Stop and Smell the Flowers
This week has been quite a roller coaster, to say the least. I hope I still have a follower or two after I blew a gasket the other day. Thanks for those who came to my defense. I certainly don't do this looking for nothing but positive reinforcement, but it's nice to see that at least one person (even if it's just my mother) approves of how we're doing!
At the risk of fanning a flame, I'll mention that I had the orientation meeting at Ian's new "daycare" on Wednesday. It went great. I spent almost 2 hours touring the facility again, doing paperwork, and asking a ton of questions. Ian and I will come visit for an hour or two each Friday until he starts on Monday, May 4th.
I received the codes to connect to his classroom cameras and they invited me to test them out at different times during the day so I can see how his class interacts. That rocks! It's a fairly narrow view with no sound, but it's something.
Today was Ian's day with Grandma Trish and also her first day with a potty training agenda to stick to. I'm sure she'll soon appreciate being able to go out for a leisurely stroll around the neighborhood with no worry of potties or accidents! Ah, those were the days (aka, 5 days ago!).
As for the potty training front, we've had mixed results so far. I'd love to say he's accident free, but nothing could be further from the truth. Stop by my desk and say "how's it going?" and I'll ignore your rhetorical expectation of "oh, fine", and instead, I'll give you a full rundown of the down and dirty of potty training. I don't think I even have a filter anymore for what's appropriate and what's not. It's OK to talk casually about poop in a meeting, right?
Anyway, it started out promising with the incentive of two M&M's as his reward. He still loves them (and covets to a melted mess), but they were out of sight/out of mind...so I started a sticker chart. On Tuesday, we started a calendar on the fridge and Ian gets a smiley sticker for each potty. After 10 stickers, he'll get to pick a prize from a hidden box of small things I've stashed away (mostly Hot Wheels, stickers, coloring books, etc.). The first day worked great. He kept going back to the fridge to look at his stickers, counting them and smiling. He was so excited.
Well, the week at school really set him back. I know they're busy and can't spend a ton of time with him one-on-one camped out in the bathroom, but he just had nothing but accident after accident. Every day when I'd pick him up, he was wearing a diaper or pull up instead of underpants. Sigh. I just felt like they didn't have the time or experience with this and gave up after nap. It's frustrating, but I fully expect that he'll backslide with transitioning to the new "place", so I'm trying to put perspective on it all.
Where he might be a little behind in potty awareness game, he makes up for it when he does things like this... He just now came to me with a magnet from the fridge (another 'mom of the year' thing I'm sure I'll get rave reviews for) and said "mommy, look...the Eiffel Tower". Maybe Shawn or Grandma told him that recently, but it still caught me off guard. That's pretty cute.
On the bright side, he only had one accident for Grandma Trish (if you don't count the one with me this morning before she arrived) but went once on the potty for her and once for me. He was so thrilled to get his stickers (I noticed that Grandma gave him an extra one... (cuz that's how Grandma's roll). He's up to 6 stickers for the week...only 4 more to go and he gets to pick a special prize.
Who knows how that will all work out with such a crazy weekend (again). Tomorrow, we have our neighborhood Easter Egg Hunt and then Sunday we'll do another one at Tom & Trish's house with cousins Alec & Ashleigh. I'm working on a letter to Ian from the Easter Bunny about going potty. We'll see if it makes any impact.
For now, I'd like to give another gentle request to put our differences aside and enjoy the weekend. May the Easter Bunny bring you lots of chocolate...and the good kind... a solid Dove bunny will do!
Adding a smiley sticker to his calendar
So proud of his achievements!
I still follow your blog, although I rarely comment - and the obnoxious comment from before was totally out of line, I think. Ian is precious, and it is wonderful to watch him grow.
ReplyDeleteOn the potty-training, I wonder if the new school would do better at keeping him on a schedule of trying and thus eliminating many accidents. With my oldest daughter, who was in daycare until she was 3 and I was able to stay home, her center had everyone in the 2's room either get a diaper change or try going potty every 90 minutes to 2 hours. All the kids would sit on the rug and sing songs or listen to a story with one teacher while the other changed diapers and called those who were potty training to take a turn trying. It was just part of the routine - whether you thought you had to or not, you tried - and it really helped eliminate the "oops I'm so busy playing that I forgot to go to the potty in time" accidents. The only difficulty with this was making us parents remember to keep up with it at home - my daughter would go all week with no accidents at school, and then have 3 on Saturday for awhile until we got our minds set on a similar practice at home.
And you know what, very few kids are wearing diapers when they start college - it will happen eventually - although I know from experience that it feels like it will take forever......