Potty Training, part 2

We are now a little over a month into potty training.  Here's a bit of a summary of how things have gone since I last discussed this.

Week 2 back at school, and he had a couple of accidents at school on Monday but otherwise he did really well, with only the occasional accident.  The director was also really upbeat and positive.  She expressed her shock and surprise at how well he was doing, especially along the poop front.  She admitted that this had been her major concern as before potty training Bennett would poop multiple times a day at school (usually 3-4) and they would often be pretty loose.  However, since potty training, Bennett seems to now be a once a day pooper and they have definitely firmed up!

We've braved trips to the mall and also to Sturbridge and survived both without any accidents.  Of course in both places he said "paw-paw" (this is how he says "potty") when we were nowhere near one.  At the mall Chris ran Bennett to the closest one we knew of (luckily we do seem to know where most bathrooms are located, including some of the ones in the department stores) but as luck would have it, the men's room was closed for cleaning.  He called me (I had stayed in the store we were in to make a purchase) and I quickly went to grab Bennett and take him into the ladies room.  Luckily no accident!  Then at Sturbridge his request for a potty was a false alarm.

We've also had dry nap diapers pretty much since the beginning, maybe only one or two that have been wet.  We had a weekend where we had him nap without a diaper and he was dry so we asked at school if they had a policy about naps.  Surprisingly they don't, so they are going to try him without a diaper for naps.  Now we just need to tackle overnight!  However, the next weekend we had accidents both days during naps, but then this past weekend he was dry again.

Week 3 started off with a few accidents at school plus a couple more at home.  We think the school accidents was just the reset from being away for the weekend.  The ones at home, he had been playing outside and didn't manage to run inside in time. Tuesday was accident free, but then a couple more on Wednesday.  The weekend was good though, except for naps where he woke up wet both days (we hadn't used a diaper) and a poop accident on Saturday when we were at the bookstore.  He must have been gassy or thought he had to poop because we had already taken him to the bathroom 3 times, but as soon as they left that third time, Daddy was holding Bennett and felt the poop.  Yuck!  But on the positive side of things, we also had a weekend poop in the potty while playing outside.  He really does seem to know when he has to go and if the potty is easily available, can get there pretty well.

Week 4 he was accident free on Monday and the rest of the week was a mix of accidents and not.  Overall though we are still pretty pleased with his progress.  Week 5 had a few more accidents.  Most of the accidents seem to happen at school.  Part of this is that he is at school more than at home so it makes sense to have more accidents there, but he is also more distracted by hs friends and whatever he's playing with.

I know that accidents are all part of the learning process, but I hope the frequency of accidents starts to diminish.

We're also decided it's time to start night training.  His diapers have always been pretty heavy when he wakes up, so it means that we need to wake up a few times overnight to take him potty.  However, there have been a few nights where we put him to bed,  he's been quiet for a while and then all of a sudden starts fussing.  This isn't out of the ordinary.  Some nights go better than others.  We go into his room to tell him to go to sleep, and he immediately says "potty" and jumps out of bed.  Some nights he pees on the potty, other times we wonder if it's a stall tactic.

Part of the decision was based on using up all of our diapers.  (Prior to training we used cloth, but we've now been using "sposies" because it's just easier since we don't want a bunch of wet diapers stinking up the house until we have enough to wash them.)  We didn't want to go out and buy another pack of diapers, so it's time for night training!  We are now 3 nights in.  I'm not sure if there is really any noticeable pattern yet.  I think we'll have to give it a few more days and then maybe adjust the wake-up times a bit to try to avoid accidents.

What a week this has been!

Chris pointed out to me that I ended last week's post saying, "Maybe next weekend we'll have some excitement?"  Well, I was just meaning something other than sitting around the house not doing anything fun.  I certainly didn't mean everything that those of us in Massachusetts went through this week! 

I think last week I hit "publish" on the post and then saw the news of the explosions.  What a crazy week this has been!  I knew a number of people who were running the marathon.  Many of them had just finished minutes before or were just about to finish.  And then there was Friday.  We live far enough away that we were safe, but we both work in one of the communities that had a "shelter at home" order.  So we stayed home.  I was checking work email periodically, but we were pretty much glued to the TV.  Bennett went to daycare since I wouldn't be able to get work done with him around, so you don't need to worry about us exposing him to things he didn't need to see.  After he went to bed we were very happy to hear that they got the suspect.  Hopefully now things will start to return to normal.

