Archive for the ‘potty’ Category

behind home plate

Friday, July 3rd, 2009
good throw dylan!
good throw dylan!
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Last night, Tom played in a students v. staff softball game down at SJSU. This meant, Dylan and I had to drive on over pretty much directly from school. When I got there to pick him up, he was dry and in the same pants, but he apparently hadn’t gone pee for quite some time! Simply informing him that it would be a good idea to pee before we drove 35 miles wasn’t sufficient motivation…and neither was some encouragement by a couple of other parents passing through on their own pick-up trips! But, finally, I picked up his potty and took it into the staff bathroom so we could “race”, and wouldn’t you know it, he went pee…and, boy, was there a LOT! I was relieved (and so was he, I’m sure!)

Once at the game, Dylan was so excited to see Tom out there on the field! I couldn’t get him out of the car fast enough. He was just chattering away, a mile a minute: “I wanna see Daddy…is he playin’? Where’s the batter? Is that softball?”


tom hit a line drive. too bad someone caught it!
tom hit a line drive!
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We did a bit of running with another little fella named Noah and then, right before the game started, Dylan ran over to his travel potty, shouting, “I need to go poo!”. At first I thought I heard wrong, but I could see he was desperately trying to unpack the thing, so I waddled over and helped him set it up right behind home plate! And, boom, there he went! I was so proud of him!!!

Shortly afterwards, it was Tom’s turn to bat and we watched him zing a solid line drive…but too bad it was caught!


behind home plate, watching the game
behind home plate, watching the game
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Dylan was just an absolute sweetie during the entire game. He was cheering and clapping with the rest of the crowd and kept asking me what this person was saying and what that person was saying (mostly, it was people barking out strategies and rooting people on)…We spent a lot of time behind home plate just throwing around an extra softball (and also kicking it around like a soccer ball!).

The staff went on to win the game 6-0 (apparently, they’ve never lost a game so far!) and, afterwards, we had a nice dinner at International Vegetarian House.

Dylan didn’t want to use the potty during dinner, but afterwards, he used it before we headed home.

Unbelievably, since he was a “no-nap-nic” that day (he declared this to me at school, following it up with a little hop and an, “isn’t that funny??”) and he woke up earlier than usual, he did not fall asleep on the way home!

While we were getting him ready in the car, he talked about reading three books (Flotsam, Click Clack Splish Splash, and Sleepy Bears), and I think he stayed up just for that…Even though he was droopin’, he sang songs with me instead (very, very, very cute!). Once home, we read the 3 books we promised we’d read and then it was lights out….


3 pees in a potty

Wednesday, July 1st, 2009
my charming li'l man
my charming li’l man
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We’ve gone an entire week (and then some) wearing cotton underwear at home! It was as if Dylan just decided to flip the switch — from pull-ups to big-boy undies — overnight!

Yes, he’s had a few accidents, but overall, he’s doing so incredibly well. He is pooping in the potty at home and he even used his travel potty while we were out all last weekend — at brunch with Kazuo, at the Children’s Discovery Museum, and during dinner at Millennium in San Francisco!

At school, he’s had one accident all week and, today, he had a banner 3-pees-in-the-potty day! Overall, we’re so thrilled and hoping that the birth of little sis won’t entail too much, if any, of a setback!


father’s day and potty use!

Wednesday, June 24th, 2009
it's father's day
it’s father’s day
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Here’s Tom and Dylan on Father’s Day! Dylan and I tried making a special breakfast — banana flapjacks and chocolate chip pancakes with strawberries served with some fakin’ bacon — but I’m just not as good a cook as Tom is (poor fella), so not only was the meal totally unworthy of a picture, it was also kind of mediocre. Not to fear, though. Since we spent most of the day celebrating Father’s Day with the family in the Bay Area and attention was “diffused”, we’re hoping to have a “real meal” and more focused celebration at Millennium this coming weekend! The real daddy’s day treat is still to come…!

We had a nice lunch at Sweet Tomatoes with mom and Grandpa Mike, Christina, and Cindy and Jeff and the kids, followed by some hanging out time back at Lola’s house…Dylan and Tyler just loved playing with each other, especially hide and seek!

Dylan also seems to have knack for making some solid progress on an important milestone whenever there’s an occasion…This time around, he did stellar on the potty and he’s been requesting to stay in cotton undies! He wore a cotton undie to bed on Saturday night, used the potty on Father’s Day morning and pretty much all day, including using it while we were at the restaurant (using the potty while we’re out and about is a huge deal right now).

He has continued to do extremely well these past few days. He’s even used his potty at school for the past two days in a row (another very big deal), and he took himself to go poop (pooping in the potty is another very big deal) on Monday after school.

