New This Week

I confess, I have about given up on potty training innumerable times over the past four months. I mean, really, how long is it supposed to take a not-quite-two-year-old to achieve a modicum of potty understanding? Certainly not the three-day-training program some moms proudly blog about…making the rest of us feel like complete failures, breaking down into tears and preparing to return to the worse job we ever had because it was way easier than this. Yeah, basically having a complete mental collapse.

And yet…something has finally hit home. I doubt it’s the discipline, the pep talks or even the reward “mooches” (aka: M&M’s). It’s likely just Emry making up her mind to do something, just as Emry makes up her mind about anything she wants or does not want to do. (Mmh…wonder where she gets that independent mind set?) But we went for THREE WHOLE DAYS (count them…one…two…three!) without an accident. Then we had one while eating dinner. But interrupting play time or mealtime to go “tinkle potty” isn’t part of the education yet. She just consents to go when I tell her it’s time and she does need to. On the flip side, if I tell her and she doesn’t need to we nearly throw a fit. However, we don’t spend a half hour at a time trying to go – we simply do our business and move on with our day. And, best of all, she has actually told me she needs to go BEFORE she wets her panties at least three times now. And even though this whole process has done absolutely nothing to bolster my confidence in being a mother, at least I’m not breaking down into tears anymore.

In other news, Ethan is sleeping through the night! I know, I know…he’s just ten weeks old. Most mothers would envy me. But Emry slept through the night at six weeks, so it’s been a challenge to know what to do to help him head in that direction. Usually a regular four-hour feeding schedule during the day (which he’s faithfully on) helps, but he would wake up every four hours at night as well, acting like I hadn’t fed him all day. Now he might still wake up on that four hour schedule, but he’s found his thumb (sadly) and puts himself back to sleep for another three or four hours. No, I’m not complaining.

Emry was so “slow” to reach the normal infant milestones that I dare not compare Ethan to her. To me, he seems quite strong. Already, he’ll put his feet down and lock his legs when you hold him up on your lap. Emry NEVER did that. When he has “tummy time”, it’s like watching a yoga instructor. He’s extremely good at locust pose and up-dog. Again, two things Emry NEVER did. However, when Ed told me he rolled over the other day, he added that Ethan had been angry at being placed on his tummy and kicked himself over. A fluke? Apparently not. I flipped him to his tummy the next day when he was in a very happy mood just to see what would happen…and he flipped right over. Later, I caught it on video. And, he’ll flip left or right. So while his sister may have taken her merry time to roll, sit, crawl or walk; I have a feeling he’s not going to take any time at all.