On a lighter note, here's the fun Bennett stuff of the week.

A few fun expressions of his lately have been:

• "Oh, man" when things don't go quite the way he would like.
• "Where?" (pronounced, way-ya) complete with a shoulder shrug as he looks for something that he is missing.
• "Come here!"  This one is both cute and annoying as we have to follow him to look at what he wants to show us, even if we can see from where we are.

Lots more play with his doll.  Here he is tucking him in.

And now the doll is being fed eggs.



We also had that moment where everything is quiet and you wonder what trouble your child is up to.  In this case, it was Bennett on the potty having pulled all of the wipes out of the container and scrunched them up.  I think he'd had an accident and tried to clean up.  (Auntie Mel- as you would say, it was "argyle day" at school. :) I didn't even really think of putting him in something else.)

 What?  This isn't how you are supposed to get out of the car?

First treat from an ice cream truck.  Daddy tried to say it was too soon before dinner for icecream, but Mummy vetoed that.  (His hat really does fit better than this, but Bennett insists on smooshing it down on his head, so it ends up falling in his eyes.)

Watching Curious George while waiting for Mummy to finish her skating lesson.  It was the final lesson of the session and Bennett got another ribbon, this one just a "good job" participation ribbon.  I think the fact that he got the ribbon last time indicating that he had passed was a fluke.  Chris spoke with the teacher and they agreed that Bennett would do well repeating the class again.  He knows how to do most of the skills, but he chooses to rely on his teachers a bit too much for help.  Definitely would benefit from more practice.

He took really long naps both Saturday and Sunday.  On Saturday I went in to wake him up because we needed to go somewhere and I found him like this.  I'm not sure if he would benefit from a bigger bed, or if I would just be more worried about him falling out.

On Sunday we went to Sturbridge.  Here's his photo in a cut-out.  I was thinking that I may need to get his picture in each of the 4 openings in this particular image and then photoshop them all together.

He walked almost the whole thing himself.  He was pretty sluggish going up the first hill, wanting to play with all the sticks, pinecones, etc, but eventually he got better.  With Bennett leading the way, we went into some buildings we normally don't go in.  As we were walking around at one point he mentioned "eat".  This is the first time he's indicated that he's hungry.  And since it was lunch time, we obliged.  Interesting that he said eat rather than hungry.  Maybe he just doesn't understand that word yet?

Here he is learning to be a cooper.

And for your weekly video, "Baby Bumblebee".  One day this week Chris was driving Bennett to school and Bennett said a word that sounded like "bumblebee".  This seemed a bit odd, but it was accompanied by a hand motion so Chris wondered if maybe Bennett had learned the song at school.  He asked, and yes, one of the teachers did teach it to him.  We've also sung it a few times at home now.  And here's Bennett singing.
"Bumblebee bee (baby?), me Mummy proud"

Given current events I feel bad asking, but we are still raising money for our walk to benefit Boston Children's Hospital.  The walk is in June, so I'll probably be making requests a few more times.  Here is a link to our Team Page. From there you can access links to all of the team members.  Bennett has met his goal and is now considered a Miracle Maker, but let's see if we can make the amount raised even more!  Or you could consider donating to one of the other walkers on our team.  Fiona is still a small amount away from being a Miracle Maker and both Alicia and Chris need to reach their goals/minimum required amounts of $150.  Let's help everyone reach their goal and then keep going!

Our week

Since we opened up the baseball season supporting the Braves, when the Red Sox had their home opener, Bennett had to show his support for the home team.  Here he is giving me his "cheese" face.  I have no idea where he learned this face, but I wish he would stop because it looks horrible in pictures

We also were blessed with warmer weather this week which meant we got to play outside a bit after school.  It was slightly chilly, but not too bad.  Here's Bennett riding his bike.  We need to raise the seat.  He's grown a bit since last summer!  And he was insistent about wearing his helmet.  I guess they trained him well at school.  Which really is a good thing.  Last year we didn't insist on the helmet since he was usually only on his bike for about 30 seconds before he would move on to something else.  And we keep the helmet inside the house, so it would be a pain to run in for it all the time.  Well now, apparently, we need to run in for it because he wants his helmet in order to ride his bike.  And then, 30 seconds later, he's done.  :)

Apparently covering Daddy in stuffed animals, dolls, and puppets is lots of fun!

