things you need (or really don't) for kids

   I started reading blogs when I was a new parent.  I often felt like I didn't know what I was doing, was unsure of what my child needed (mostly in terms of material things) and, having never really been around small children, I was always wondering what would come next and the developmentally appropriate timing of her growth and movement as well as her emotional reactions and thought processes.

   The blogs I found were helpful and encouraging in so many ways.  In great part because I found that others were just as baffled and confused by these tiny beings they cared for so deeply (but, like me, just kept them thriving with basic intuition and all the love they had to give).  What the blogs also offered were some fundamentally simple approaches to trusting my own instincts and simplifying our entire lives.

   Over time, I felt released from the need to purchase all the paraphernalia the warehouse baby stores wanted to sell us and embraced the natural world as the wonderful play thing, teaching tool and provider that it is.  Our toys were stones and pine cones, leaves and sticks.  Our daughter also loves jar lids, pots and pans and all manner of wonderful objects that already existed in our home.  She used dishes we already had, clothes that were handed down and, for the most part, we made due with the plethora of appliances and whatnot that we already owned.  Children don't need much specialized equipment or toys to thrive I discovered. 

   Occasionally though, some item - a product we buy or something we make (like the work stand my dad built) will strike me as a valuable "thing" to have for a child at home.  Of course, for thousands of years people have done without these Things and certainly we'd survive just fine without them as well.  But they make our lives a little easier and, in this particular case, this object made a developmental leap rather enjoyable for both child and parents. 

   We've had this for over three years and I don't know why I've not mentioned it before.  We're actually at the point where we hardly use it anymore and are thinking of getting rid of it.  Perhaps that's what prompted me to share.  Yes friends... after that long rambling intro, the fabulous Thing I so want to make my personal contribution to the blogosphere with is... a Toilet Seat!

Once Naiya was able to use a step stool to climb onto our own toilet, we found this very convenient and rather attractive (compared to the character- laden plastic padded alternatives) built-in child's toilet seat.
It has that smaller opening that keeps her from falling in but is permanently attached so it never wandered out of the room to act as a rather unsanitary queen's crown or other imagined play thing.  It's easy to clean, doesn't take up any space and just looks like it belongs.

This particular model is made by Bemis and we got ours at Home Depot for around twenty bucks.  (I'm sure there are other brands and models based on the same concept.)

It's one of those innovative things I would never have thought we needed, but, man, I totally dig it and it has been an inspiration to many of our friends with children at home as well.

here, wipe my butt...

Naiya uses the potty pretty much on her own now. The other day she went upstairs and a few minutes later called out to me. At the foot of the stairwell I looked up to see her standing at the top with her pants and panties around her ankles and a wipe in her hand. “Mommy,” she called down, “I went poop.... I brought you a wipe.”

quote of the day

She takes my hand and walks me to the potty chair where she has deposited a lovely treasure...“Mommy,” she gleefully exclaims, “I made a whole worm of poop!”

how did we do it?

So I realize that people have all kinds of trouble potty training their children. We got pee in the potty in one day and poop in about two weeks. Go figure. It’s not like I have some magical touch. It must just be my daughter. I had read an email that was circulating around our neighborhood about how to potty train your child in three days. It essentially said this: 1) Let your child witness the throwing away of all the diapers and introduce her to big girl panties. 2) Set out the potty and tell her that’s where she needs to pee and poop. Insist that she must keep her new “big girl” panties dry. 3) Put her in a warm shirt, socks and panties with no pants and don’t leave the house for three days. 4) Give her lots of fluids and ask her pretty constantly if she needs to go pee (like every 5 or 10 minutes). 5) Praise her when she uses the potty. When she has accidents, tell her that what she did was “yucky”.
That was pretty much it, and that was about what I did. Except for the yucky part. I thought that was weird and that it would give her a complex. Both my husband and sister-in-law have odd stories of potty shame and we decided, you know, going potty, even accidentally on the floor, is nothing to be ashamed of. Oh, and we also decided after four sheet changes in one day that we’d give her a few months before we insisted on no pull-ups at naps and overnight. She’s still wearing those and she definitely doesn’t hold back when she’s asleep. She’s only two and a quarter though so we think it’ll be fine for a while. She never poops in the pull-ups. I think she doesn’t like the feeling.
We still wake up to a naked baby some mornings. I think she doesn’t like the feeling of pee in her diaper either and so takes it (and all of her other clothing) off as soon as she wakes.

