Potty Success

Quite suddenly, Things seem to have clicked with using the potty.  After our last aborted attempt, we decided to hang fire until the summer holidays, when we could have naked days spent in the garden with a potty to hand and no pressures from nursery or anyone else.

However, the recent nice weather meant that we had our naked days in the garden a little earlier than expected, and we had some limited* success with using the potty.

*Limited because as I may have previously mentioned, Jacob still had no prior warning of a poo being imminent, and these special moments happened twice in the paddling pool.  Ugh.

After a last week in nursery before the half-term holidays, we broke the pants out again on Thursday, and despite me coming down with my regular-as-clockwork school holiday illness, had lots of success all day Thursday and Friday, including Jacob's first ever declaration of "I need a poo!", followed by actually getting on the potty on time and doing ALL his business there.  I also realised that he was staying dry through his naps, and while out-and-about, and he started asking to use the toilet while we were in supermarkets, and being very happy to sit on grown-up toilets (previously, he's been terrified of falling in and has refused to entertain sitting anywhere near one).

This weekend, we've not had a single mishap; he's asked to use the toilet or potty at 3 or 4 hourly intervals (which I suppose is a bonus of late potty-training - no 15-minutely trips for us!) and we've managed to bribe him into wearing pullups (up there with Water and Vegetables on Jacob's scale of Unacceptable Things) so that we don't have to run quite so fast to find public toilets if we're not at home.

Due to the two extra bank holidays, nursery is shut this week, and if I get better soon I'm taking Jacob down to Devon with me to poke my sister's ready-to-burst belly some more.  So we have a further 7 days to crack this, before letting him loose on nursery again.  Due to the amount of exciting activities they do there, I think he's far less likely to remember that he needs the toilet/ask to go, so I really want him to be comfortable in pants before he goes back.

Fingers crossed!

The saga of moving from a cot to a bed

It's high-time that I updated with our experience of moving J-cub from his cot into his new bedroom, and into a bed. As I've mentioned, he has been sleeping so much better recently, that we were starting to seriously doubt whether or not this was a good idea, before he'd even set foot in his new room.

The background: J-cub is a week shy of 26 months. He's a big boy, and when he stands up in his cot (it's a cot, not a cot bed), the rail is below the level of his nipples. He's been able to get his foot onto the rail for months, and I think it's only luck that he hasn't got out. Also, he rolls around a lot at night and wakes himself up smashing into the bars. Soooo, we decided that we should make the move to a bed, less far to fall than if he got over the cot side. As he's in the box room, and overflowing it, we thought we'd switch his bedroom for our second bedroom/spare room/study. We've spent the Easter holidays doing just that - making it all lovely and pretty and nice, taking him to Ikea to choose a bed, and hanging out with friends whose little ones are in beds, so that he could see them in action as it were. (Incidentally, while we were in Ikea I put him in one of the cots and he climbed straight out, which added fuel to my argument that it is Time).

He's been so so excited about his 'big boy bed'. I got the room finished while he napped last Monday, and when he woke up we went in to have a look at it. He totally loved it, he was so excited, he played in there for a good couple of hours, including lots of pretending to go to sleep in the bed.

Cut to bedtime - he was very keen to go to bed (asking to go to bed instead of having a bath etc), and when we got up there he was happily tucked into bed, and had a story. He then asked me to go downstairs (which is our usual routine), I kissed him and left. I came and sat quietly downstairs, then as I could hear him chattering excitedly to himself, I went up to settle him again. In retrospect ... big mistake. HUGE.

He wanted to get up and play, I kept trying to settle him. He got more and more upset. Lots of tears, and tantrums, and he got out of the bed and then refused to go back in. He was happy enough playing, but very, very tired, and very fearful when I mentioned the bed/sleep. I eventually got him settled down again, and I left. There was silence for 10 minutes, and I think he dropped off, then he started screaming again.

This went on for FOUR HOURS. I tried lying with him ("No Mummy No!"), stories, nightlight on and off, quiet, singing, our usual tape of lullabies - changed nappy ... everything I could think of. Thankfully Jamie was home and we could take it in turns.