And after neglecting his trains for a while, they were fun again.  He keeps talking about Toby, Percy, and Henry.  We have a Toby and he knows which one that is.  Percy he gets wrong half the time.  And we don't have a Henry, but he keeps saying that various trains are Henry.  Here he is making a line of trains.  He needs to learn about polarity of magnets though.  He would pull a train out of the basket, try to attach it to the others, and if it didn't stick he would discard it and try another, rather than turning it around.

Little People are being served a meal of butter.

And after seeing us taking pictures, he got his phone and started taking pictures.

Reading in bed with Daddy on Sunday morning.

Daddy asked Bennett to make make his fish face.  He did, but first he made his pouty face.

And now the fish face.

We decided it was time for some more outdoor toys, plus I've been wanting to get Bennett a golf set for a while since he plays with one at school frequently.  (Although at school he uses the clubs as canes.)  There were three different color choices.  He chose a pink set.


We also got him a T-Ball set.  He was more interested in fielding balls than hitting, but that gave me more batting practice.  Which I desperately need!
Bennett's batting approach was to start far away, run towards the T, and then hit the ball.  Or more often than not, hit the T and have the ball fall off.  Which is actually how I often did it.  Oops.

And there you have it.  It was a pretty quiet week with nothing special going on over the weekend.  Maybe next weekend we'll have some excitement?

It's starting to warm up a little!

On Baseball's opening Bennett wore his Braves jersey.  Don't worry, he also has a Red Sox shirt that he wore today, as today was the Sox home opener.  We haven't actually exposed Bennett to baseball much, so I'm not sure he even knows what it is.  Maybe we'll have to remedy that.

Slightly warmer weather this past week (not that you would know it by the winter coats) so we went out for ice cream for dinner one night.  Note to self.  The "kiddie" size ice cream is still too much.  Next time order the "baby" size for Bennett.)

It did warm up enough that we went for a walk on Friday night.  Bennett grabbed my snowflake hat.  Yes he needed a hat, but really?  Snowflakes?  I'm tired of winter!  We went to the bikepath that runs near our house, and we think he walked about three-quarters of a mile.  As mentioned in previous posts, we are hoping that he will be able to do the 2 mile walk for Children's Hospital on his own but we also have no idea how far he's capable of walking.  He also had his first pee in nature.  This will be much easier when he learns to pee standing up!  Instead Chris and I held him up in a squat position.  We're somewhat afraid that every time we walk past that dumpster now, he's going to say "pee".  The boy doesn't forget anything!

Maybe not the most flattering picture of Bennett as he pulls up his undies, but here's a glimpse into the chaos that was our living room on Saturday afternoon.  Dolls and a blanket (they had been put to bed), fruits and veggies (they also had been put to bed), a tipi, vintage Little People house... Just a typical day, I think.  And he was having fun, so that's all that matters.

Sunday we went to Sturbridge.  We were a little nervous about this as it was one of our first outings where a bathroom isn't immediately accessible.  (We'd actually gone to the mall on Saturday evening and he did well there, with a bit of a scramble to get to a bathroom.) 

Bennett's pretty trained now.  He sees these openings and he runs right over for a picture.

Ah, sheep!  One of the flocks has started lambing and they were outside.  (Last time we came we couldn't find this particular flock.)  When we saw the other flock by the farm I was commenting to Bennett that they were all the "daddies", but then an interpreter corrected me, saying that only one of them was a ram.  The others were ewes who happened to have horns.  They are due to lamb a bit later.

When we were by the farm Bennett wandered into an empty field.  He picked up a stick and was quite happy to poke around at the dirt.  We'll have to remember to keep a better eye on him in the future when they plant crops in the field. 

