Entries from March 2008 ↓

Happy Easter, everyone!

[Show slideshow]

So back in October there was mention of a minor victory in the potty training campaign. Our generals must have grown overconfident with the early win, or fallen for what may have been simple ruse laid down beautifully by the crafty adversary, because there was a long stretch of nothin’ after that. Linnaea got to the point where it seemed she was scared of the toilet. I’m pretty sure that I read somewhere that if you have to physically pick up a screaming child who is trying to repel herself from the plumbing fixture and force her onto the seat that you are not going to have good results with the potty training thing.

The generals began to think that perhaps the toilet itself was the culprit, with its shadowy currents, clammy breath, and loud vacuous roar. Perhaps the child feared for her person, her bottom seated so vulnerably above the gaping maw. So I suggested we get a potty chair – something a wee bit less dangerous. That was better. But again, it didn’t take long before she was resistant to the notion of sitting even on the potty. Stymied.

Then our friends, whose child is about a year older than Linnaea, who were having similar problems subverting their son to the ways of the toilet, posted about a clever reward system that they proposed to their offspring. Guitar Hero for using the potty!! That rocks! Linnaea is a little young for Guitar Hero. Though she really likes it, it just doesn’t have the motivational pull for her as it does for Lil’daddy. What would work for Linnaea…?

M&Ms, that’s what.

So there is a bag of candy in the bathroom. For the two-year old. Great parents, huh? But it works. And ask any parent who has ever lived: with children, quite often the end justifies the means. The first full day that we employed Plan M, our forces tallied an unblemished record (except for a poopy diaper). All attempts at peeing in the potty were successful and the same diaper (except for the one noted above) was worn throughout the day. It looked as if we would soon be able to kick one child’s expensive diapers to the curb.

But alas, day two was fraught with inconsistency. Many attempts were made at using the potty, but mostly after having just soiled the diaper. Therefore attempts were met with limited success. But our reward system paid out one unit for trying (remember the screaming), one more for peeing, a bonus for a dry diaper (if there was pee in the potty), and four for poop (in the potty). So while no day that followed was quite as successful as that first, the girl was actually using the potty for its intended purpose, and was finally becoming cognizant of her bodily functions and what she was suppose to be doing about them.

Last week she started telling us – unsolicited – she needed to use the potty before going in her diaper. A phenomenal change. What this attitude led to, was Linnaea using the upstairs toilet. When we first acquired the potty seat for the toilet, we got two, one for each of our bathrooms. But the second had just been collecting dust (okay, the first one had been as well). The point being, we were prepared to sit her on the other toilet, and didn’t need to run her downstairs and potentially neutralize the momentum. The upstairs bathroom is tiny. Partly because it’s a half-bath, but also because its volume is truncated by the roof, which slopes through one wall. I cannot tell you how many times I have banged my head into the ceiling standing up from cleaning out the litter boxes. But each time there is much loud gnashing of teeth. I digress.

The upstairs bathroom, partly exotic because Linnaea is rarely allowed in there because of the litter boxes, is apparently not unlike a cozy cave. At least to the eyes of a two-year old. On two occasions now, after being left alone in the privacy of the more Linnaea-sized bathroom, she has produced poop in the potty! The first time she would get up, open the door, and show Mater the produce of her efforts after each tiny piece. Last night, after already having peed in the toilet, when asked if she wanted to poop in the potty, she smiled, waved us out, and got to work. And there was poop. And it was very good.

Wish us luck that this progress will continue and become entrenched in the girl’s routine. Maybe the Easter Bunny can hide some underwear in the eggs this year…

So it’s been awhile since I’ve posted to this thing. Actually, this is the first time I’ve posted to this thing, my last post being before we made the site switch. Needless to say, a lot has happened in the ensuing months. As noted below, my son was born. He is now two months old (9 weeks, actually) and doing quite well. I forgot just how quickly they grow. Not that he was ever tiny, but he now weighs 12 pounds, half again as much as he did when he was born. That’s about a half a pound a week! The kid is strong too.

Trip now sleeps through the night pretty well. I guess that started sometime in February, but now we can actually put him down in his crib at night and be reasonably assured that he won’t wake us up before my alarm goes off in the morning. He usually takes his last feeding of the night around midnight – plus or minus about two hours. The later differential sometimes leads to me finding Mater asleep in the rocking chair with the baby in the morning. Pretty comfy chair…

He likes his crib. He really likes the mobile (which is the same one Linnaea used). There are a couple of tiles that get him laughing and smiling. Trip is generally a happy baby. He likes to be upright and looks around at everything. He tracks objects and sounds now and reacts to visual and auditory stimuli. If you repeat the sounds he makes, he will often repeat them back to you, and smile and laugh and wave his arms excitedly. But when he is unhappy, the kid can deafen your brain with howling that would make Cerberus curl up in a dark corner and wet himself. I am not exaggerating either. Seriously. It’s not that you can’t hear yourself think – his wailing cancels out your thoughts. His sister can read minds, Trip can destroy them. [Maybe we should stop at two kids, I’m not sure the universe would survive a whole clan…]

His hairline receded back to the top of his head. The missing hair has started growing back, but is still only little more than fuzz. But he also has a bald spot on the back of his head. He looks like he should be wearing a monk’s habit. Maybe he can dress up as Yoda for Halloween… His eyes are brown. His dark (black?) hair looks like it might be curly. The longer tufts have a tendency to curl, so we’re not sure. It may just be bed head.

