Weekend Fragments

Liz over at Eternal Lizdom does "Friday Fragments" where she publishes a post full of little things--events from her week or random thoughts that have been on her mind--not things that go together usually, just a bunch of stuff...
Today's post is something like that;
only not on a Friday.

~♥~☻~♥~☻~♥~☻~♥~

Tuesday night Wolf was horsing around with my exercise ball (aka birth ball) and tossed it through the air in my bedroom, resulting in a collision between ball and overhead light...light cover is shattered, ball is punctures, and he got a pretty good gash in his side (it bled a lot but was minor enough that a couple of bandaids sufficed).
I was admittedly more than a bit frustrated, partly because of standard rules like "you have a playroom and a bedroom, so don't play in mom and dad's room" and also "the exercise ball is not a toy," but most especially because he did almost exactly the same thing (tossed a basketball and busted a light) when he was 3, and THAT incident resulted in a trip to the emergency room and 8 stitches between his eyes. He seems determined to be a "school of hard knocks" kid though. I guess it's teaching me the virtue of patience.

~♥~☻~♥~☻~♥~☻~♥~

Thursday night Hubby was base jumping bowling goofing off with a couple of his players after basketball practice and he busted his ankle. At the time he thought it was just a twist or a sprain, so we iced it and he put it up...but Friday morning it was still extremely painful. The school athletic director taped it for him and lent him a pair of crutches and I took him in for an x-ray. It's a spiral fracture to the fibula (if you're like me and forget which is which, the fibula is the smaller bone on the back which facilitates movement of the ankle and foot). The break is just above the ankle, but thankfully all the ligaments and tendons in the actual ankle are intact, so it's not nearly as bad as it could have been. So now he's got crutches and an inflatable boot/cast thingie and he's going nuts. Our apartment is accessed via an exterior staircase, which is more than a little hassle for him. The doctor wants to see him back in just 2 weeks though, which is promising. Hopefully he'll be healed sooner rather than later. In the meantime he can't move very fast, and it's hard for him to drive so I'm doing a lot of shuttling.
Once again I am very thankful for insurance, and reaffirm my belief that everyone should have a right to free (or at least affordable) medical care.

~♥~☻~♥~☻~♥~☻~♥~

Friday we got paid. This always makes me happy, because it's a once-a-month thing, and so payday means that I get to get caught up on all the bills and go grocery shopping (which, yes, I do 80+% of my grocery shopping in a once-a-month trip). The last week or so it had really felt like I was "cookin somethin outta nuthin" every day...but no more! Hubby is particularly happy to have meat in the house again, as I tend to use a lot of beans and lentils when we get to the 'nuthin' stage.
I also have to boast just a little bit. Safeway has an endearing practice of putting how much you saved at the bottom of your reciept--both in dollar amount and in percentage. I aim for saving at least 20%. This week's reciept (remember this is most of my shopping for the month) I saved 32%. Oh yeah, that's how I like it to look!! ☺

~♥~☻~♥~☻~♥~☻~♥~

Eagle has sniffles and Bear has an ugly cough. Thursday night I was up with one or the other about 6 times, so it was no shock that by Friday afternoon I wasn't feeling well either. All the running around for Hubby's busted leg didn't help, but both the kiddos were great little troopers. (Wolf was at school through most of it, but has been a great help at home ☺)
Eagle has been nursing a lot so I'm a bit engorged again as my supply surges to keep up with his needs. Friday night I tucked blankets around his carseat (to make it stable) and put him in there to sleep so that he'd be more upright and be able to breathe better, but I still ended up needing to take him into the bathroom to steam him out around 1am and again around 6. The upside is that since we were up anyway, I gave him a chance over the toilet, and he had no hesitation putting something in on both occasions--and had an almost perfectly dry diaper in the morning! It seems that he doesn't like being wet any more than I like letting him be wet. I was pleased when Bear toilet-taught himself at 24 months, but if things continue like this Eagle may well be months ahead of his brother.

Wee-hee!

Baby made a pee...in the toilet!!!
At one day shy of 2 months old.
Today was the second time he stayed dry through a nap, so I took him to the bathroom and held him over the toilet and said "psspsspsspss" and voila, he peed in the toilet. Bear sat and watched and was oh so impressed (in spite of the fact that he was doing the same thing when he was even younger). ☺

I wrote about the little bit of Elimination Communication I did with Bear, and I do believe that it contributed to his learning to use the potty (on his own initiative) around his 2nd birthday.
I definitely believe in cloth diapers, and I don't hesitate to put a diaper on my kid...but especially when I'm at home, I try to pay attention, and if I pick up on patterns (like staying dry for a 2 hour nap and then filling a diaper really full right afterward) then I can use that information to make my baby's life a little more pleasant. Why use/change/wash a diaper if you don't have to, right?

Maybe Eagle will potty train himself at 18 months...shall we take bets on it?! ☺


ETA (edited to add)
We had our second EC catch an hour later (after another little nap). We're off to a good start!

