Potty Training Day 1 and a half

Since we are all at home with not much to do (except stay at home) we thought it would be the perfect time for hardcore potty training. We don't have anything going on to interrupt a schedule so we started first thing Monday morning.

Seth definitely had me fooled this time. Day one of potty training went so well I though we had this all tied up and he would be potty trained by dinner. (Not really of course but he was doing great.) We decided to go with a sticker chart which is hung up in the bathroom so he can see all of his stickers and we have a potty seat that attaches to the regular toilet with a step and handles. We also decided to go with pullups during the day and use a diaper at night since we know he won't wake up at night to pee and he usually has a pretty full diaper by morning. We started first thing when he got up and went straight to the potty. Sure enough, his first time on he peed on the potty! We celebrated and put up a sticker. We continued trying to potty about every hours during the day. He did amazing! We had four times he peed in the potty and once he pooped in the potty...on the first day. He had two wet pullups and a poopy pullup, but the odds were good. We celebrated each time and put up stickers.
Then flash forward to day two. We aren't even done yet and I'm ready to pull my hair out. We have only had pee on the potty once today, and it was probably luck more than anything else. We are still going every hour...but Seth just wants to flush the toilet and play on the step. When he does sit on the potty he screams about pee and poop but doesn't do anything but sing and laugh. I think he lulled us into a false sense of security. We are currently focused on trying to get him to tell us when he has to potty before it happens, but we aren't there yet.
Wish us luck! I hope we survive...

The Days the World Stops

Every generation has a day. That single day everyone remembers when everything just stopped. Those days are tied to death, loss and shock. That makes sense when you think about it because when something good happens we don’t stop, we move faster and celebrate. There are limitless examples of world stopping days from before my time. Sometimes one person died, sometimes a few, sometimes many. Once even no one died but the potential for death was so big the world held its breath anyway. A few examples from before my time include: that day in November 1963, the dropping of the atomic bombs in 1945, the explosion of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986, and the attack on Pearl Harbor December 7, 1941. Of course there are thousands more but those jumped to the front of my mind without effort. Then during my life there are several I can think of easily as well. The most impactful world wide was the attack on September 11, 2001. Up to that point that was the most traumatic event I could imagine. In my lifetime all wars have been fought “over there” without the extreme loss of life that had been seen in past wars. (Before anyone gets offended: yes, I know we have been at war constantly; yes, I know many have lost their lives and I am not trying to minimize that sacrifice; I simply mean that wars now rely heavily on diplomacy, economics and threats resulting in less total lives lost as compare to say the world wars or Korea or Vietnam.) The shooting at Columbine in 1999, which now has been followed by countless other school shootings. The Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, a case of domestic terrorism, was shocking to watch on tv as a child. On a local scale, the ice storm in 1998 made most of the state of Maine shut down for weeks. I remember being upset when Bangor closed schools for a month and I only got a day or two in Caribou.
Now, for the first time in Seth’s life, the world has stopped again. This time on a massive scale with risk to everyone’s life in a way I have never seen before.  Some luckily healthy people will remember this time as an annoyance. A time when they couldn’t party, go shopping, and had to change vacation plans. Students will remember missing school, graduation, proms, their friends, and for some their safety and security. Grandparents will remember missing their families and not knowing if they will ever see them again. People like me with chronic illnesses or underlying conditions will remember being scared to go out for necessities and being afraid of crowds of people. We will remember having the security pulled away from us and being replaced by a daily fear of becoming even more sick then we are, especially as we face losing access to our medication. Service workers will remember feeling torn between feeling needed and valued, and feeling like they are being sacrificed to others needs. Healthcare providers will remember doing their jobs like the heros that they are while being undersupplied, under staffed, under appreciated, and worrying about their own safety and that of their families. Teachers will remember being asked to do the impossible, accomplishing it because they are incredibly amazing, and spending every moment of their day worrying about “their kids” because every teacher adopts “their kids.”
Seth will remember very little...because he is only two. But all we will let him remember is that Mommy and Daddy were home more. We played more, spent time outside more, cuddled more and were happy. I am sure this will continue for some time and that is all I want Seth to remember so one day when he is older and something happens to make the world stop, he will know how to get past it. He will remember to hold his family closer, to enjoy the time he has, and to be grateful for what is there instead of focusing on what is lost.

