The Small Family     

This hasn’t been the most fun week ever in the Small household, as all three of us have been a bit under the weather. Theo got it first, and I assumed it was allergies, as mine have been flaring a bit lately. But then I started feeling sick and so did Chris, so I think it’s actually a summer cold. Not a terrible one, but enough to make us feel a little blah. And enough to give Theo what I suspect is yet another case of the croup. When he coughs, it sounds like croup…but he’s not coughing much, so I haven’t taken him into the doctor yet. He coughs a bit when he’s sleeping and napping, and he’s woken up a couple nights this week (unusual for him)--but when he’s awake and up and around, he’s not coughing at all. (And actually, the coughing seems to have stopped by Sunday--I wrote the first part of this blog on Thursday/Friday.) So…we wait and watch. I have no doubt that if I do have to take him to the doctor, he will talk incessantly about peepee. You see, the last time I had him at Kaiser, it was to have a urine test done, and he was very proud of how he went peepee in the potty and Mama put it in a little cup for the doctor to look at it. That was almost a month ago, and he’s still talking about it. “Doctor? Peepee? Dr. G? Look??” So if we do go see Dr. G for croup, I have no doubt that he’ll start telling her about his pee. :-)

As long as we’re on the subject of pee…potty training! I have officially ditched the diaper bag, and I couldn’t be more pleased. Theo only had two accidents this week, which is still a phenomenally successful record for a newly potty-trained kiddo, so we are very, very proud of him. Interestingly enough, in one of my “mama forums” that I subscribe to on the Internet, there was a discussion this week on the three-day potty-training method (which is what we used). Someone was considering it for her child and wondered if anyone had used it and how it worked. I posted a reply and then perused the other responses, expecting to see some positive and some negative, as you usually do on such forums. Not so! There were a total of 15 responses, and every single one was a glowing review of the method and how it had worked for their particular child. One woman has two children and used traditional potty training for the first child, and she found it took a year to get him fully trained. With her second child she tried the three-day method, and he was trained within a matter of a week or two. It was interesting to me, because I’ve been wondering whether our success is due to the method or to Theo’s being a willing participant (probably both, really), but it seems as if even more people than I expected have tried this method with great success. Very interesting…. Anyway, as you can see in this week’s album, his potty stickers runneth over. He has filled up his potty-sticker chart (in fact, there are several layers of stickers on it), so they’ve now migrated off the paper and onto the wall. I’m kind of curious to see just how far they’ll go. (We have textured walls, so the stickers should peel off very easily when we eventually remove them…in case anyone was wondering how I was going to go about removing them!)

Anyway, we started out our week in a fun way: I babysat Jamie and Emma again while Janeane went to an appointment. And for the first time, Theo really started to play with Emma, instead of just alongside her. I had a blanket on the couch, and they were playing hide and seek with each other under it, giggling like crazy. And then they were playing together with a raccoon puppet, and later on they both worked on building a tower with giant Legos. All the while, Jamie stuck anything and everything in his mouth. (The poor kid is cutting like four teeth at once, but he was still super-happy and charming the whole time.) Funny thing is, I didn’t realize how much I was saying, “Jamie, eww! Don’t put that in your mouth!” until a few days later, when I noticed that Theo keeps running around going, “Jamie! Yucky! No! Not in mouth!” He’s been doing it for days now (laughing himself silly about it, too), reminding me that I probably really ought to start watching what I say around Mr. Mimic!

Emma isn’t the only kid Theo has begun playing with, either. We walked to the park one evening this week, enjoying the unseasonably cool (85- to 90-degree) weather, and Theo met a little friend named Navan who is just a few months younger than him. They chased each other around the park for the better part of an hour, having a ball. And I took Theo to the park another day, and he met a little boy named Jordan (age 3), and together the two little boys searched for buffalo. Jordan’s nanny says she doesn’t think he even knows what a buffalo is, but he was talking about them, and Theo caught on and thought this sounded wonderful, so they played together until Jordan had to leave. Actually, Theo cried when his little friend left, which I thought was quite sweet. It makes me so happy to see him making little friends and playing with them!