Bear-isms

(click the image to see other Tiny Talk Tuesdays with Mary at NotBefore7)

Bear is in the stage where he wants me to kiss everything better. One time a couple of weeks ago he came for a kiss and I gave him several (just to make sure). He said I was "kissing it too big" and gave me a dirty look.

Skip ahead a week, and he comes to me to have something else kissed all better...I laid on the required kiss and he stuck the injured part back in my face and said "Kiss it too big mommy, kiss it too big!"

He also likes to pour his own juice--he's become a real juice-aholic lately--and I've discovered that it's because apparently I don't put enough in the cup. Several times now he has told me that I need to "pour it too big."

~~~~~~~~~

You may remember the Twinkle Potato incident of a few weeks ago... well, for about three weeks that was the only song he wanted at bedtime. I told him I didn't know how it went, so he sang it for me.

Twinkle Twinkle Little Potato [giggle]
Swimming in the Doggy Dish
[giggle giggle giggle giggle]

Now every version of "Twinkle twinkle" that he sings involves swimming in the doggy dish. I keep asking myself if I ever sang "twinkle fish" that way, but I can't remember...I probably did, but I don't know!

~~~~~~~~~

Bear has decided to be a potty-user. He's been very self-motivated about this, and within the last couple of weeks has more or less finished the job.
A couple of days ago I was sitting on the bathroom floor next to him as he sat on the toilet, and he explained to me that he had just made "sheen-gun poo" (that's "machine gun poo" for those who don't speak Bearish). Um, he wha?! (I know I didn't teach him about 'sheen-guns, but I guess Wolf did, because Bear says most anything is a sheen-gun. Sticks, legos, tiny crystals of snow...)
So I asked him "why is it sheen-gun poo?" "It's shee- gun poo mommy!" "Well, does Wolf make sheen gun poo?" "No" (as though it were obvious). Mommy? no, Daddy? no!, doggy? No, no, no. Only Bear makes sheen-gun poo. And apparently he always makes it--because he always tells me about it.
Oh well, at least he always makes it in the potty. ☺

The Powuh

When a 2 year old has an 8 year old brother, he gets a head start on learning about stuff like super powers and bazookas.
[oh, by way of clarification, Bear is on a bit of a potty strike this week--he keeps asking for diapers, so I'm going with it. I am excited that he's been so self-motivated, but I'm not going to push him if he needs a little break.]
This morning I was sewing and Bear was playing near me when I got a whiff of you know what. So I got everything out and laid him down to change his diaper.
"You pooped," I announced (I'm trying to help him maintain awareness at least).
"I poop!" he gleefully responded, "powuh poop!"
"Did you say power poop?"
[enthusiastically] "Uh-huh, powuh poop!!"
"Oh, that's very strange."
[singing] "A, B, C, D, powuh poop H, K, K, K, LMN, O, P..."

I swear, I don't know where he comes up with this stuff. He learned the alphabet from his musical teddy bear, but the power poop...I have no idea!

Oh My!

Bear (just turned 2) was playing behind me as I wrote that last post. He is not wearing pants but I have not worried about that because he's been very independent in his toilet-usage lately. But just now, as he was behind the curtains looking out the sliding-glass door, I heard a little noise...I thought hoped that it was just an upturned sippy cup. Then Bear pulled aside the curtain, grinned, and announced "I make peepee!"
Aww gee.
So I sat down with him and reviewed what are good places to make peepee--in the toilet and in the potty. "We do not make peepee on windows," I said. He looked at me very seriously. "No peepee door," he agreed, pointing.
Yes, we do not make peepee on windows or doors.
Geeze!


(oh yeah, you can go see more TinyTalkTuesdays here!)

Celebrating

Bear celebrated his birthday by keeping me up a lot of the night (our ongoing night-weaning took a turn for the rougher last night), and then by pooping in the big toilet BY HIMSELF today! He usually comes to me and says "I go toilet, I go toilet" as he jumps around, and I go with him and help him sit on the toilet. He prefers the toilet to the potty, I think because he likes to flush, but he can't get up there by himself very well. Well, this morning I guess he dragged the step-stool in, climbed up, and I knew nothing until I heard a flush and then he came running to me and said "I go toilet, I poop!" and sure enough, he needed wiping!!!!
He's had a couple of close calls, but that would be the first time he's successfully made a poop in the designated receptacle on his own (early EC experiences not counted of course). He's been very self-driven in all of this--I've left him diaperless, and he's indicated that he wants to use the toilet rather than have a new diaper on. Well, power to him! It's making my life easier, even if I spend a disproportionate amount of the day sitting on the bathroom floor while he makes another three drops of peepee! ☺

Wow, I need a baby, cuz this boy is not a baby anymore.

Oh gee

This morning my sweet little Bear dumped out my box of bobby pins...and then peed on them.

Mommy is sad. The bobby pins will get boiled before going back to mommy's hair.

Also Bear has his diaper back on now. No more nakey bum for you kid!

Ya Still Gotta Aim!