We have some alphabet flash cards, and for the letter "O" there is a picture of an ox. So we explained to Bennett that it's one ox and two oxen. He's familiar with oxen since we see them at Sturbridge. Now whenever he sees that flash card he says, "Oxen, cookies." Apparently those two things are very much entwined in his brain!  We also may need to teach him that he can't always have a cookie when we go to Sturbridge, but that's a fight that neither Chris nor I look forward to having.

And finally, here's Bennett playing one of his new favorite games, "bedtime".  If only actual bedtime went so well. 

Potty training review

This photo has nothing to do with this post, but posts are more fun when they have a picture in them.

Astute readers may have noticed in an earlier post that there was a picture (and video) of Bennett sans pants.  Well, that's because we started potty training.  Eek!

We first tried potty training last year on Labor Day weekend.  It was a method that claimed that he would be "trained" in 3 days.  We were very optimistic, and then very disappointed when it didn't work.  It was a method that had him wearing undies and having to use the potty in the bathroom.  I understand the logic in this since he would need to learn to pull down undies and get to the potty in time, but it also makes things even more challenging right in the beginning.  It also encourages frequent consumption of liquids so that you get more opportunities to try to use the potty.  I think that first day Bennett had about 50 accidents- mostly little dribbles.  We would rush him to the potty, but then he wouldn't want to sit.  This method also told us not to prompt him to use the potty, but instead to say, "Are your undies dry?  Remember to let Mummy/Daddy know when you need to use the potty.", thus putting him in charge of knowing his body and his signals and when he needed to go. We stuck this method out for 4 days, never really having any success.  He knew when he was wet, but he wasn't interested in trying to get to the potty.  We were exhausted and frustrated (and feeling like failures) and decided to quit.

While we were in the midst of that, I came across another method- Oh Crap! Potty Training.  At the time, I didn't really read much of it.  I was wanting a miracle cure.  This "non method" wasn't the miracle I was hoping for but I did plan to read through it more fully at a later time.  The book sat unread for months.  In the back of my head I knew we were quickly reaching the end of a magic period of time when learning to use the potty was supposedly easier.  Bennett also all of a sudden started getting really excited about undies.  So Chris and I looked at a calendar and tried to pick a time when we could take a couple of days off from work.  We knew a whole week (or longer) would be best, but we couldn't do that.  Instead we got 4 days.  A weekend, and then Chris took the Monday off from work and I took off the Tuesday.

I think we also realized that there are multiple definitions of "trained".  To some, it means 100% accident free.  To others it might mean that the child gets to the bathroom by his or herself and can take care of pants, etc on their own.  Some might feel that it means that when taken to the bathroom/potty the child knows what to do and can provide results, but the parent will need to help get them on the toilet, help with pants, etc.

When we started last year, I think I was of the mindset that "trained" was going to mean one of the first two things, or somewhere in between.  But now I don't think it needs to be that perfected to mean they are trained.  After all, when a child learns to walk, they are still going to frequently fall down.  But we say that they have learned to walk.  So why with potty training are we suddenly holding them to a higher standard?

So this change in mindset definitely helped me go into this experience much  more open and accepting of accidents.  Also, this second method we used didn't talk about timelines.  Instead there were different "blocks" of learning and once the child learned one block you would move on to the next.  Of course people want to know how long this "should" take, so when pressed, the author said that block one usually takes 3-7 days.  And I think this is where the 3 day potty training methods would end.  It's the learning of the basics, but nothing to help you over the next hurdles.  Oh Crap then states that for the child to get through the next couple of blocks and to fairly reliable be able to get toilet/potty on their own without prompting generally takes 3 or 4 weeks.  This was eye opening and so helpful to me to not have unrealistic expectations.

We were so happy and excited that Bennett got through block one in about a day and a half.  Then we had 2+ days to work on block two before he had to go back to school.  And we were pretty nervous about how that would go.  As of this writing, we are now on day 10.  We haven't tried nap or night training yet, so we are by no means done, but we feel that things are going well.  Here's a rundown of how things went.