Along the lines of the Great Buffalo Hunt and Theo repeating my admonishments to Jamie, I have to mention his latest fun development: storytelling! Theo tells great stories, and it cracks me up. He’s starting to use his imagination, too. When we were at the park, he was pretending to “drive” one of the pieces of playground equipment. I said, “Are you driving?” and he nodded and said, “Garbage truck.” Ahhh…he was driving a garbage truck. Of course. Why didn’t I think of that?? He has also been regaling me with tales of the kitties from the park since we last saw them, and the infamous “hotel for dogs” story has some new added components. (There are bushes! And a potty! And ham!)

It’s really awesome to have conversations with him now. One of my favorites was on Wednesday, when I was feeding him lunch. He had already watched an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (he’s obsessed with Goofy), but he wanted to watch another. I kept telling him that we weren’t going to watch another, and he finally proclaimed, “Mickey! Show! Different!”…then he paused, looked me right in the eye, grinned, and said, “Okay!” in the exact voice and inflection that I use when I tell him, “Okay, we can watch a show.” It was as if he was saying, “Here’s what I want, Mom…and now here’s your response. Got it?” My other favorite from the week was when he picked up my glasses case, which looks like a tiny hot-pink purse, and slung it over his arm and informed me that he had a purse just his size, and he was going to the doctor, where he would poop. Ha!

Anyway, you have to listen for these stories, because they certainly don’t come out with formal sentence structure at this age! But if you pay attention to what he’s saying, a lot of it is pretty darn hilarious. That kid is a master con artist…and a very talented storyteller. I love it!

Theo also greatly amused Auntie Jeanette this week. We went downtown to have lunch with her on Thursday, and we met at a small Mexican restaurant. I had told Theo that he could have tortillas and beans and such, and when the waitress came to the table to take our order, before she could even say anything, he bellowed, “BEANS!” at her. She got the point. :-)

Speaking of storytelling and words, I'm noticing something fascinating about Theo and letters. I believe he actually understands that letters make up words. Because he's so interested in letters, we have bought him several letter toys: foam letters for the bathtub, a magnetic board with letter magnets, and a pack of letter stickers. The last two weeks, I've been noticing that when he plays with letters, he usually says the letter, makes the sound, and then says a word that starts with it. At first these were words that I know he's heard from his LeapFrog toys; for example, he'd always say "Y. Ya. Yak" when he'd pick up a Y. But lately, I find he's substituting words that aren't on any of his LeapFrog toys, so all I can think is that he actually realizes that certain letter sounds make up the beginning of certain words. He doesn't do it for every letter, but he does it for the letters that begin a lot of words he knows. For P, for example, he'll often say, "Puppy" (one I told him), but sometimes he'll substitute "park," which is not on his LeapFrog toy and which I did not tell him. And for B, he frequently says "Bounce," which is not on any of his toys and is not a word we've told him is associated with B. We talk about how he can bounce a ball, for example, but we've never said, "Bounce starts with B!" or anything like that. 

My claim to fame as a child was that I was a very early reader, so I wonder whether Theo will follow in my footsteps. He certainly seems to be putting together the early building blocks. I'm fascinated to watch him. (And, as an aside, those letter stickers may come in invaluable on our upcoming plane flight! They have kept him busy for more than half an hour two days in a row...an eternity in toddler-time!)

In non-Theo news, our pickles were such a success last week that we decided to continue our homemade goodies experiment with some homemade strawberry jam. It’s a very simple recipe (just fresh strawberries and sugar) cooked at a very low temperature for three hours, but it turned out quite tasty. The consistency is thinner than a store-bought jam, but the flavor is delicious (if I do say so myself). In the future, I want to try making some preserves. This jam only lasts for two weeks, but I want to try to do a little actual canning, so we can have some of the yummy summer fruits in the winter without relying on just storebought stuff.

Chris is going to take the helm for next week’s homemade adventure: He aims to make spaghetti sauce from scratch, using fresh tomatoes instead of canned. I can’t wait to try it!