Stay Safe!!!

There have always been diseases and illnesses circulating since time began, but this is the first time during my life that I have seriously been scared. I remember SARS and H1N1, several kinds of flus, anthrax in the mail, and even once in a town near where I lived people were poisoned with arsenic. Though all of those things were scary, I don't remember ever feeling any personal fear. Some I was too young to really understand and others always seemed so far away, even when they affected people I knew. This time the treat seems very real and very personal. We know this virus is going to circulate all over into every community because it is so very contagious and is being spread by people without any symptoms. Not only does it spread quickly and easily, but it is especially dangerous for people at higher risk: the elderly, people with heart and lung diseases, and people who are immune compromised. Luckily they are saying that the virus is relatively mild for children in most cases as long as they are regularly healthy, but I still worry about Seth. To make it even more fun, my partner has asthma and does not breath well regularly and I along with asthma have lupus which puts me in the category of immune compromised. Both of us have jobs that put us into contact with large groups of the public and neither of us and can afford to not work. Even if I choose to follow best practice and stay home myself, Carroll with still bring me any germs he comes into contact with during the day because neither of us will have any income if we do not work. Basically at this point, I have to make the assumption that I will be sick at some point and hope for the best because there is no way for me to avoid it entirely. I feel like a lot of people are being put in the same position of not having the choice of following the advice of staying home. Because if we do stay home...in a month or two we won't have a home to stay in.

Spit it Out!

About six months ago Seth had a major biting problem. We knew that it was a typical stage for littles to go through and we also understood that he was cutting most of his teeth at the time. Not that we enjoyed being bitten, but it made empathy a bit easier. Starting a few weeks ago his new behavior is spitting. It started first with his drinks. He would suck juice (or whatever else he had) into his mouth and then pull the cup back and let the juice run down his front. Then he graduated to directing the liquid onto different surfaces outside his body. Now he has figured out how to do it with just saliva as well. There have been times I have had to change his clothes, wash his bedding, wash the floors, or even give him an unexpected bath. Telling him no, giving consequences and offering alternatives have not made any difference to him. At this point I’m debating having him wear bibs all the time or having him wash the floors when he spits. Either way, he is about to be my little llama. 🙂

Bed Time Troubles

This is what I listened for at least a good half hour before my little angel decided he was ready to lay down quietly. The time it takes him to fall victim to the evil sleep monster seems to be increasing every time he is put to bed. He has regular nap times and bed times so there shouldn’t be a problem. It seems like he knows he is almost two years old and he decided he is now too old for silly things like quiet time and sleep. This morning’s nap didn’t happen until after noon time, and not for lack of trying on my part. I put him down to nap three times this morning starting at his normal 9:30 time (he is up super early in the morning). I listened from the next room as he did baby yoga, gymnastics, delivered several speeches to riotous crowds, and kicked, hit and threw everything within his reach. Then it was time for lunch and a diaper change. An hour later I try his morning nap in the afternoon and he laid down and went to sleep in ten minutes. Most days he would rather nap in the morning. I think pretty soon I will need to teach him to tell time and see if that helps. The best part: he let me know he was awake by fake snoring as loud as he could!

Winter fun!