Since Father’s Day, he’s been wearing cotton undies at night (if he wants to stay in cotton undies, he’s required to go pee before we go to sleep) and he continues to wake up completely dry in the morning. Now, he’s also being very good about going pee before we leave the house.

I’m not sure what the underlying motivating factors are in his sudden change of heart, but he clearly is now more definitely identifying as a “big boy”, even going so far as to suggest he sleep in his own room and in his own bed (he did fall asleep in the Pink Room, but he woke up around 1am looking for me and spent the rest of the night with us…).

We’ve said it before and we’ll say it again: hope this time the potty use sticks!!


our charming (little) man

Friday, February 27th, 2009
alicia painted dylan's face today...cute!
dylan’s face paint
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

I didn’t want too much time to pass before posting another little update on little Dylan (who is now declaring daily that he’s a “big booooy”)…! He started wearing undies — we just swapped out his cloth diapers for some cotton training pants from Tiny Tots! And he really likes them, so much, in fact, that he didn’t want to wear anything but undies to bed tonight (so, we put down a waterproof covering on the bed, doubled the undies up, and wrapped a diaper shell around him!).

He wakes up dry, probably 9 times out of 10, so we’re hopeful he’ll make it until morning…and then, hopefully, he won’t delay peeing (as he sometimes does when he’s too cold) until it’s too late!

He’s been making great strides in just the past couple of days. On Wednesday (our library day), about 5 minutes from the library, he told me he needed to go pee (so I asked him to wait, to which he responded, “I am waiting, mommy”!) and as soon as we got there, we whipped out his potty and there he went!

At school, the teachers have also told me that he’s now telling them when he needs to pee and he’s coming home in the same pull-up we sent him in!

The other day, he also put himself on his potty to go poo…twice!

We’re, of course, thrilled and hopeful that the end of diapers may soon be near. And, we’re very proud of our little guy. He just continues to make us smile every day!

many thanks

Thursday, November 27th, 2008
Day 253
Day 253
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

There is much news to catch up on, but the most current is the revival of the potty project!

Right now, we’re about one week into the revival, and so far it is going much better than expected. Not only is Dylan waking up with a dry diaper and going pee pee in the potty in the morning (and before we leave the house), he also used the potty at school for the first time–and 3x at that! Last night, he went poo poo in the potty–the first poop in there since we restarted the project last week! He has not soiled a single diaper all week!

I am writing this early on Thanksgiving, so more on today is likely, but among other things, we’re grateful for the happiness and joy this little guy brings us each and every day and we’re happy for all our family and dear friends who have provided him so much love and attention and helped shape the loving little fella that he is–he is such a happy boy!


new underwear

Wednesday, October 8th, 2008
Day 214: Elmo buns
Day 214: Elmo buns
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Tom picked Dylan up from school early on Friday afternoon because Dylan was clearly having a tough time being there. It was the worst I’ve seen him react in a really long time! He was so upset when I dropped him off, he wouldn’t even eat his lunch! I would have stayed at home with him, but I’d already missed 2 days of work. So, Tom took him shopping and they picked out new undies.

I was very excited by this, thinking, yay! maybe the Potty Project can be revived (it has been largely abandoned for quite some time now)! So, we yanked on some undies to test-drive them. We thought telling him that Elmo didn’t want to be peed on would be pretty good incentive to keep them dry, but nope. We tried last night and tonight and both nights resulted in accidents!

That’s ok. We’ll get there eventually. I do think the undies are totally adorable, though! And, hopefully, Dylan realizes they’re not at all like pull-ups and will start asking to use the potty soon….


the potty revival (we hope) +

Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
Day 94: Dylan does the balance beam by himself...for a few steps!
Dylan balances for a few steps!
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

After a what seems like a very long hiatus, Dylan finally is trying the potty again. The first time around, the novelty wore off, partly because there was no support for it at daycare (I asked them if they’d take him up to the potty and they said they didn’t start doing that until the kids were in the preschool and/or 2-years old), so the project just sort of languished. However, now that a batch of kidlets are graduating from the preschool, making room for the little ones in the toddler room (Dylan included) to move on in, they’re beginning to take some of the toddlers up to the potty.

Once we got wind of this, we started whipping out the potty at home, first thing in the morning, first thing after nap, and whenever else we could reasonably anticipate the need.

Dylan hasn’t been wholly enthusiastic. He often kinda complains and frowns a lot, but the reminder that he won’t need to be wiped with a cold wet wipe if he pees in the potty seems to be a pretty good motivator!