I offered to bring the cot into his new room, he didn't want it. At 11pm we felt like we had to give up, popped him back in the cot in his old room, and he was asleep in seconds.

I was left feeling awful, all conflicted about what I should have/shouldn't have done, and how to move forwards from there. I thought he was ready, and I didn't think it was safe for him to stay in the cot. We couldn't take the side off the cot now because all the study furniture (computers, lots of guitars and junk) are in his old room with just his cot in the corner, so it wasn't safe. I could have taken the cot into the new room, with the side on or off. Or packed the cot away so it wasn't an option.

It was one of the hardest 4 hours of my parenting life.

And on Tuesday he went to nursery, so we didn't have any time during the day to spend time up there acclimatising. At bedtime on Tuesday, we went through exactly the same situation again. Completely exhausted from the night before, we gave up after just an hour, and put him back in the cot.

Jamie was home with him on Wednesday, and went through the same at naptime, and he slept in the cot. During all of this, J-cub was positive when we mentioned his new room, always answered "Big boy bed!" when we asked him if he wanted to sleep in the bed or the cot, and shook his head when we asked him if he wanted the cot.

We had just about decided that we would take the bed out of his new room, and replace it with the cot, when Wednesday bedtime came around. In a flash of inspiration, I had removed the duvet and spare pillows, leaving just a familiar blanket wrapped around the mattress as a sheet, a very thin cot pillow, and a Grobag.

J-cub has slept in Grobags since he was born, and we were of two minds as to whether we should change to a duvet or not. He really likes duvets, so we thought we'd give it a go. But I think they were just too hot, and he couldn't get comfy under one. He had been very resistant to having a Grobag, once he'd seen the duvet, but when I removed the duvet he seemed to forget all about it, and went into the Grobag without a fuss.

I had sent Jamie downstairs, and having got J-cub onto the bed, and into the Grobag without a fuss, I sat down and started reading. I read, and read, and read. J-cub alternated between cwtching up against me, switching the light on-and-off, and lying down. He didn't once try and get out of bed, and he didn't start shouting "No". And slowly, slowly, he drifted off to sleep.

We didn't hear a single peep out of him until 6.50am the following morning, when he called for us rather than getting out of bed and going for a wander.

And the following day he napped in his bed, after just 25 minutes of reading, and the time has got shorter and shorter ever since :D. He hasn't again asked for the cot, he's told everyone about his big boy bed, and everyone is happy. Ecstatic.

I really, really thought we'd done the wrong thing. I was of half a mind to move everything back into his old room, despite the two solid weeks of work we'd put in to swapping everything around. But it all came up rosy in the end, and J-cub loves his new room with a passion.

Being 2

It seems strange that a particular date, albeit the anniversary of his birth, should have such an impact on who J-cub is, and his development. Maybe it's that our expectations of him have changed - I've certainly noticed that now he's a 'preschooler', I've been spending much more time talking with him about colours and numbers and shapes etc, and surprise surprise, he's totally receptive to doing a bit of learning, can identify and match all his shapes and colours, and will happily demand 'TWO biscuits!' when asked what he would like for a snack.

He's been using 2 word sentences for ages, with the odd 3 word combo thrown in for good measure, but he surprised us completely with a six word sentence the other day - on viewing this brilliant video with me, J-cub said "Mummy show me picture baby happy" which left us with our mouths hanging open in disbelief while he happily skipped away to grind more Cheerios into the carpet.

On Friday of last week, Jamie had a holiday day from work, so we decided to head off for J-cub's birthday trip to Tenby (as we were rained off on his actual birthday). Just before we were about to leave (as in, seconds before), he thought he should just check the opening times for the aquarium we were taking our Nemo-obsessed child to. And, it was closed on Fridays. So we postponed yet again, and went for a walk in the Mumbles instead, where the tide was crazy high due to the Super Moon, the sea was like glass, and the sky was a glorious blue. We had a lovely walk from carpark to playground, where we all sat and ate fish 'n chips on a bench (J-cub ate fish! First time ever (apart from tuna...), no objection at all, no batter, no ketchup, just one of those little wooden forks and away he went) had a quick play, then more of a walk down to the wonderful Verdi's for ice-cream sundaes.