This winter has had really odd weather, especially for Maine. Winter, as defined by me, is supposed to have temperatures consistently below the freezing point and snow banks high enough to make turning corners difficult. While this has happened about a hundred miles north of us, it did not happen in our part of the state. Instead we had temperatures bouncing between twenty-five and forty on a regular basis, and while we did get snow, we more often got rain and sleet at the same time killing our snow banks. Unfortunately the weather made it really hard for Seth to spend as much time outside as he would have liked the last couple months because it was either raining or too cold most days. He did get to spend time sledding with his cousins a few times and small pockets of time at home to explore the snow before freezing to death. Yesterday we had a beautiful spring day and we decided to take advantage of it and bring Seth outside to make his first snowman! He had a blast, though he had more fun throwing the snow than he did building the snowman. He also ran around the house several times and went on a sled ride with Daddy. Little Man is definitely dealing with some cabin fever so hopefully the fresh air did him some good. After coming back inside we decided to go visit the neighbors who had just gotten home from school. Seth then got to spend even more time outside playing with his friends! He walked around their house, went on a sled ride there, and learned how hard it was to walk in deeper snow. He actually lost a shoe and then got scared when he had trouble climbing up the hill because he was sliding. After spending some time playing inside with his friends and learning a little bit about sharing, we came home and had dinner. After dinner was bath and bed and Seth went right to sleep. I'm sure he was dreaming about snowy days and fun with friends. :)

St. Patrick's Day Crafting

Since little man is starting to become more familiar with tools and really enjoyed his Valentine's craft, I wanted to try and continue his crafting time but also keep it simple because he is only two. For St. Patrick's Day I thought I would do something easy that would work on his fine motor skills. I haven't let him play with crayons yet because he is still going to his mouth with almost everything, but we have to start sometime. For this craft I used poster board to create shamrocks for him to decorate with crayons. I just printed out a simple shamrock print to use as a tracer which you can find anywhere by googling. After cutting out the shamrocks, I used tape on the back to hold them down on the tray for him so he didn't have to worry about them flying around and he could focus on the coloring part. I gave him a variety of green and yellow crayons to work with so he had limited choices and didn't become overwhelmed. Then I just let him go with it while I colored one to model. He stopped to move around several times and then would come right back to keep working.

 A few side notes...try to use the more matte side of the poster board as it will take the crayon better without kind of smearing. I prefer a more high quality crayon like Crayola just because they color smoother without him having to push so hard so he can work on his pincher grip without needing to grind it into the table. If you want to be able to keep the art work forever, I would put the name and date on the back and laminate it. I used duct tape to hold down the poster board and removed it carefully, but masking tape would be better, I just didn't have any. Also as you can see he started with three to color, but he decided to rip one up instead of coloring it. 🙂
I also decided to do a harder project and drew a rainbow with a cloud and a pot of gold. I then disassembled the rainbow and gave Seth a piece at a time with the correct colors and once he was done all the colors I reassembled the rainbow. Since each piece was only one color Seth was not happy because he couldn't’ choose his crayon. I managed to get red, orange and yellow doing it hand iver hand, but after that he was done entirely. Since I wanted to finish it today I did the other three colors in the same style to match. I was impressed he sat to do as much as he did. (I took care of the cloud and pot of gold myself. His attention span is decent for two but isn't limitless and he was done.)

Ow!

"Ow!" is Seth's first reaction now to anything scary, loud or painful...and occasionally the things he thinks he might get in trouble for. This morning he managed to scare himself with a loud noise by pulling a stack of bowls off the counter and smashing two of them. It's the first time he has broken and dishes and he ran to the next room to hide saying, "ow!" After finding him and calming him down, I put him in his chair and made sure that he didn't have any glass on him and then turned to cleaning up. I had to fight the cat for the right to clean the floor, but I managed.

After it was clean I sat down and talked to Seth about it and explained that it was okay for him to have made the mistake, he had never tried to pull down dishes before and all we give him is plastic so he didn't know that they would break. I talked to him about being careful and how the glass could hurt him because it was sharp. Of course I knew to him what he got from the situation is that it scared him so he probably won't do it again for a few days. The funny part was how my reaction was different from Daddy's. I was focused on how he could have been hurt and making sure he was safe. When I told Daddy about it, after I reassured him that no one got hurt, he asked how many broke and then answered with, "well now we don't have to wash those." Every broken dish has a silver lining!