The Small Family     

Okay, for those of you wondering who Wayne is, this week’s blog title is an allusion to the ridiculous but amusing movie from the early ’90s, Wayne’s World. I felt it appropriate because Theo is, indeed, pottying on! We’ve stayed pretty close to home again this week because 1) we’re still cementing this potty business in his mind, and 2) it’s ungodly hot here right now, so venturing out isn’t much fun anyway. (Thus we don’t have many pictures this week--we really didn’t do much, and Theo was often in the buff, so I didn’t snap a lot of pix!)

I believe Theo had a total of three accidents this week. (His sticker chart runneth over!) And he hasn’t been in diapers at all (except for his nap and bedtime). So I pretty much think he is the potty champ of the week! I really expected a lot more accidents, given that we’re only in Week 2, but he is just a trouper. And actually, two of the three accidents really weren’t his “fault.” For one, I stretched it too long--stopped at the grocery store on the way home from float lessons, even though I know full well that he tends to urinate a lot after being in the pool. I had him try to use the potty before we went in, and nothing doing. But apparently the urge seized him in the middle of the store, and he had an accident. No worries…his big-boy pants and shorts actually held the pee very well.

The second accident was when my Mom was watching him for a couple hours. He was irate about something and stomping his feet, so she assumed he was having a tantrum. Turns out he actually had to urinate, and since she didn’t know it, she wasn’t able to direct him to the potty quickly enough.

But now we don’t often even have to direct him. More and more, he just wanders over and goes on his own, then triumphantly brings us the potty insert to show us his creation. This next bit may be slightly gross for some, but I think it’s funny, especially for those who know Chris well. When I met Chris, he had impeccable manners and would never even dream of talking about bowel movements or the like. Those of you who know me well know that I’m not quite so refined, and I always enjoy good bathroom humor! Over the years, I’ve rubbed off a bit on Chris, and he’s much more laidback about all things bathroom. That was never more obvious than on Saturday. I went out with my Mom for a while, and when I got home, Chris gave me the rundown on his and Theo’s morning and Theo’s pottying. Apparently, while Chris was eating a hamburger for lunch and reading the paper, Theo was watching an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse and sitting on his potty. He always sits on his potty to watch that, so Chris didn’t think much of it. Until Theo walked up to him, held out the potty insert filled with a lovely creation, and announced, “Poop! Poop!!” Ah, lucky Chris! I can’t think of many things more appetizing than being presented with a potty full of poop while eating lunch! I laughed when I heard this story and said, “The Chris I met five years ago would’ve fallen over at that!” Chris just grinned, shrugged, and said, “What can ya do?” Indeed…

Although it’s not overly enthralling to clean out the potty, it is so much better than changing diapers! I don’t think Chris and I really realized that we disliked changing diapers. I mean, no one likes it, but we’ve always been good about sharing the responsibility, so it was never some horrible task that we dreaded. But now that we don’t have to do it anymore, it’s heavenly! Not to mention the distinct lack of laundry. We used to wash cloth diapers nearly every day. This week, I think we did a total of three or four loads of laundry for the week! Bliss, bliss, bliss. And a real water savings, too…

Next steps? First, teach Theo how to remove his own pants to go to the bathroom. This week he was still mostly running around sans pants/training pants, so he could get to the potty right away if he needed to, and so he wouldn’t “forget” and think he was wearing a diaper. (Confusing training pants for a diaper is pretty common at first, I’m told--thus the recommendation to have kids do a lot of “naked time” the first few weeks.) We put him in training pants to go out, and we’ve had success on every outing except the grocery-store one post-swimming, which I should’ve known would fail. But it suddenly occurred to me that Theo doesn’t know how to remove his pants yet, so if we put him back in underwear/pants, like normal, if he has to go potty and I’m not able to help him right away, he’ll soil himself, and it certainly won't be his fault. So, we’re working on teaching him to remove his pants/underwear himself.