Potty training day one:

Overall, it was a better experience than when we tried this 6 months ago. Similar method to what we tried last time, but some differences that probably worked to make it better. Plus Bennett is more aware and more cooperative than he was last time.  The big differences were that now he was naked from the waist down (no having to mess with pulling down undies) and we had a potty in the living room- much quicker and easier to get to.

In the morning had pee accidents about every hour. No problem. He’s still learning what we expect of him. However, they were all pretty small. Mostly dribbles. He did have a good pee on the potty right before nap. I think we startled him with our excitement though so maybe he would have peed more. Put a diaper on him for nap and he was really sad about it. He was saying, "no diaper, undies".  We had told him he could wear undies when he learned how to use the potty.  Since he had just used it, I guess he thought he had "learned"?  It's a good thing that he wore the diaper though because it was pretty wet when he woke up.

After nap, 13 small dribble-type accidents happened about every 5-10 minutes. He (mostly) realized he was peeing and would run to the potty but then nothing would happen. He also was farting a bit so would go to the potty thinking he had to poop. We got a small poop in the potty, most likely by pure accident.

Then the rest of the afternoon/evening was a mix of potty success, accidents, and 1/2 successes (start with an accident and finish on the potty). And of course we had a glorious poop accident. Ugh. That wasn’t nice to clean up- especially since it dropped in a couple places as Bennett ran to the potty.  But hey, he was running to the potty, so that's progress, right?

Total count for the day was 28 accidents/successes.

Potty training day two:
It went so much better than the first day!!!

• 7:40 woke up, took off diaper, sat on potty (no result)
• 8:40 accident
• 9:10 accident but then finished on the potty
• 10:55 accident
• 12:50 POTTY!
• 1-2:50 nap with DRY diaper!
• 2:50 POTTY!
• 3:30 POTTY!- no prompting
• 5:07 POTTY!- no prompting
• Put on pants and went to Target. Sat on toilet at Target when we arrived and again just before we left but didn’t pee either time. We were gone for about an hour.
• 7:45 dribble accident in pants
• 7:50 accident in pants (a bit more) sat on potty (nothing) changed pants and had another small accident. sat on potty and nothing.
• 8:00 accident in bath tub

Lots of other prompting to sit on the potty, which he did most of the time, but he either didn’t have to pee or just didn’t release when he got there.  And sometimes he flat out said, "no".  We didn't push him, figuring that he knew he body and he just didn't have to go.  (Part of this method is about sometimes having to trust the child.)

Overall, he was doing well without pants, but we would like him to learn to get to the potty while wearing pants since that’s what he’ll need to do at daycare. Too many accidents (I think 3 is their magic number) and they’ll put him back in diapers.

Potty training day three:

• 7:40 woke up
• 8:10 accident
• 10:45 POTTY!
• 12:40 needed to pee but wouldn’t. Tried to nap but fussed on and off until diaper change at 1:50
• slept 1:50 - 3:15, wet diaper when woke up
• 4:15 POTTY!
• 5:50 POTTY!
• 7:05 dribble, then POTTY!
• 8:00 dribble in tub- unknown if peed more

Potty training day four:

• 7:00 woke up
• 7:25 POTTY!
• 9:10 POTTY!- no prompting
• 10:45 POTTY! (while we were out visiting DH and his coworkers)
• 12:00 POTTY!
• dry nap diaper (woke at 2:15)
• 3:00 small accident in pants, finished on potty
• 3:40 accident
• 4:35 POOP on potty!- no prompting
• 4:38 potty- no prompting
• 6:15ish accident while playing outside
• 7:20 potty

Potty training day five:
This was the real test as he went back to school.  We were pretty nervous about how this would go.  The night before we wrote down a bunch of observations/tips/suggestions based on what we've seen.  We figured this would be easier because it could be shared with all of the teachers, rather than one teacher having to remember everything we said.  We were thinking one teacher would be there when we dropped off, and we were happy about that since we thought she would be receptive to what we were saying.  Instead it was the director who was there. 

