29 June 2008 2:12 pm
Potty Trained!?!
Okay, I'm saying it out loud: "I think that we've purchased our last diapers for Andrea." We've cancelled our cloth diaper service. We've taken Andrea to public, indoor places, other than daycare, with her wearing underwear.
Over the course of our recent vacation, Andrea made tremendous progress on potty training. It was totally driven by her, with support from us. At the start of vacation, she would tell us she had to pee and would be peeing about three seconds later. By the end, she could wait to pee until she reached the toilet. She also will pee (or try) when we ask her to before we leave the house. She poops on the toilet without hesitation. Overall, she has made great progress.
Since she awoke from nap this past Tuesday afternoon, Andrea has been in underwear exclusively. She had one accident at school on Wednesday afternoon and one on Thursday afternoon. Both were while she was trying to get to the bathroom. She wet her bed overnight and awoke wet on Friday morning. She skipped Saturday for accidents, and is okay so far on Sunday.
Can we call it success?
7 June 2008 1:51 pm
Dylan's New Glasses
This morning, Dylan and I went to pick up his first pair of glasses on the way to his soccer class. When the optician, Mr Wally, asked if Dylan was excited to get his glasses, Dylan said "yes." Dylan said he could see about the same with and without them. I think that we still need to take him to a familiar environment and show him something that he couldn't see clearly before. Dylan was excited to go to soccer and see if his friend Michael would recognize him with glasses.
While I don't have a written prescription for Dylan, the form that was with his glasses indicated that he is 1.5 diopters in his right eye and 1.0 in his left.
3 June 2008 9:43 pm
Potty Training?
My theory on potty training is adopted from some wise folks who shared it with me: A child will be ready to be potty trained at a particular age. Unfortunately, there is no way to know what that age is. So, if you start potty training a day before that age, it will take a day. If you start a week before, it will take a week. If you start a year before, it will take a year.
That said, I have no idea when Andrea will be ready. I do know a few facts. (1) She is asking to have her diaper changed right after she poops. Most of the time. (2) She was dry this morning when she woke up. (3) She didn't want to wear a diaper today.
That said, she did wear a diaper to school today, and the diaper was soaked by the time we got there. She wasn't interested in peeing on the toilet before leaving the house, so that's a big obstacle we have to overcome. She has peed in the toilet at school a total of three times now, over the past month. So, we have a long way to go. Or, perhaps it will all happen quickly.
Her teacher at school is willing to change wet clothes frequently throughout the day, so we're going to let Andrea go without a diaper as she desires there. I'll plan to do the same when we are at home over the weekend. I'm not ready to do so when we are out and about, until she can demonstrate to me that she actually can pee in the toilet. Andrea was willing to sit on the toilet about every 20 minutes at school today, so that is promising.
My approach with Andrea is to go right from a diaper to underwear. Pull-ups are just an expensive type of diapers in my opinion. They didn't seem to make a difference for Dylan. Since we use cloth diapers at home, that should be better for letting Andrea know that she is wet than a Pull-up ever could be.
It might be next year before we no longer need diapers... or it might be next week. I'm trying not to get my hopes up, and will let Andrea let us know when she is ready.
2 June 2008 9:45 pm
No More Office
I had an interesting conversation with Dylan tonight. It started with him asking why people at work were going to be tossing things. I tried to explain that toss meant to throw them away. Dylan doesn't like to throw anything away, so that was a rough start to the conversation. Here's how the rest of the conversation went:
We're going to be moving out of our offices at work, Dylan.
Well, what will you have?
I'll just have a desk.
Why, Mommy? Why won't you still have an office?
Because it will save the company money.
But it might not, Mommy.
You're right, Dylan.
He's about as skeptical as I and most of my colleagues at work are. Guess he's not going to be management material. We'll see when we're in our "open office environment" whether our current building remains occupied or whether it ever gets shut down. We'll also have to see whether the great improvements in productivity associated with staring at your co-workers all day are ever realized. By the end of June, we are supposed to be moved in to our new work environment.
Oh. By the way, our flexible working options are going to be reduced in January. No every-other-Friday off, and no working from home unless the cable guy is going to be there.