Step 2: Get him comfortable going on potties other than his own. He will now sit on potties other than his own without panicking (a step ahead of last week!), but he won’t do anything on them yet. I’m hoping to have him comfortable eliminating on pretty much any toilet by the time we go to Buffalo in late August, so I don’t have to haul a BabyBjorn Little Potty on the plane with us!

So that’s the potty scoop. Chris and I are continuing to marvel at how well this method has worked--and we’re half waiting for the other shoe to drop! But he has been doing so unbelievably well with the potty that we’re feeling very optimistic. My Mom told me that she’s never seen such a quick, positive response to potty training. So yay, Theo! Potty on, man…

But on to things unrelated to potties. On Monday we had quite the adventure around here: I babysat Emma (age 3 1/2) and Jamie (10 months) for a couple hours while my friend Janeane went to an appointment. I’ve never cared for more than one young child at a time, so I was interested to see how it would go. Jamie is crawling now (nearly walking) and very much loves stairs, and we just removed our baby gate--so I figured I’d spend most of the time chasing him on the stairs and calling reminders to “share” and whatnot to the two older kiddos. As it turned out, things were much easier than that. Jamie tried for the stairs a few times, but mostly there were enough toys on the floor to keep him entertained. Theo was in a cranky mood, but Emma kept him amused, so he was reasonably cheerful. He doesn’t really play with her yet (much to her chagrin!), but he’s always interested enough in what she’s doing that it keeps him occupied. I was really charmed when they sat together at the kitchen table coloring, with Emma sweetly reminding him to color “on the paper, not the table, Feo.” She was almost like a little mother hen with him, and it was quite cute. We went out back for a while, too, and Jamie was content to be held while the two older kiddos played with the toys in the yard. All in all, a very pleasant couple hours! (Holding calm Jamie, I was seized by the fleeting thought that perhaps I'd like another baby. And then I remember that calm, sweet little Jamie keeps his Mama up all night long, waking her every one to two hours, despite being 10 months old already. And then the urge to procreate again passed....)

Other than that, the week has been pretty quiet. Chris finished up a freelance project that kept him working until 1 or 2am for four straight nights. I’ve been busy with work, too, but I love the books I’m working on right now, so it’s been fun. One is the wedding photography one I’m co-writing (should go to the printer in about a week). One is on film/TV/game soundtracks--it’s interviews with a lot of people who have worked on them, and it’s really been fascinating to read. Plus well-written--always a bonus! Another book is on baby photography--looks like I will likely be co-writing that one as well. Yay--another “with” credit on a book cover! And the last one is a series of stories from a prominent Washington, DC, photographer who has been shooting for about 20 years. He’s the current president of the White House News Photographers Association and has also done a lot of work for the Smithsonian, so you can image that his stories and photographs are really interesting. This is the third book I’ve done with him, and I really enjoy them because it’s quite a bit removed from what I usually do.

Chris also added to our “pay off the tax bill” fund by winning $20 on a lottery scratcher. We hardly ever buy lottery tickets--maybe a couple times a year. So he brought two home the other day, and lo and behold, he won $20 on one!

We also watched a movie this week--a rare occurrence. (We’re notorious for getting a movie from Netflix and having it sit on our DVD player for three months unwatched. We’re just usually too tired at night to watch a whole movie.) Anyway, we saw Pixar’s Up, and I highly recommend it! It was the sweetest movie I’ve seen in a long time…I cried at several parts. But it was also very funny and imaginative. For those who don’t know the story, a shy young boy meets an outgoing, adventurous little girl. They fall in love, get married, and build a life together, and grow old together, always with the dream of going to Paradise Falls in South America. But things always get in the way, and eventually the wife passes away. (All this happens in the first 10 minutes of the movie.) The husband is devastated, and when his home (where he and his wife met as kids, and which they later bought and fixed up as newlyweds) is threatened by corporate developers, he decides he will fly the house to Paradise Falls by attaching hundreds of helium balloons to it. Only one snag: An overly eager, fatherless eight-year-old “wilderness scout” stows away with him accidentally, so they end up flying to South America together. Along the way, they befriend an exotic, rare, hunted bird and a sweet, lovable dog. Sounds like an odd premise, I know, but really--this was just a fantastic movie. And I loved the score, too. I was interested to hear it because in that book of soundtracks I’m editing, several of the composers mentioned the Up score as a fantastic example of recent composition. Anyway, two very enthusiastic thumbs up! When Theo is a couple years older, I think he will really enjoy it, but it’s definitely a movie for adults to enjoy, too. I think I fell in love with the little old man….