J-cub has had various licks of ice-cream and lots of ice-lollies along the way, but hasn't had his whole own bowl before, let alone a Flake and a wafer. And of course, now that he's 2, it seems perfectly acceptable to fill him up with loads of crap at every opportunity ;).

He wielded his sundae spoon with aplomb, nommed his Flake, stole my wafer and crammed it whole into his mouth before I could protest, and ate from his glass-stemmed bowl without even coming close to an accident. Think we might have to repeat this treat more regularly in the future.

We walked back to the car as the sun set, deftly avoiding the 'I don't want to hold your hand' screams by getting J-cub to hold Bunny's hand, while I held Bunny's other hand. This was the Funniest Thing J-cub had ever encountered, as demonstrated by the smile in the below picture.

(And I won't mention that when we got back to the (just 5-year old) car, the door handle inexplicably fell off. ARGH).

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Several times a day, I get requests for 'Bed, Mummy', which means J-cub would like me to build him a den. I LOVE building dens. We have a massive stack of blankets in the lounge, and lots of cushions, and happily interlocking chairs, which make this pursuit easy and fun. This week's den has been sponsored by the trampoline, and a very simple two-blanket arrangement.

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And then on Saturday, we finally made our way out for J-cub's birthday treat. And of course, we didn't go to Tenby, to the aquarium (cos the car door handle fell off, didn't it, and I didn't fancy leaving the car in a carpark all day, in case someone thought a handle-less car looked an easy prospect) - so we went to Folly Farm instead. Folly Farm was our original birthday destination, until we found that it doesn't open in the week at this time of year. So our crap procrastination actually meant that we got to go where we'd originally wanted to go, in the end, so everyone was happy. Phew.

Few were more happy than this 2-year old, who stroked ponies, and lambs, and chickens, and tortoises, and pigs, and goats, and all kinds of other things. He was particularly happy that one of the donkeys was called Tilly ("Tilly eee-or!"), he nearly had a fit when he saw there were FIVE giraffes (it took us about 20 minutes to walk up the path away from the giraffes, as every 2 steps we had to turn around and wave "Bye-bye, grafs"), and there were almost too many slides to cope with.

It was a beautiful sunny day, which made playing in the sand all the more fun, as I envisaged all the days on the beach soon to come.

Since then, my preschooler has had a horrendously bad haircut (his fault, for not sitting still), learnt the sign for 'salad' (thank you, Mr Tumble) and therefore decided that his favourite meal is salad (anything with a bit of spinach and a carrot or two on it is salad, thankfully), and done his first wee on the potty. We've been reading Pirate Pete's Potty since it arrived, along with a super big frog potty (regular-sized potties are way too small for him) for his birthday.

On Sunday, while running around naked after his bath (and, probably quite dangerously, having his hair cut at the same time), I pointed out several times that he didn't have a nappy on and if he needed a wee, he should go on the potty. He went on the floor first of all, and we had a look at the page in the book where Pirate Pete goes on the floor, and we saw that it doesn't matter at all! J-cub helped me clear it up, then sat down for some more haircutting action. A few seconds later he announced "Mummy wee-wee", grabbed his book and his comb, sat on the potty, started reading and combing his hair and .... he did it! We had such a party, pressed the 'Yeeeaaaaahhhh!' button on the book a million times, and sang a 'Pee pee on the potty' song which Jamie was quick to point out came from Look Who's Talking Too rather than being my own genius creation. I don't care, J-cub loved it, and he danced around in a hilarious fashion, obviously proud of himself.

He now sits on the potty several times a day, although he mostly has his nappy on, at least he knows what it's for.

So there we have it - what a difference a couple of weeks makes. J-cub has his 2 year development check with the health visitor on Thursday, and I'm looking forward to seeing what she makes of him.

More Birthday Fun

All the family descended today for J-cub's family birthday party ... presents at home followed by a meal out, a walk and a look at the ducks, and a monkey cake in the sunshine.

We managed to do this birthday on the cheap, with a bargainous Brio oven reduced to £13 bought in the January sales, and various extremely cheap Nemo toys/books/bits 'n bobs from last weekend's NCT Nearly New sale. The oven has been a massive hit - and complete with play food from Ikea and a set of toy pots and pans from Auntie Rach, J-cub's been cooking up a storm.