Drop off frustrated us a little. Bennett did awesome and peed on the toilet while we were there. But the director was just kind of negative and seems to project more of a "I’ve never done things that way before so they can’t possibly work and then we’ll have poop all over the floor" kind of vibe. She REALLY wants him in undies right now (and was NOT happy to hear that he didn't have any on, even though we had told her last week that our plan was for him to be commando). I’m half expecting her to put something on him during the day. We gave her our list of tips/observations and I don’t think she agreed with many of them.


She asked us about poop. I commented that yesterday he pooped on the potty all by himself without prompting. Her response was, "So you only had the one poop?" Aaargh! Bennett always poops more at school than he does at home, but come on. On day 4 he did it all by himself. Can’t you be excited for him? Don’t set him up to fail.

At pickup, I was expecting the worst- for them to put a diaper on him, or require us to do diapers going forward. They stuck it out today doing our method, but are requiring him to wear undies tomorrow. He had a couple of poop accidents, which meant poop on the floor, so that pretty much was the deal breaker. Their notes didn’t explicitly say which were the accidents, but based on their notes and # of pants we brought home, I think this is how the day turned out.

• 6:50 woke up and peed on the potty
• 7:35 dropped off at school, peed on potty
• 9:00 potty
• 11:00 poop accident- also maybe pee accident
• 11:30 poop accident
• 1:00 dry (no clue what this note meant- successful potty, or tried and didn’t go?)
• 3:00 potty
• 4:00 accident
• 4:35 accident
• 5:00 accident
• 5:30 we arrived and he was sitting on the potty but didn’t do anything
• 5:45 potty, right before we left
• 6:05 arrived home, potty
• 7:00 potty

I’m sure he tried numerous other times and just didn’t do anything. They won’t put a potty in the classroom “because of the other kids” so it’s a bit further than he’s used to having to go to get to the bathroom. We’ve just had a potty in the living room.

The director wasn’t there when we picked up, which I’m glad about. One of the other teachers did acknowledge that it’s a different environment, other distractions, etc which is definitely true. Plus they likely aren’t paying as close attention as we were so might be missing signals. And they may not be as forceful with their tone with him as we have been to get him to sit, which sometimes results in getting a pee from him.

His regular teacher was out that day but would be in the next day. She’s pretty young (and doesn’t have her own kids like the other teachers do) so may not have preconceived notions about how potty training should go. However, her mom is one of the teachers who was in, so who knows what mom told her. But she also will have fewer kids to watch tomorrow, so should be able to get more individual attention.

Chris is pretty disheartened and really doesn’t want the undies. I think I have a better mindset because I was expecting worse. Bennett's at school for another day and then off for three days, which should also be good. Although Friday (day 7) he has both a dentist and doctor appointment.

He also wouldn’t nap at school. We’ve had some nap issues, and bed issues as well, since we started this. Hopefully those problems will get sorted out soon.  And you would think that with the lack of nap he would have gone to bed easily at night, but nope.  He was in and out of bed for an hour, opening and closing his door, calling for Mummy, stuffing his blankets between his bed and the wall, anything but lying down and sleeping!

Potty training day six:

Today there were a total of 4 kids at school, with 3 teachers (although not all teachers were there all day). There was the baby, a 15 month old (who is in Bennett’s class), and a pre-schooler, maybe 3.5 years?

I know I was a little nervous when we dropped him off this morning because he didn’t pee before we left the house (tried twice) and he didn’t pee for us when we first got to school. We were so excited though when we picked him up to see that he was in the same pants he had been wearing when we dropped him off, and then to hear he was in the same undies as well.

His teacher was awesome, writing down for us every time he tried, and if he did pee, whether it was a little one (what we’ve called dribbles) or if it was a regular size pee. He didn’t poop at school, but we got that at home- another self-initiated poop! He did have a minor pee accident with that one, I think because he was having trouble getting his pants down.

So overall today, it looks like he had 19 pees! Wow, that’s a lot! Most of them look like they were little dribbles, though. Based on the timing of many of them, it almost looks like they were prompting him every half hour. (Although I suppose maybe he tried on his own that frequently?) It’s great that he’s peeing on the potty, but I’d rather he have a decent sized pee rather than just eking one out every time he sits. Oh, and he also had a dry nap diaper.

