Growing Up

Ok, maybe one day I will cease to neglect this poor little blog, but I have no idea when that day will come. A girl can hope.

So I'm going to fill you in on the past few months in just a few sentances. I had planned on dedicating posts to each major event, but I could never find the time or motivation, and I don't see that changing anytime soon. So Thanksgiving came and went- we hosted, cooked a 30lb turkey named Gordo, and it was lovely. Christmas flew by- L got tons of toys and he is still delighted with all of them. We went to Green Bay and Milwaukee for the New Year. We went to the Packers/Lions game on the first where Nick watched the game and L and I walked around the stadium (he did not want to stay in the seats.) We then spent a few days with family and, apart from freezing our butts off, had a great time. Valentine's Day was delicious. So there you have it.

It is so hard to imagine L as the little tiny (quiet) baby that he was not too long ago. Heck, I can hardly remember him being small and chubby this time last year. My baby is definitely no longer a baby. The realization first struck when I cut all of his hair off (and by "I", I mean a trained professional). He no longer has those beautiful baby curls-- which also means no more tangles and hair in his eyeballs.

Before:

After (not right after. This was V-Day):

As if cutting off all his hair and, thus, making him look years older wasn't enough, he is now mostly potty trained. Yeah, that's right. This weekend we potty trained. And it was rough. We used this method, and I have to say, it was pretty successful. We didn't follow all the "rules," but he tells us when he needs to go and goes in the potty 90% of the time. We are still working on pooping and I'm sure it would have been easier if I had remembered to start him on a high-fiber diet days before we started training. So maybe he's not completely potty-trained, just mostly potty trained. That being said, I am incredibly proud of my big boy and myself. 

I'm not going to lie, the first day was hell. 3 hours in and 15 underpants later, I was ready to quit. But I didn't. I knew that if I could get him to go in the potty just once all the positive reinforcement would get him to go in the potty again. And that's all it took. We still had plenty of accidents, trust me, and we ran through the 30 pairs of underpants that we have pretty quickly, but it had finally started to "click" for him. Today was day 3 and we still had a few accidents, but I didn't have to do laundry and that is way better than I ever imagined. 

I'm not the type of person who likes to brag (much), but I'm so proud of all of us for getting through this weekend. Also, I got so much crap about "starting too early" that I feel like I kind of have to brag about it (minus the fact that the people who gave me said crap don't read this blog.) I hate how so many mothers seem to get some sort of pleasure out of criticizing other moms, and I especially hate when they assume that they 1. know me, and 2. know my child. Is my son young? Yes. Too young? Not at all.

I'm not the type of mom who forces her kid to grow up too quickly and I certainly don't feel the need to compete with other moms. Unfortunately, these comments really made me doubt myself and I think that was part of the reason why that first day was so hard. And I strongly dislike them for making me feel that way.

So why did we start training him when he is only 22 months old?

-He was interested in the toilet. Not in that what-is-this-thing-and-how-can-I-play-with-it sort of way that he (and I'm sure every toddler) was from the moment he could crawl. He wanted to be on it (or maybe in it. He's kind of gross.)

- He started taking off his diapers to go potty. He wasn't taking them off because he was wet/dirty, he was taking them off before. Yeah, it was yucky. So I did my homework and a friend recommend the 3 Day Method. We felt that it was the best system for us since a. it involved a downpour of positive reinforcement and b. it was guaranteed to work quickly. The most reassuring thing about this method is that the person who came up with/ wrote it trained all her boys at 22 months. Coincidence? I think not. Or maybe, who knows.

So there you have it. To those friends of mine who will start training soon my advice is (and I'm no expert): be consistent and patient and stick with it. You know your child, don't let anyone make you question your decisions. Ever. 

To those who thought I was crazy: nana-nana-boo-boo stick your head in doo-doo.

How did this post get so long? Meh. I'm exhausted. It was a long weekend. And now my baby is all grown up.