A Journey to Love

All was going well in the potty training business until yesterday. Even though he was wetting the bed during his naps and bedtime, I didn't mind so much because he was consistently going on the toilet during the times he was awake. However, yesterday he had several accidents and pretty much all of them were my fault. After the obligatory early morning accident in his crib, the next one was when he was eating breakfast. He was trying to tell me he needed to go, but I couldn't hear him over the espresso bean grinder (priorities you know). The next two times were at a friends house, where I was too busy talking to catch him in time. He peed on her carpet, which was quite embarrassing, though I knew she understood, being she just potty trained her two year old last week. Then he peed during his nap, even though he went on the toilet right beforehand. Then after dinner he was playing outside and despite the fact that I was following him around, I was talking on the phone and there...

Sometimes when I look at Benjamin, it literally feels like my heart is going to explode with the love that I feel for him. I know that is physically impossible, but I now understand why humans connect love with the heart. I watch my beautiful son and my chest gets tight, my stomach gets butterflies, and a lump forms in my throat, all out of pure love and joy for him. I marvel that God would give me this amazing child to call my own and sometimes I ask Nathan, "Did you ever think you would love Benjamin this much?" I sure didn't. Before Benjamin was born, I thought I knew what mother's love was. I babysat all my nieces and nephews, and I nannied for two precious little girls and I thought that I loved them as much as I'd love my own children. And at that time in my life, I did love them as much as I was capable of. But I have since realized that when you have your own baby, God creates a new kind of love in you. It's a love that is so primal and fierce, it...

Um, I think I've created a monster. Over the last few days we have been potty training Benjamin. Every time he uses the toilet, I make a huge deal out of it. I smile, cheer, jump up and down, give high-fives, and several "atta-boys." Then we run to find Daddy to tell him all about this big accomplishment. Oh, and he also gets an M&M for his achivement. So tonight he tells me that he has to go poo-poo. We go to the toilet, he sits down, and promply farts. His face lights up, he begins to clap excitedly, and points at the bag of M&Ms, saying, "This? This?" which is his way of asking for something. I can't help but laugh at his hopeful expression. I say to him, "No, Sweetheart. You have to go poo-poo or pee-pee in the toilet before you get a treat." His little face fell and his eyes welled up with tears. "This? This?" he pleads, desperately pointing at the candy. My heart broke because he looked so sad . So I did what any wea...

Okay, I'm sufficiently humbled. Last night, after putting Benjamin down for bed, I wrote (okay, bragged ) about his success with potty training. I did admit that he had accidents and that I was fully prepared for more of them down the road. I just didn't realize that "down the road" would mean in two hours . And fate really has a sense of humor because this wasn't just a pee-pee accident. Oh no. He had his first ever poo-poo accident. And was it a doozy. I will spare you the disgusting details, but let me just remind you that we were dealing with diarreah all weekend. Got the picture? Over the last three days I was patting myself on the back, thinking, "I am so glad that he goes poop in the toilet now, because I would not  have wanted to change these diapers." Well, I didn't have to change those diapers, but last night I did have to change those underwear, pajamas, sheets, and blankets. I did have to give him a bath and I did have to do a load o...

So technically we should be completely potty trained by now, considering I followed a three day method. However, upon further reading of that said method, I realized two things: one, it said that the child should be at least 22 months of age and Benjamin isn't quite 21 months old yet. Oops. Also, it did not factor in the vomiting-diarreah scenario, which we were so lucky to experience this weekend (can you hear the sarcasm?). However, the book did say not to stop for any reason, so we plugged along. So how is he doing? Well, he hasn't worn a diaper since Thursday at 2:30 pm. Out of 23 times of-ahem- relieving himself, 12 times were done on the toilet. That is over a 50% success rate, people! Give it up for the little, not-quite-even-21-months, guy! Obviously, he is not 100% potty trained. He peed in his underwear this afternoon, but this time he told me just as he started to go. An hour later he told me before he needed to urinate and we made it to the toilet where he c...

NO ACCIDENTS! He stayed in the same pair of underwear all day long! Woop woop! Okay, now that I'm done cheering, I must admit that his success today is not just because my kid is a genius (although he is :) I mentioned that he wasn't feeling well yesterday, which carried into today. He woke up completely dry and then all day long had horrible diarreah.  Luckily, he tells me when he has to go poop so we made it to the toilet all four times today without incident and subsequently he also peed at the same time. So he never actually had the opportunity to test out the new skill of "telling Mommy he has to go pee-pee." But with that disclaimer being said...BENJAMIN HAD NO ACCIDENTS TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just a little excited. :)