Potty training day seven:

Another awesome day! One small accident while we were at a doctor appointment. He ran to the bathroom easily a half dozen times which was a bit of a pain. Chris and I alternated who would take him and who stayed to talk to the doctor. Anyway, on one of those trips his undies hit the floor. Not sure if they were wet from him peeling in them or if the floor had been wet. We think it was pee.  However, even if it was an accident, we're not really bothered by it since it was more of a process to get him to the bathroom.

And another self-initiated poop on the potty!

Potty training day eight:
Saturday was going great.  We went to skating and he peed on the big potty before class and again before we left the rink.  We ran a couple of errands and he peed before we left the store.  Awesome!  More pees in the potty at home, dry nap diaper.... Then he went to a party with his grandparents and had an accident or two.  However, the potty was no where near where he was playing, and I'm guessing he wasn't prompted like we would have done. 


And then we stopped tracking...

The author actually discourages a pee log.  I definitely understand that for the point we are at now.  There's really no need to track every pee or accident when you get to a certain point.  And Chris and I didn't track anything yesterday.  However, we definitely found it useful for the first week to know what his patterns looked like.  And it was helpful after a day filled with accidents to be able to look at the times he did pee on the potty, or remember that he went there on his own.  It also was helpful to know when he might be more likely to go so that we didn't over-prompt him.  Or to know that we maybe should wait for a pee before leaving the house.
At this point Chris and I are pretty much considering him "trained".  Sure he's still going to have accidents, and sure we're still going to have to do some prompting, but he has this figured out.  When he feels the urge to pee or poop, he goes to the potty.  We've just been doing other prompting at times when we want him to pee- before going out somewhere, before meals/ bath/ bed/ etc.

This has just been such a fabulous experience for us.  Maybe it's because we went into it expecting the worst, and then were amazed that he had it all figured out in about a day and a half.  Then we had another 2 days of us reinforcing things.  When he went back to school there was a bit of a setback, but that's understandable given the change of environment.  I guess today will be another good indicator for us since he's back at school again after another 3 days off, but I imagine things will go well.

The snow is melting... Finally!

This was an interesting week.  More specific reasons as to why will be in a different post, but Bennett had some quality Mum and Dad time this week, staying home on Monday and Tuesday, and then again on Friday when he had a couple of appointments.

On Monday he was home with Daddy.  They watched some Curious George, and this was the position he sat in to watch.  (Not the best picture, but it was a cell phone self portrait, so what do you expect?)  I guess being draped across Daddy's legs is comfortable?  He sat in a similar pose for me on Tuesday as well.

I made Bennett a couple of pairs of pants.  Here's one of them.  I was trying to use fabric I already had, so some of the fabric choices are interesting, to say the least.  These almost look like PJ pants.  Finally I gave in and went to the fabric store.

We had lots of fun playing with Duplos.  I keep wondering if Bennett would do ok with regular Legos (or at least the larger blocks- not the tiles or plates) but then we break down and buy him more Duplos.  But we all had lots of fun playing and building.  We made lots of stores, houses, etc.  Bennett still likes to destroy our creations more than build them, but he does do some building as well.

This pile of snow looks huge here, but as of this morning, it's much smaller and I imagine it will be all gone either today or tomorrow.  What a difference a week makes! 

At any rate, on Tuesday after Daddy got home we went out to play for a little while.  Bennett found a stick and thought that poking and stepping in the snow was fun.  And seeing my garden reminds me that soon I should get out there and plant some peas and maybe some other early things like lettuce.  (I think it's still a little early for broccoli.)

It's a little small and hard to see, but here's another pair of pants I made.  These are striped fabric.  I like them, but Chris thinks they look like prison pants.

As I mentioned here, Bennett had his first visit to the dentist on Friday.  He did awesome!   In the afternoon he saw his pediatrician, just to touch base and see how he's doing.  (I have no idea with what frequency most kids see their doctors, but I think we get extra appointments due to his heart and speech delay.)  His stats are that he now weighs 28.2 lbs (30th percentile) and is 37" tall (80th percentile).  I had thought he weighed a bit more, but I guess I was wrong.  He also got measured on the big boy scale and his height was taken standing up for the first time, rather than laying down as has been done in the past.