We had lunch in the same place today as we did last year, when J-cub sat in a highchair, was generally quite grumpy and refused all food. Today, he sat on a big chair, happily ate his whole meal using an adult-sized fork, and finished up with jelly and ice-cream.

The beautiful blue skies and blazing sun lulled us into a false sense of 'Ooooh, Spring's here!'. It was fracking cold though, and our walk to feed the ducks (what does it say about me that I first typed 'kill the ducks' just then?!) had to be cut short through fear of ending up with a load of frozen grandparents.

I'd love to be able to say that I made this beautiful monkey cake, but I have to say that I ran out of time (as, I seem to recall, I did last year...) and bought it in Tesco. It was far nicer than anything I could have made. J-cub finished his piece, licked his fingers, and chirped "More cake!" as clear as day.

And now, my boy is 2. Practically all grown up. Tomorrow, he moves up from the Baby Room at nursery to the 'Tweenie' group (for pre-schoolers). I guess that means he's a toddler no more...

Apologies for my absence (2)

Quite simply - I've had a bereavement this week which I won't elaborate on as it's far too personal and complicated. I'm going to try and jump straight back into the swing of things with a bit of a catch-up.

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The introduction of a magna-doodle (and by magna-doodle, I mean a Tesco's own version which was considerably cheaper) into our lives courtesy of Auntie Rachel has unleashed J-cub's inner artist (I couldn't remember my son's name while I was typing that sentence. What does that say about me?!). Once he worked out which way round to hold the pen, there was no stopping him. Last weekend, we popped down to our big YMCA superstore, and there was this lovely wooden easel just inside the door (the fact that it was In The Night Garden was just icing on the cake). We immediately grabbed it and asked how much it was. The poor boy who'd just spent ages assembling it informed us it was £4.99, and begged us to take it home whole. We happily complied (and were also given 4 cups for paint and a bag full of chalk and crayons) and squeezed it onto the back seat next to J-cub, where he cooed happily at it until we got home. He's now mastered crayon (on paper) and chalk (on everything). There's a dry-wipe board on the other side, but he's not getting pens until he's about twelve.

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I've been gardening during the bright spells we've had this week (the sun which apparently is beating down on the rest of the country has mostly been avoiding us), and J-cub has loved 'helping'. You can tell from his long-sleeved top and heavy dungarees that despite the sun, it was fricking cold. He was a fab helper though, he dug over all the patches I'd just weeded (without eating any soil!), he picked strawberries, tasted them, and spat them out again (I swear he's the only child in the world not to like strawberries), and mostly practised his walking-on-grass skills (which, he informs me, will be useful for future gardening times when speed is a necessity).

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We've been for walks. Walks which don't involve a sling and don't involve a buggy. This is a whole new world for me; a world where it takes an hour to walk round the block and every ant, stone, cat, leaf, earwig, bin and garden must be examined carefully and exclaimed over. It's wonderful.

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J-cub can reach and operate the door handle. Oh dear. He hasn't yet managed to do so whilst pulling the door towards him, but I fear it can't be long.

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J-cub's signing has come on in leaps and bounds. I don't think I've said much about baby signing, but we went to a few Tiny Talk classes when he was about 9 months old, but they were on a Saturday and cut into our family weekends, so I bought some books (My First Signs, My First Animal Signs and Sign About Meal Time) and we've taught him ourselves. The CBeebies programme Something Special, aimed at children aged 4-7 with learning difficulties, has quickly become J-cub's favourite and he's slowly picking up the more regularly used signs from the show (and can do a passable monkey impression after the vastly annoying "oo-oo-ah-ah-ooh" monkey song).

So to have a quick recap of his current signs, J-cub currently uses the following: hello, bye-bye, baby, clean/wash, tired, bed, biscuit, apple, food, drink, gentle, cuddles, more, yes, no .... that's all I can remember at the moment.

