything she dreams of from her move to China. 

Anyways, my mom just left to head back to OR. I am enjoying a quiet house- Daddy is sleeping, Baby is napping. After looking through all of my friends albums on FB of brand new babies, and families full of older children too, I am sitting here dreaming of baby #2. No official plans yet, but I have a feeling that in about a year or two this will be something in the works ; )

As usual, I will leave you with a few pics of the best thing I ever made : )

 

Potty Training!!

OK, in parenting there are some things that are just plain exhausting. Apparently potty training is one of them!! Although I must say that my 19.5 month old boy is impressing me a bit. I have always heard that it is more difficult to potty train boys, and it's more time consuming (but not necessarily difficult) to potty train any child before the age of two. Well I laugh in the face of all you people who say these things, and decide we will do it all anyways, MUAHAHAHA. 

It's not really that funny though. It's actually quite tiring and tedious. But we are seeing some results, so methinks we should keep going with it. 

Even though technically it would be much easier to just stick him in diapers. It's not really about the mess- he hasn't been drinking as much fluid lately, and he has also slowed down on his eating. So there really hasn't been that much bodily fluids coming out of him, into the potty or otherwise, compared to back in the "old" days when he ate me out of house and home and consumed 25+ ounces of milk plus 5-10 ounces water each day. It is, however, about letting him run around naked ALL DAY and sitting on the edge of my seat, waiting for our "learning opportunity" to arise when he looks like he will pee or poop and he's not already sitting on the potty. That is probably the most exhausting part about potty training- I am constantly waiting for him to pee or poop so I can teach him to put it into the potty, instead of on the floor on in his pants. 

See, what I have realized about babies in general is that they spend approximately 23 out of the 24 hours in each day in their diaper. And a good diaper that does its job will not let the baby feel hardly anything when it comes to peeing and pooping. So when you start to potty train, the key is to let them have accidents to begin with- this is their first experience with seeing/feeling it come out of their body and not get absorbed into the diaper. Let them experience cause and effect, ya know? They have been getting these sensations all along, but not seeing the results of the sensations. Naked time gives them the results. And at about this age is when they start to show some awareness of what their body is doing, so I think that is why potty training between 18-24 months used to be so popular (before the convenience of disposable diapers that is), because they are finally starting to put two and two together. 

But based on all of this running around and anticipating I've been doing, I don't blame parents for wanting to wait until their kids are older to start potty training- there is a lot of work involved, especially when the communication is still fairly limited. At least a 3 year old can talk better than a 1 year old, right? Although, a 3 year old *can* be more stubborn than a 1 year old. I think that was my fear and part of why I decided to try at this age. 

I also decided to try because he was showing some signs of being ready- he would often tell me before (but usually after) pooping in his diaper, and he despised being in it for more than a few minutes; he showed a real interest in his little potty that we bought him, and always wants to come in with mommy and daddy to the bathroom when we go, and uses his signs to acknowledge that he understands what we're doing; also he would watch me put his poop into the toiled from his cloth diapers each day; he understands "wet" and "dry," and is starting to prefer dry; and he has started to be able to go for longer stretches of time before having to pee. 

He does not stay dry at nighttime yet, but I know that some kids have a hard time with this well into elementary school so I don't think that is a good judge for whether or not they are ready to daytime potty train. And he is still learning to dress and undress himself, but again this is something that I think he will learn as he gets further into potty training, and will have a chance to practice more with it, so I don't think we needed to wait until he had that skill mastered to start. 

Anyways, this is probably one of the tougher parenting tasks to date for me. One, because of everything I explained before and how exhausting it can be. And two, because there are so many different ways that people choose to potty train their kids- so asking for advice is almost worse than just figuring it out as you go. Everything I hear that one friend did for their kid is something another friend says didn't work for them or they tell you it's not the right or realistic way to approach it. Even my own pediatrician didn't really hear me say that I wanted to potty train soon, and all I heard him say back to me was that he may not get it until he is 3 or so. 

I feel like a lot of people have been a little bit less than encouraging through all of this, and they only ones who have been encouraging are the ones who started potty training with their kids around the same age. They may not have been fully trained until 2 or 2.5, but at least they saw their child's potential and tried to create an environment that would fit those needs. That is all I wanted to do- I am willing to exhaust myself and put up with a few messes if he is showing me that this is something he may be ready for. And I am not going to throw in the towel over a few hiccups along the way. I felt like I was holding him back if I put him back in diapers, and I felt like I would be giving up on him rather than helping him with success. Realistically, I am not busy with a second or third child, and I am not working (outside of being a stay at home mom) or going to school, or busy with much else other than chasing my active toddler around, so this was something I considered to be doable.

We are on day 4.5 of potty training- we have seen some really successful days, and days like yesterday where there was little to no true success at all. But I will try to remember to let you all know how it goes from here, and fingers crossed that we continue to see progress along the way!!