she does, in fact, like to poop alone

So for a couple of days, whenever she had to poop, she would tell me it was time for a nap. Since she barely naps of late, and certainly never of her own accord, that was something of a give away. What it meant, I learned, was that she wanted to be alone so she could go poop...in her pants...in her bed. She knows that when I put her to bed, she is guaranteed some alone time. Clever girl.
So, okay. I get it. Easily remedied. When she tells me it’s time for a nap, I just leave her in her room where I have placed her little potty and close the door. She can’t get out and since we have a separate playroom, there really isn’t that much to do in her bedroom. I wait five minutes and voilà! She poops in the potty!
We make a good team.
And we have no more pooping in bed.

potty training day four

Our first and second day of potty training went amazingly well. As I wrote previously, it took her about four big girl panties and maybe six hours to get the hang of the potty. She’s peed in it every time since. Poop, on the other hand, seems to have complicated our agenda. On the second day I’m not sure if she decided she just didn’t want to use the potty or if for only about the fourth time in the past year she just didn’t have to go all day. Because she didn’t. Day three came and went until 3:30 or so without incident and likewise without poop. I was beginning to have concern. We had been running errands (amongst which was purchasing another potty so I wouldn’t have to keep lugging the one we have up and down the stairs all day), and we got home rather late. I laid her down for her nap at 3:30 and within about 10 minutes she was calling me to clean up the poop. Again in her bed. This time in the pull-ups I thankfully had purchased for just such an incident. Does she just like to poop alone?

the word of the day is poo

story as told by daddy

Today was the fourth day of October and the fourth day of Naiya Sophia’s life. We have been home from the hospital for two days with Dionne’s parents playing a supportive role. Today we took a trip to Target to pick up a couple of nursing bras and some warm clothing for Anke. While they were in the dressing rooms I had been wandering around with my daughter. Upon hearing a small squishy explosion in her diaper I immediately began to search for her mother. Not to avoid the responsibility of the change, mind you, but to let her know I was headed into the bathroom for our first public restroom changing. I found her after about two or three minutes of searching and let her know what I was doing. Then the adventure began.

As I said, this was the first time I had changed her in a public restroom. It was also the first time I had opened up a public changing station.

As you walk into the restroom, the first thing you see is the changing station. You walk down a short hallway (four or five paces) and turn left to go to the stalls, toilets and sinks, but I stopped and opened the changing station. There were no changing table covers. The dispenser was empty, but I did not take this as a bad omen. I just pulled the blanket out of the car seat I had been carrying her in and laid it down on the table. I put a new diaper under the old one and opened it up.

I should say at this point that Naiya’s poo isn’t that bad at all. It’s yellow, with some green chunks that look kind of like spinach. It doesn’t smell, and changing her diapers is not difficult or disgusting. I say this with much thanks to the lords of karma that set me up in a Target bathroom today. Upon opening her diaper I found a pretty big mess, nothing I couldn’t handle, but a mess. I wiped her bum, and pulled the bad diaper out, everything is looking great, at which point she decided she wasn’t done. Now I know that kids have a tendency to continue going to the bathroom after their diaper is removed. I mean, who would want to sit in poo, but Naiya has some special powers I was unaware of. I lifted her legs to finish wiping her bum and she let loose. I don’t mean she pooed or peed a little. It was an arcing shot of poo that literally traveled five feet through the air. Her yellow and green poo splattered all over the floor for a stretch of about four to five feet, right in the entry way. This is when three other people happened to be coming into the bathroom. So I am holding Naiya on the changing table (it hadn’t occurred to me that those straps might be a good idea), trying to clean her all over again, getting out a third diaper, attempting to wipe poo off the floor, and directing traffic around the poo. One of the poor fools who happened in upon me was an employee too. At this point I was really wishing I had four hands. But I got everything cleaned up, and Naiya back in her car seat (which also had to be cleaned... I am telling you there was poo everywhere). I stuffed her blanket into our diaper bag because there was no way I was putting that thing back on her, and I went on to cleaning the floors. Now as you probably know, the brown paper towels they give you in a public restroom are really good at pushing liquid around, but they aren’t all that absorbent. So I was pushing her puddles around for a while until I couldn’t really see all the yellow color on the floor and picked up all the chunks. Then I grabbed my daughter and left as quickly as possible. I don’t even know if the kid who worked there told anybody about the mess, but I left in a hurry and never found out.