This past weekend, the poor fella had diarrhea, but he made a huge potty breakthrough — he went poops twice (with the runs even)!

I’m still a little worried that the daycare folks won’t be able to give him the patience and encouragement he needs, especially since we’re so much in the learning stage still. Right now, we definitely need to coax him to give it a try; sometimes he runs around without a diaper and he won’t sit down until he absolutely can’t hold his pee anymore! Sometimes, it still takes a little time — lots of books, songs, etc. — before we see some results (at least, these are the times when he’ll willingly and patiently sit!)!

Now that he’ll get some reinforcement at daycare, maybe this time using the potty will stick….

Ok. So that’s the potty report. In other news, we watched Jason and Tyler play soccer this past weekend (Dylan was a trooper, he smiled and made the best of it despite the diarrhea) and, during this week’s gymnastics, he took a few steps along the raised balance beam all by himself (a few weeks ago, he walked along a beam that was pretty much resting right on the floor).

These are the small things I know I’ll forget if I don’t write them down!

new haircut plus other random stuff

Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
at Lulu's at the Octagon. sporting new haircut and soy milk mustache
at Lulu’s at the Octagon
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Tom and Dylan dropped me off at work yesterday and then, of course, had to come pick me up. I met them at Lulu’s at the Octagon, a very nice cafe right next door to the ol’ workplace, and the setting for the featured picture (clearly, Dylan enjoys his steamed soy milk – note faint hint of milk mustache in picture!).

We had a slight regression with the potty use and went 2 days with probably only a pee or two in total! But he seems to be ramping back up again (perhaps it was daycare and the lack of response to his requests??).

Also, Dylan can actually say “Tom Reisz”, although Tom really dislikes this! When we’re looking around for Tom in the house — or when I ask Dylan where daddy is — Dylan occasionally chants, “Tom Reisz! Tom Reisz”! I’ll admit, he gets that from me!

He’s babbling up a storm: elephant, zebra, giraffe, sheep, piggy, doggy, animals, tapioca, broccoli, names from daycare and family and the list goes on! Only we can understand him, but hey, he’s communicating!

He still signs on occasion, too. Today, he surprised me by signing “stars” which he’d just learned at today’s Music Together session. Admittedly, he still grunts and points a lot. Kinda wish this would stop, but maybe once he starts vocalizing everything, we’ll wish we had the grunts again!!


more potty talk (sigh)

Saturday, January 19th, 2008
crusty
crusty
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

I know, I know. The potty talk must be getting to be a real bore to read about. I’m sure it’s more exciting for us than it is for anybody else!!!

We’ll keep it brief !

Dylan is now wearing pull-ups. Taliana wears them, so he’s pretty ok with them, especially when we refer to them as “underwear”.

For several nights in a row now, the only way we’ve been able to convince him to cover his hiney is by telling him pull-ups were undies.

During the day, he’s still using a combination of cloth diapers and disposables…and now with some pull-ups thrown in.

He’ll usually agree to a diaper change — and has even gotten on the changing mat himself — after he’s pooped in the diaper.

It seems he’s having trouble pooping in the potty. Today, a tiny turd was all he could muster. Then, he agreed to put on a pull-up and then he let loose.

We figure it’s all good!

He is getting simultaneously more charming and more challenging! He talks a lot, but this also means, he expresses his opinions more and they don’t always agree with ours!

Aside from the potty successes, we had another huge, huge success — Dylan napped at daycare for two whopping hours, on a cot with all of the other toddlers!!! This is such a wondrous thing, I’m considering putting him in for a full day on Thursdays (my full in-the-office work day)!


dry diap v. potty, round umpteen

Tuesday, January 15th, 2008
things that go vrooom -- cars and dylan
things that go vrooom — cars and dylan
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Well, Dylan has actually been doing pretty well with the potty. He seems to be better able to make it to the potty before he does his business (usually pee pee) and, at times, he is now getting super duper upset whenever even one tiny drop of urine hits his diaper.

His sensitivity to the moisture in his diaper has gotten to the point where Tom and I decided to just use disposables at night to keep him from waking up at 3am. This strategy has worked and he’s now sleeping through the night, but now we’ve run into the growing problem of Dylan not wanting to get back into a diaper. So, he gets a choice: sit on the potty or get back into a diaper and get on with other things.

Resourceful fellow that he is, Dylan has discovered he can kind of do both — thanks to the wonders of newly acquired (via the holidays) remote control vehicles. He sits on his potty for minutes and minutes and minutes and makes his cars go (he has two of them), claiming all the while that more is coming. He does in fact pee within a few minutes of first sitting down, but these cars keep things interesting enough for him to delay getting a new diaper so he can move on to playing!