Potty Training Time

It is potty training time, once again. I tried this last year around this time, but Elijah wasn't quite ready. He didn't have the bladder control at all, although it was a great starting point. Since then, he's tinkled in the potty on command really well and has gone at least once a day. But we had a pretty boring week, so I decided to start hard core on Monday. His incentive for tinkling is stickers for his calendar. We have a calendar that we do every Monday - I make a new one on posterboard each month and on every Monday, we color pictures of our plans for the week (library book for library, cross for church, etc) on paper, cut them out together, and he glues them on the specific day. [This started off back when he was about 20 months old b/c I wanted to make sure, since he's not in Mother's Day Out, that I'm teaching him most things that he would be learning there, and I thought "Days of the Week" might be one of them.] So anyways, we used to give him coins as an incentive for going on the potty - which since he LOVED them so much, he can now tell you what men are on the quarter, penny, and dime - but that didn't work so well once we used coins as bribery for other things (aka good behavior in public). So this week he has started putting little stickers on the calendar in 'today's date,' every time he tinkles on the potty. On Monday, he spent all day naked and only tinkled on the floor once. I reminded him every hour to go and he did great. On Tuesday, he spent the morning naked (w/ one accident during lunch in his high chair), and then he wore underwear in the afternoon. On Wednesday, he spent the day in his underwear, and I let him lead me a little more on when he goes to the potty. I eventually made him go a little after 10 since he hadn't gone since he woke up. We made a trip to Publix without a diaper on (I thought that would either turn out to be a brave or stupid decision). At publix, we were in the frozen section when he told me he needed to tinkle on the potty, so we made a mad dash to the rest rooms. It was quite difficult getting him up on the potty (praise the Lord for sanitizing wipes in the bathroom) with Luke in my arms, but he did a great job. He tinkled just a touch in his underwear later that day and then, when I was cleaning up after bedtime, I found that he tinkled in Stephen's chair during his movie... oh well. But my goal, from now on, is to wear underwear at home and then pull ups, I guess, in public outings (with the exception of small trips here and there). I really hope this goes well!

Life with two boys is getting more and more interesting. Luke's pulling up and walking/pushing everything. I didn't pay much attention to it when I was helping Elijah brush his teeth and Luke was walking around the potty, until he grabbed Elijah's little potty and turned it over, spilling a potty full of pee all over the hardwoods. I quickly put both of the boys out of the bathroom, told Elijah to watch his brother for a second =), and closed the door to clean up the mess. When I was done, no more than 1 min later, Elijah was all the way up the stairs, and Luke had made it past the landing on our stairs (almost 1/2way up). Then Elijah said "Hey down there!" with a big smile on his face...It was really cute. Lesson learned - I should shut the gate to the stairs and not close the door when I'm cleaning. =)
Luke has finally started to like books in the past couple days. Generally, he's too distracted to sit and read for a wihle, but something has just clicked in the last couple days. He gets really giddy when I take out "Brown Bear." and it's so cute... Other things that make him start to smile, laugh, and kick his legs in excitement are...opening the front door to the house (we generally wait for daddy to come home when that happens), bananas, Elijah giggling at him, holding him in your arms and dancing with him..He's a sweet, happy boy. He has gotten not one, not two, but three teeth now, and the fourth is about to break through the surface. We'll just say teething hasn't been the best experience in the world...He hasn't been all that fussy though, so that's definitely something to be thankful for. He's had trouble napping the past 2 days and woke up in the middle of the night last night, screaming bloody murder for a good hour. I had quite the meltdown on Tuesday... I keep trying to wake up early, setting the alarm at, now 5:45, just to get some things done around the house and find some time to shower. But Luke keeps waking up earlier and earlier! So I was crying to Stephen on Tuesday, and what does he do? He comes home a little early with roses and chocolates (and an orchid), and a beautifully written little card. Then today, he went into work later than usual (which is probably normal time for most people) just so I could get a shower before my day started, which is so sweet. (A shower might not sound like a lot to most people, but for moms with little ones, you know how big a deal that can be!) So I just wanted to let everyone know how great of a husband he is!