Toddler and Baby Milestones

Warning: there is potty-training talk in this post. It's adorable (to moms), but slightly graphic.

I haven't blogged much about potty training because there hasn't been much of it going on in our house. I've taken the very, very relaxed route. We have a potty chair, we aren't in a rush, and it will happen when he's ready. Lucky for us our daycare provider is on the same page. If Alex tells us he has to go to the bathroom, we suggest sitting on the potty. Typically he declines. Sometimes he tells us he wants to sit on the potty - we always oblige, he has only actually peed twice.

Mom, Alex and Dad at his celebratory "Poop Party" Sunday night.

Tonight he told Mitch he had to poop, so Mitch suggested he sit on the potty. "OKAY!" he said and ran upstairs to tell me he had to "go poops and pees on the potty." So off we went. He had to strip down all the way, because of course you can't wear a shirt, or even socks, on the potty. After all that he sat on the potty and I encouraged him to stay in there and not run off. I was sitting in the hallway outside the bathroom, nursing Avery (multitasking, you know).

And then I thought of using a little bribery, something I haven't tried yet. I told him that some day, when he poops in the potty, we are going to have a little party to celebrate. It would make Mommy so happy and it would be so important we would need to have a party. And within just a few more moments, eureka, we have poop in the potty! Alex gets so excited, he jumps up and wants to run and go get his Daddy. I guess the party idea worked!

Mitch took over in the bathroom, and then we proceeded to have an ice cream "poop party". My MIL had joined us for dinner, so she got to be there for the momentous occasion and join us for the party. We talked for about 15 minutes about how proud and happy we all were. We even ate our ice cream in the living room, and we couldn't say no when Alex wanted a second serving. It was his party, you know.

Then we remembered Alex's book about poop - he and I had just read it (again) last night. He ran to get it from his room and Grandma read it to him. She got a kick out of it. You know, they didn't have books like that 40 years ago! "Everyone Poops" normalizes pooping and talks about animals and people doing the deed. I always focus on the page that talks about grown-ups and kids pooping. "Some children poop on the potty, and some poop in their diapers."

In other family news...

Avery joined us at the table for dinner tonight for the first time in a high chair. She had been sitting with us, but down on the floor in a bouncy seat. Today I took out Alex's old highchair and scrubbed it down. It has a 5-point harness, so she was very well strapped in and had no risk of falling. I didn't put the tray on - no point, really. But we pulled her up near the table and she was able to interact with us more than usual.

And here Alex is modeling his new car seat, the Graco Nautilus. He is very comfortable in it, and really loves the cup holder feature. I am moving Avery out of her infant carrier because it is too hard on my back to carry - she'll take Alex's Britax Marathon. And Alex will have this new seat that I researched for months.

The Nautilus will be the last seat we'll need to buy for him. You can use the 5-point harness (the safest) up to 65 pounds (hard to find, especially under $200). Then it transitions to a booster seat, using the car seat belt across the front. Finally, the entire back can be removed to leave just the seat portion, as a booster for older kids up to 100 pounds.

This seat was just released and is the big talk of the parenting message boards. As of now you can only get it at Walmart.com and they just started selling them in the Walmart stores. So far it gets two thumbs up from us.