Saturday was skating and errands and then in the evening Bennett went to a seder with Nana and Grandpa while Mummy and Daddy went to OSV for Dinner in a Country Village, a program "where costumed interpreters oversee the preparations, but the guests do the roasting, baking, and mulling. Participants roast meat using a tin reflector oven, fire a brick bake oven, and mull spiced cider over the hearth before sitting down to enjoy the results, all by candlelight."  It was a lot of fun and we would love to go back again.  Although we are thinking it might be more fun to go with a group of friends.  They are already booking for next year (and some dates are sold out) so check your calendars and let us know what might work for you!

Here's Chris skewering the chickens to prepare to roast them.

And here I am whipping cream with a twig whisk.  This was a group project since it takes a while and your arm quickly gets tired.

On Sunday Bennett woke up to see that the Easter Bunny had visited!  The Bunny knows Bennett well and he got some play eggs, stickers, a Curious George book, Curious George puzzles, chapstick, and M&Ms.  He also got a toothbrush, which is still pretty exciting to a toddler.

Here he is looking at the puzzles.  You can see some eggs on the floor at his feet.  And why yes, he is wearing Christmas PJs on Easter. 

After getting dressed it was time to search for eggs.  Most of the eggs were empty, but a few of them had some small plastic dogs inside.

After church Uncle Andrew and Aunt Gentry came over.  They had fun playing with all the Easter grass.  Luckily it was made from paper, so it didn't make as much of a mess as the plastic kind would have.

After lunch we went to visit Mimi, and then it was home for a late, and much needed, nap.  What a busy day!

And now for a couple of videos.

We had no idea that Bennett knew this word, but he started saying it all on his own!

Lots of friends and family had March birthdays, so here's a rendition of Bennett singing Happy Birthday.

And another plea for donations as we walk to raise money for Boston Children's Hospital.  Here is a link to the team's page. We would love it if you would sponsor Bennett or Fiona (or really any of us, as the adults are required to raise a minimum of $150).  No worries if you can't, but even $5 or $10 can help make a difference.

A visit to the dentist

On Friday Bennett had his first trip to the dentist, and he did awesome!  He probably should have had his first visit a while ago, but I put it off because we weren't sure if we wanted him to go to a pediatric dentist or to the dentist we see.  I often say that I've been to my dentist since I had teeth (not entirely correct since my dentist passed away and someone else took over the practice, but it's the same building and some of the same people) so I felt a bit guilty for wanting to take him elsewhere.  But Chris and I thought a pediatric dentist might work better for him since they have more experience with kids.

We started to prep him for his visit a week or two in advance.  Nothing major, just reading a couple of books we have about teeth/ the dentist and letting him know he was going to go and that he'd have to hold his mouth open for them, etc.  And I guess it worked, because he was fabulous.

Here the hygienist is showing Bennett her special "tickle brush".  She showed it to him first on his finger so that he could get used to how it felt.

Then she showed him her mirror and let him look at himself in it.

 

Then it was time for the cleaning.  He did well with the brushing and polishing, but when she started to scrape the tartar, that's when he got a little fidgety and wanted to hold on to me.  About a week ago we noticed some discoloration behind his bottom front teeth, so she worked on that to scrape it off.

While we waited for the dentist, Bennett got to pick out a couple of stickers, and they brought over some crayons and a coloring page to keep Bennett entertained.  Then the dentist came in.  You can tell how at ease Bennett was during the whole thing by how he's sitting here!  When she started doing more scraping he did need to hold my hand again, but that didn't surprise me.  

The dentist mentioned that the discoloration looked like iron stains to her.  Not sure where that would have come from.  But it's just on the tartar/plaque, so not anything to be too concerned about.  They got most of it off.  They probably could have gotten more, but since Bennett was squirming they didn't want to push him too much.  If in 3-4 months we notice it's getting really bad she suggested we come back in, but otherwise there's not harm in waiting 6 months until his next appointment.  And coming in earlier would just be to make it a little easier to remove it.

And when he was all done he got to pick out a prize.  He loved looking at all of the choices.  Pencils, erasers, poppers, bracelets, animals, etc.  In the end he chose a red plastic platypus.