I love it when he strings signs into sentences. Over the past couple of weeks while he's been poorly, we've been letting him have digestive biscuits as a) he'll eat them and b) they cheer him up when he's feeling wretched. After a few days of us asking "Do you want a 'gestive biscuit?", he started signing "gentle, biscuit". Whether it's because gentle sounds like 'gestive', or because it's gentle on his tummy, or just coincidence, it's lovely, it works, and it's now his most commonly used sign. In the photo above he's half-way between gentle and biscuit.

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J-cub has barely eaten since his ear infection of a couple of weeks ago (and that's on top of all the barely-eating he's been doing since his birthday). Baby-led weaning is all about letting them set the pace, and not forcing them when they don't want to eat. But when your baby eats nothing but yoghurt and digestive biscuits and peanut butter sandwiches and ricecakes for weeks on end, it's hard not to be concerned.

This evening though, he ate. I made him Swedish meatballs with a tomatoey sauce and peas. After some initial reluctance and suspicion, he wolfed it down. Then he ate a ricecake (we weren't really prepared for him finished what was first offered), and then a massive bowl of yoghurt. And he ate the meatballs with a fork, and the yoghurt with a spoon (well, mostly). I was such a proud mummy. That'll probably fill him up for the next couple of months anyway.

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How beautiful is my boy? We've been having a bit of a stand-off about baths recently, he's screamed as soon as his feet hit the water, and cried throughout enforced hair washing which makes me feel terrible. We haven't been swimming at all since our last term of Water Babies finished, and I think he's just got a Thing about water. This evening though, having sweated heavily through last night's sleep and today's two naps, then eaten meatballs in tomato sauce and copious amounts of yoghurt for tea, we had no option.

With a little help from a small green cup, J-cub and water rekindled their previous affection. He found it hilarious when he accidentally spilt water from the cup onto his face (which made hair washing much easier), decided that bubbles were yummy (he picked them up individually and ate them!), and drank water from the cup and directly from the bath whilst lying on his front. We stayed in until his lips turned purple. It was lovely.

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So that's all for now. I might do a Saved post later, then again I might not. I had a good one for today y'see. I'm off now to drink my cares away with a very rare alcoholic drink (rare as in I don't often have alcohol, not rare as in a thousand-year-old bottle of whiskey or something) or six. Night night.

He walks!

All my best intentions for an interesting and informative breastfeeding related post have gone out the window, as J-cub started properly walking today. It's been a month since he took his first steps, and since then he's done no more than 2 or 3 steps at a time.

Over the weekend, he started walking around on his knees - like crawling but without the hands. Nursery commented that they'd never seen another baby do this before walking, and everyone found it very amusing. And then this morning, he just stood up and walked! 6 steps straight over to me, apparently he's been walking around all day at nursery, and since he's been home he's barely stopped.

The look of undisguised glee on his face is wonderful, and he doesn't seem to care when he face-plants into the carpet. And best of all, he can now carry stuff around without it slowing him down. Bring on the mayhem.

Happy Easter!

What a difference a year makes - this time last year I remember it being warm and sunny, a friend came to visit and we sat outside with J-cub asleep in his moses basket, before going for a walk in the Mumbles while the sun set. Today it's not so bad as it has been over the last week; at least it's not raining, but it is freezing. We took J-cub out to play in the garden for a bit and wrapped him up warm in his hooded bear coat. Last year he was just wearing a vest and sleepsuit (although I was probably not quite as good then as I am now at knowing how many layers to put on him. It's quite shocking, looking back through old videos, in how many of them he is shivering. BAD mummy).

We've all had a lovely day today, although J-cub wasn't well enough to go to his best friend Poppy's birthday party, which made us all sad. He has cut another tooth (his tenth - half way there!) which might account for his runny bum yesterday, and for part of his cold symptoms and temperature. He perked up considerably this afternoon, and enjoyed playing in his ballpit and learning to stack cups.

He also amazed us earlier, when he was standing up holding onto his toy basket with one had, and turned around to look at me. I offered him a piece of toast, which he took with his free hand, then let go with his other hand and stood there eating it! I swear he practises when we're not looking.

Anyway, the point of this post is to wish people a Happy Easter, and to show how thankful I am that Cadbury's decided not to change their Wispa egg packaging from last year to this year.

What a difference a year makes:

2009 - Aged 4 weeks

2010 - Aged 1 year, 3 and a half weeks