So, the last couple of weeks I have been much more on the ball with doing EC with Bear. He would always be very wet in the morning, so I always changed him immediately when he woke up, and I noticed that he was always very wet again within the hour. SO, when I do his morning change, I started taking him to the potty as well. Voila, Bear pees in the potty almost every morning...and now he usually poops while there too! (I am pleased to announce that I have only changed 5 or 6 poopy diapers in the last 10 days--because I've had at least that many times of him just going in the toilet!)

Anyway, when I hold him over the toilet, I sit backwards on the seat and hold him between my legs. I hold him low, so that his bottom is almost in the bowl...so I have not been consistent about aiming his penis downwards, because it's below the rim anyway, so it doesn't matter which direction he pees...or so I thought. Yesterday I was holding him there, and said "ssssss" which is our cue sound. Then I suddenly felt very warm on my leg...sure enough, somehow his penis had gotten caught in the rolls of fat on his leg, and it was securely held, aiming backwards over his hip...right onto my leg. SO, it was a success in the sense that he peed at will while on the toilet...but it was a hilarious failure in that not one drop of the pee actually hit the water!

Mommy will be more careful to check his aim from now on!!!

Multi-tasking

My baby can sleep, and eat, and poop, all at the same time.

Aren't you impressed?

Why is "Modern Society" so backwards?!

It's strange how our western culture has complicated child raising...People have been having and raising babies for centuries, and it never used to be this complicated. In fact, bringing up babies was part of every day life. There was no need for birth control to try to time babies, because they were not a hassle...caring for babies was just another thing one did, like making dinner or sleeping at night.

First they decided we must put diapers on our children, thus causing the poo to get everywhere on the baby's bottom, and requiring lots of cleanup...if you hold the baby over a toilet (or some dirt) then one quick swipe with a cloth (if that) and they are clean and ready to go play again. Diaper rash was unknown before diapers.

Next they decided that babies must sleep in their own beds, maybe in their own rooms, and shouldn't drink their own mother's milk... I truly pity the mothers who try to do this! When my infant wakes up, I attach him to a nipple, and go back to sleep. Rarely does he keep me awake for more than a few minutes. I don't have to sit up very often, and I have never had to get out of bed for him, let alone go to other parts of the house.
During the day, when he is hungry, he opens his mouth wide, and I put milk in it...so simple. No hassle with bottles and heating and getting the proper temperature...he is quickly satisfied, and I have thing simple and easy.

Now they tell us to put our babies in little buckets (aka carseat carriers) and carry them around without touching them..this makes the babies sad and fussy, and said buckets are heavy and unweildy. It's so much easier to grab a wrap or sling and just wear the baby--he can sleep contentedly against my chest and I can get my work done.
Every time I wear my baby in public I get comments--they range from "oh, he looks so comfortable in there" to "I wish I'd had one for my baby" to "where can I get one?" I've never had a negative comment about my wrap. The other day someone said "I wish they'd had those when mine was a baby" (her child is 6). I smiled and said "native tribes have been wearing wraps for centuries, it's just that the rest of us took a while to catch on." I now think of myself as a walking billboard for babywearing--most folks know a good idea when they see one, they just need a chance to see it so that they can get on board! So, babywearers of the world, get out and get seen! Don't be shy about your slings and wraps--show them off! You're bound to influance someone for the better!

Happy Poo Day!

Yes, you heard it right, today is a happy poo day. And why is that you ask? Because today, at one day shy of a month old, S pooed in the toilet! I'm so pleased with myself. I've been interested in EC (Elimation Communication, also known as Natural Infant Hygiene -- see www.diaperfreebaby.org ) for some time. After the potty training horrors I had with my older son, I was determined that something had to be different this time. Essentially the idea is that even a newborn knows that something is going on when he needs to eliminate...and he will usually do something (grunt, get quiet, stop wiggling, etc), so the parent can learn those cues, and take the baby to the toilet rather than letting them use a diaper. When the child is old enough to go on his own, he will 'potty train' easily, because he has never become accustomed to wearing his own waste.
I didn't feel up to trying to do EC full time though--there are those who literally do not put diapers on their babies at all (just holding a cloth under them or something) but I didn't feel comfortable with that. So I decided to go for part-time EC--meaning that I would start off with the easy catches--bring him to potty after waking and after eating (if he was awake). He stymied me right off on that though, as he usually likes to poop WHILE eating. So I have only tried to potty him very sporadically...as I have recovered more from the delivery though, I have been taking him more and more often... to date he has pee-peed in the toilet 4 times, and today I caught him on the first grunt and we ran to the toilet and got poo!
There are those who say that it's not Infant Potty Training, it's Parent Potty Training, because the infant isn't taking himself, but the parent has to go to a lot of trouble to always take the infant...I say, hey, every time he goes in the potty, that's one diaper I don't have to change (and wash!) Furthermore, that's at least one elimation that won't ever sit against his skin, even for a second--and with the sensitive skin that my family is prone to, that is a MAJOR pro.