The only real downside to our week was that Theo spent several days in an awful mood. I don’t know whether it was a reaction to the major change in his life (potty training) or something else, but he was just unbearably whiny for several days. That said, by Saturday Chris and I had had enough of the whining. We originally thought to take Theo to the train museum to escape the triple-digit heat (we’re members, so we can go for free anytime), but he was so whiny that I couldn’t face taking him out. (Sometimes taking him out when he’s grumpy improves his mood, but other times it just ends up being exhausting for all three of us.) So, I suggested that Chris and I trade off with some alone time--I’d go out with my Mom for some adult time in the morning, and then Chris could go do whatever his heart desired in the afternoon. And so we did…and both felt quite rejuvenated afterward. My Mom and I went to Burlington Coat Factory (fun discount shopping for clothes, purses, shoes, etc.), where I found a dress for my cousin’s wedding, and then we had lunch at a fantastic European bakery/café (a turkey crepe for my mom, homemade soup and salad for me, and we split a luscious lemon cake slice for dessert). With his free time, Chris got a smoothie, went to Lakeshore Learning (great place to find educational/art toys for kids--he was getting Theo some more drawing paper), browsed the bookstore, and went to his favorite grocery store to pick up some produce and other such items for Theo. (Because, as we all know, fun for Chris always equals a grocery store in some way, shape, or form.)

By Sunday, the worst of Theo’s mood had passed, and we were able to go to the mall to get Chris’s glasses fixed. (He needed new lenses.) And so, the week has ended on a good note. And next week will start on a good note as well, as Chris and I have a “date” to go to the State Fair on Monday night. One of his favorite bands, Little Big Town, is playing a concert there, and he really wanted to go. I don’t know much by them, but I always like live music shows, so I’m sure I’ll enjoy it. And I always love the animal exhibits at the fair. It’s supposed to be 100 degrees, which will be quite unpleasant on all that blacktop, but oh well…a date is a date! 

Oh, before I sign off, I must share our new idea that we’ve concocted. Lately, Chris and I have been interested in trying new things we haven’t made before. We used to try new things in the form of new restaurants, new vacation spots, etc. But our life has obviously narrowed a bit in those areas, since we have Theo with us most of the time. So, to bring a little excitement into our “at home” life, we’ve decided to try one new thing a week from now on. Contenders on our list so far include making homemade pasta from scratch, making spaghetti sauce from scratch--from fresh tomatoes (Chris already makes a mean homemade spaghetti sauce from canned tomatoes), making bread from scratch, making our own dishwashing detergent, making poached eggs (Chris’s cousin and his wife tried this, and I’ve been fascinated ever since--who knew that making poached eggs was such an art?!), and making homemade pickles. I think part of what spurred this is Chris’s yummy homemade spaghetti sauce and Chris’s homemade whipped cream. We both grew up on canned whipped cream or Cool Whip, so we whipped-cream novices were amazed by how easy and yummy homemade whipped cream is. Anyway, if any of you have any ideas for new/homemade/from-scratch things that would be fun to try, let me know! I’m eager to start this fun new activity and see what we learn. Will I never eat another store-bought pickle after making my own?!  

Hope you’re all surviving the heat! And to all of you, I say, “Potty on!” (Okay, I know you’re all quite capable of that, but still…kudos to you!)