So I wasn't counting on having to deal with throw-up and diarreah while on my 3-day Potty Training mission. That's Murphy for you, I guess. However, it did ensure that we (meaning Benjamin) sat on the toilet a lot today and although he had some accidents (eight pairs of underwear worth) we did have some success as well. For example, he woke up last night around 11:00 and I was able to get him to the toilet in time for him to pee. Mercifully he went right back to bed without a fuss. I had no such luck this morning, however. He began peeing just as I walked into his room to get him out of bed. Note to self: be super quick tomorrow morning. As for this afternoon, we spent most of it on the toilet. Half the time nothing happened, but a couple times he pooped and peed. Each time he did I would jump up and down and cheer for him, give him a high-five, and then hand him an M&M as his reward. Then we would go find Daddy to tell him the exciting news.  Basically, we acted like he...

Well, it's a good thing I was prepared for accidents, because accidents we did have. A lot of them. Benjamin donned his first pair of underwear after his nap today (around 2:30) and when he went to bed this evening at 8:00, he was wearing his fifth pair. He had one accident after his snack, two after dinner, and one right before his bath. I was not quick enough on any of these incidents to get him to the toilet in time to finish up, so all I was left with was a pair of wet Elmo underwear and a little boy sitting on the toilet staring up at me with a look of confusion on his sweet little face. It was like he was saying, "Why am I sitting here Mama? I just went potty!" So now Benjamin is asleep in his crib, wearing underwear, and I know that I will probably be changing his sheets and clothes in the middle of the night. And I know that tomorrow I will be dealing with more wet Elmos and possibly worse. But that's all part of potty training, right?

Today marks day one of our three day journey of potty training. I wasn't planning on starting this daunting task until after Benjamin's second birthday, but a few weeks ago he actually told me that he needed to go and then proceeded to actually go on the toilet. Ever since then, he does his business on the toilet about once a day. After doing a little research, I found a three day potty training program that advocates putting your child in underwear and monitoring him 24-7 over a 72 hour period. Whenever he begins to go I rush him to the toilet and encourage him to finish there. We are to stay home as much as possible during this time to minimize accidents and devote ourselves fully to the task at hand. Supposedly, after three days of this, he will be potty trained. Of course there will still be accidents and I will have to continue to encourage and remind him to go to the bathroom for quite awhile, but the hard part will be done. So today Benjamin and I picked out two pac...

About three months I wrote about my concerns regarding Benjamin's lack of vocabulary. (Click here to read that post.) At that time he was only saying four words. Well, I am proud to say that he is now up to at least 20 words, all of which he can say without being prompted first. Here are some things that he says now: He calls Nathan and I "Mama" and "Daddy." He points at everything and asks in the cutest voice, "What's this?" He is fascinated by the "moon" and points it out to us in the sky, in books, or anything that is circular. He loves trains and if he sees or hears one he calls out "Choo-choo!" He tells anything, inanimate or not, "Bye-bye," while demonstrating his parade wave. If he hears a siren, he says "Whoo, whoo!" Then he looks around and says, "Daddy?" He loves his "Papa", aka Grandpa, as well as his "Nana." "Cee-Cee," his "da" is truly m...

Just recently Nathan and I started praying before dinner each night, thanking the Lord for another day He has blessed us with and the meal that we are about to eat. We thank Him for family and friends and we ask Him to keep us and our loved ones safe from harm. These meal time prayers are kept short because we have a one year old with a limited attention span and who is usually pretty hungry at that time! We save our longer, more personal prayers for a time when we can devote our entire attention to God, usually right before we go to sleep. So during these right-before-dinner prayers, the three of us hold hands, close our eyes, one of us prays, and we all begin to eat dinner. Instead of saying "Amen," like we do, Benjamin chooses to clap. Perhaps he is cheering for Jesus. :) So like I said, we only started doing this about two weeks ago and only when Nathan is home for dinner. So it was only after 5 or 6 times of this ritual that we were at my in-laws house for Easter. We sit...

When Benjamin was 9 months old, we enrolled him in an Infant Survival Swim Class. In four short weeks, he learned how to roll over onto his back and float, should he ever fall into the water. Here is a video clip of one of his final lessons of that session, which is done in full clothing: That was almost one year ago. Today we had our final lesson of the second session, which taught him how to roll over from a float to swim to the side of the pool. Here is a clip of that, also done in full winter clothing, which is very heavy! (Note: the child crying in the video is not Benjamin, but a student who was waiting for his turn in the water. :) It has been so amazing to watch Benjamin not only learn water survival skills, but also develop a love of swimming. He used to cry when it was time to get in the pool, but now he cries when it is time to get out! He loves to swim to the wall and then jump back in and kick to my waiting arms. Then he instantly turns to do it all over again. He knows th...