Our weekend was chock-full of activities, too. On Saturday morning we went to Little Gym, which was packed with kids and thus rather amusing. Theo was one of only two little boys surrounded by probably eight or nine girls. I’m not sure he yet realizes how lucky he was. ;-) Afterward, we stopped at the evil Bank of America to FINALLY close out our accounts. Long story short, they were terrible to us when we got our enormous tax bill earlier this year, and we vowed that as soon as we could pay off our loan and credit card with them, we would cancel all our accounts and move to another bank. Well, we established the new bank account months ago (with a credit union) but were still paying down the loan and credit card. We finally paid those two off…and promptly severed all relations with Bank of America. Good riddance!

After that, we attempted to stop by Miss Monica’s photography studio opening. Alas, Theo took one look at Miss Monica and Miss Deborah and screamed like a banshee, so we didn’t stay long. :-) We tried to point out that they weren’t in bathing suits, so they surely weren’t going to make him float, but he wasn’t buying it for a second. (Oddly enough, though, he keeps asking to go float and jump at the gym pool. Go figure.)

Saturday night, I went to the State Fair again--this time with Amber and Janeane. The idea was to take a photo-shooting trip there, but I didn’t bring my camera because I decided I wanted to walk around unencumbered to enjoy the fair instead. In retrospect, I wish I had brought it, as there were some great photo ops of the animals. Ah well. A couple of the pigs had given birth since Chris and I went, so there were one- and two-day-old piglets to see. SO sweet! And baby goats, too. Adorable! This time my fried delicacy was a fried moon pie. Much tastier than I expected, although not as good as the fried M&Ms (which they were out of this time). The melty marshmallow in the moon pie made it taste like a warm, fried s'more. That's not a bad thing....

Sunday we decided to take our first long driving trip since Operation Potty Training began. We went to Davis last weekend (a 45-minute drive), and that was a success, so this weekend we decided to try Napa. I’m pleased to say it was a rousing success. It’s a 90-minute drive from our house, and Theo can normally hold his pottying for up to about two hours. But we hit a major traffic jam going, and we were stuck sitting on the highway for more than half an hour. Partway through, Theo started announcing, “Peepee!” in the back seat. Crud! We were stuck on the highway, miles from an exit. We kept telling him to try to hold it until we could get off, thinking, “Yeah, right. No way he’s going to be able to.” But the champ surprised us: When we finally got off the highway, he was dry. He promptly went in his potty, and we hit the road for the rest of our journey.

We ate lunch at our favorite little Peruvian spot in the Oxbow Market in Napa, followed by cupcakes from Kara’s Cupcakes. Mmmm! They sell mini-cupcakes (two bites or so each), so we usually get four minis and do a taste-test. This time the Sweet Chocolate came in first, closely followed by the Chocolate Peanut Butter. Third place went to the Key Lime Pie, and last place (but still delicious) was the Coconut. So many places sell you dry cupcakes, but Kara’s somehow manages to keep them moist and wonderful. Yummy!

After lunch, we headed to Playground Fantastico, where Theo had a ball climbing the castle and playing in the sand. He was pretty tired after all that, so we had him go potty and then put him in a Pull-Up diaper, telling him, “You’ll probably fall asleep in the car because it’s nap time, so we’ll put you in a Pull-Up in case you have to go peepee while you sleep.” At his age, we don’t want him feeling guilty about pottying in his sleep, since it’s very common, so we really stress that he gets a Pull-Up for nap and bedtime, “just in case.” (Thanks to my friend Katherine for this helpful tip!!) And he’s very comfortable with it. One time this week he pooped in his sleep, and he started crying when he woke up and saw it--so upset! And I just reminded him that, “Hey, that’s why we have a Pull-Up! It’s hard to remember to wake up and go potty when you’re sleeping!” and he calmed right down. Anyway, he did indeed fall asleep before we even left Napa, and he slept almost all the way home. But when we got in the house, I realized his Pull-Up was dry. But within 10 minutes, he had sat down and gone both #1 and #2 in the potty. So I assume he probably needed to go while he slept…but still managed to stay dry. Yay for Mr. Theo! I know eventually we’ll need to train him to hold his pottying while he sleeps, but given that he’s barely two, we’re not at all concerned about that yet. My suspicion is that it will happen naturally in time, anyway. He actually stays dry a fair amount of the time while sleeping already.

So, a successful ending to our week, despite all of us being slightly under the weather for part of it. Happy First of August, all!