He was baptized at the end of January, which was very good. For all of the worries and stress during his pregnancy, it was a relief to finally be able to say that he made it and that his soul is safe. None of the grandparents were able to make the baptism, but my grandparents and Aunt and cousin were there so it was still a very nice family event. It was honor to have the ones responsible for Trip’s name (my father’s parents) present.

I’m not sure what else to say about Trip right now. He’s a two-month old baby. He’s really cute. Not really much else to say. Unless you want to read about his poop. There’s always plenty to talk about regarding poop.

One last bit about Trip for this post: he has a wonderful big sister! Linnaea is so good with him. She loves her baby brother. Sometimes she’s a little too exuberant, and doesn’t do a wonderful job keeping track of where her fingers are in relation to his eyes, but for being only two and a half years old, she does great. She always wants to give him hugs and kisses. She sings for him, and dances for him, and does anything she thinks he likes to get him to smile. That, of course, will just get more entertaining now that Trip is becoming more interactive. The first thing Linnaea said when she saw Trip for the first time in the hospital was “Baby Jesus!” Blame that one on Christmas being so close to Trip’s birthday. It actually took a few weeks before she stopped calling him that.

Linnaea seems to be handling having a sibling pretty well. She’s definitely been needing more attention recently, but she hasn’t had any major behavioral issues. She has occasionally done ‘baby’ things (like sucking on a pacifier) perhaps to get attention. But I think we’ve been able to sell her on the role of big sister – and she likes it.

Linnaea is incredible. I know, I’m biased. But for two, she is extremely well put together. Mater has to occasionally remind herself of Linnaea’s age when she finds herself expecting more out of Linnaea. ‘Oh yeah, you’re only two. You’re not suppose to have to do…’ I know our parents understand that one. I think perhaps we haven’t been enriching her as much as we were before Trip was born, but as things settle into the new routine we’ll rectify that.

Linnaea knows her alphabet. She knows all of the letters in order, is learning what sounds they make, and can draw some of the simple ones. We’ve started trying to teach her to read using the Bob books. She is a ways off yet, but when she decides she’s ready, she will read. Right now she’s content enough to pretend. But she loves to her books. When she reads to Trip she holds the book facing him so he can see the pictures. Absolutely adorable.

She can count to twelve, knows most of the teens, knows twenty, but hasn’t yet figured out the construction of numbers above twenty. She does recognize now that a one and a two together is the number twelve, and not just the number one and number two together. She is good at counting groups of objects now. She used to point at them and count, but didn’t necessarily count at the same pace she pointed, or pointed at something more than once, etc. She will also count a large group as multiple smaller groups if there is a logical division. So instead of counting all seven ladybugs, she will count four and then three. I see this as a sign that I will be able to start teaching her math soon. She got a watch for Christmas and has a set of blocks that is a clock. But we haven’t really made any progress with telling time.

She speaks well, has decent pronunciation for someone of her age, has a good vocabulary and can parse relatively complex sentences. There are still plenty of words that she uses regularly that she doesn’t quite get yet. It sometimes takes her awhile to figure out how to express her thought properly with words, but she will keep trying until she does. She will still spout gibberish when she is ‘talking’ or ‘reading’, but only if she doesn’t have anything she wants to say. She talks on the phone now, so feel free to give her a call if you want to chat. Chat about the dog. And the cat. And the picture. And the window. And the chair. And riding in the biniban [minivan]…

Linnaea loves music. She likes to listen to all types of quality music, but especially seems to like guitar music! She can identify a good number of instruments by ear (guitar, drums, violin, trumpet, piano, etc.) and knows several more by appearance (banjo, etc.). She likes to sing and makes up her own songs as well as sing anything that we sing to her. As noted in a previous post, she’s been singing the offertory response that we do at church for over a year now. But most of all, she loves to dance. And it seems like she’s pretty good at it too. Different types of movement for different types of music. I think she likes the ballet movements the most right now. Can’t wait to get her in some dance classes.

The main things with Linnaea now is that she is a kid. Baby no longer. Not potty trained yet, but we are making progress on that front. We started bribing rewarding her with M&Ms for using the potty and keeping her diaper dry. We’re not consistent yet, but at least she actually uses the potty now. Seriously though, it’s weird being her parent and seeing that she has grown past what Trip is, that she is now very much her own individual person that can dress herself, and feed herself, and operate electronics, and all sorts of other things. But it is so exciting knowing how much cooler the next stages are going to be as she learns more and can do more. Until she’s a teenager and then she gets shipped off to the convent.

We’ll try to post to this thing more frequently now that we aren’t totally sleep deprived. And a glut of pictures too [though not in this post because I don’t know what I’m doing with this thing yet].