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And yet, he still wakes up in the middle of the night to eat…

  • Posted on February 5, 2009 at 02:29

…sometimes.

My night last night:

[I am sitting in the kitchen, with Stewie. It is after bath, but before bed. Dinner was finished a mere hour ago.]

Stewie (sitting on the counter, eating peas). Finishes bowl of peas, and announces, “Want more peas.”

Naomi gets more peas. (YES, he is eating PEAS. As a snack. Before bed. By choice. And I did make him say please) “It’s time for bed, Stewie, eat your peas.”

S: Eats peas. Stops. “I have to pee & poo.” (stall tactic).

N: Takes Stewie off the counter, and watches as he RUNS up the stairs (yelling that he’s “gonna beat me up”).

Stewie Gets to bathroom, takes off pants and I sit him on the toilet. Meanwhile, I put a load of laundry in the machine. Just as I’m finishing, I hear clamoring from the bathroom…

S: “I want to push the button!!” (on the washing machine). I pick him up, and he pushes the button. “I want to put the soap!!” (I’d already put the soap, but to avoid a tantrum – yes, a tantrum, tears and all – I gave him a cup of water to pour in.)

Stewie then runs back to the kitchen (he is naked from the waist down at this point) and demands that he get to finish his peas.  Back on the counter he goes, and continues to eat the peas.  Finishes them, and asks for more.  I try to convince him that there are no more, but he starts to cry, so I give him some more, but tell him that that’s it.

He eats the peas.  As he’s about to eat the last handful, he announces that he has to pee again.

Down off the counter he goes.  Runs to the bathroom again, this time on the same floor as the kitchen.  Pees.  Then pees again.  And again.  Puts seat down.  Goes to put the lid down, stops, looks at me, and says, “I watch it go down?”

N: (stifling a giggle) “Yes, Stewie, you can watch it go down.”

Stewie flushes, watching the pee, then closes the lid.  Washes his hands, and heads back to the kitchen.  This time he stands on the stool (that he carried in from the bathroom earlier in the evening) at the counter, and finishes his peas.

“Want grapes,” he announces.  There is a bowl of grapes on the counter waiting for him.  He eats grapes every night before bed.  Every. Single. Night.

Instead of eating the grapes, he takes them all off the stems and moves them to the bowl that held the peas.  We eat them together.

He stops me. “Bite it, mummy,” and he shows me how he bit the grape in half.

Stewie finishes his bowl of grapes (with several pauses for water).

“Want blueberries, mummy.”

At this point, almost 30 minutes after the whole endeavour began, I drag him upstairs to bed.

This scenario, or some reasonable facsimile thereof occurs every night.

Bye Bye Diapers…Oh how I’ll miss you…(NOT)

  • Posted on January 29, 2009 at 14:53

In a few weeks, we are going on a trip.  We’ll take a plane for a few hours, then a bus, and then get on a ship, where we will spend 7 days cruising around the Caribbean.

Not too bad, hey?

Part of this trip includes camp for the boys.  To use this camp, they must be toilet trained.  (You know where this is going, right?)  So I decided that this was as good a time as any, and it was time to toilet train the little man.

Well, my 4 year old is a master of the toilet (and lets the entire world know about it!) so there were no worries there.  But the 2 year old…well, see, therein was the issue.

Back last summer we introduced him to the concept of the toilet.  And yes, he did occasionally sit on it and sometimes even pooed.  But honestly, he was too young.  However, the seed had been sown.

Winter break arrived, and Stewie and I were going to be home for 2 weeks, no school, no programs.  So we started in earnest.

[ Wait, let me back up a bit.  I don't know how to potty train.  At least, I didn't at the time.  Linus simply announced one day he wanted underwear, and a week later we were done.  Easy, peasy, no mess, no fuss.  If you were with my on my last bloggy incarnation, you may have read the story ]

Back to winter break.  The approach we took was that whenever he was home, he was naked (from the waist down).  I have to say, this worked.  Not a lot of accidents after the first few days, and he even managed to pee on the toilet most of the time.  It helped that his brother would also be naked, and they would pee together (it’s a family show around here!).

After a few weeks of this, we pushed for underwear.  Gave him some for Chanukah, and he hated it.  Refused to wear it.  Would have screaming fits (”I DON’T WANT UNDERWEAR, I WANT DIAPER!!!!”).  Oh yes.

But we perservered.  And one day, 2 weeks ago, he put on underwear.  And since he was home all day that day, we left it on.  And you know what?  He stayed dry most of the day.  Of course, we took him to pee many times, and asked him essentially every minute.  But he stayed dry until almost 4 in the afternoon.  Not bad.

The next day, it was a Friday, he wanted to wear the underwear to school.  So we let him.

Let’s just say, it’s now been 2 weeks since that day.  For the first week or so, he had accidents, usually in the afternoon when he was playing.  And then, I think, something clicked.  He went 5 days without an accident (until 2 days ago).  We had a slight setback 2 days ago, but he’s still okay.  And now he goes on his own (and announces it, just like his brother) and has even asked to be taken to the toilet.

So we’ve now cancelled our diaper service (we use cloth diapers.  HIGHLY recommended if you wish to be diaper free before 3!) and we’re well on our way to being ready for camp on our holiday!

(Now to get him to be diaper free at night! Ha ha!)