Potty training redux

So. Potty training. I've been through this once before, and even though it took three and a half years for Tristan to show the least little bit of interest in the potty, once we took the plunge it was a reasonably painless and mess-free process. It took four or five days and we had maybe that many accidents before he completed the transition from diapers to underwear, and I was surprised if not highly pleased with how easy the whole thing turned out to be.

I'd been holding out until Simon was the same age, figuring the same internal switch would flip in his head (maybe even earlier, since every other milestone has been bumped up by virtue of the "monkey see monkey do" little brother syndrome) and potty training Simon would be a breeze.

Not so much.

Simon, I seem to need to learn over and over and over again, is not Tristan. He's not as easily motivated as his brother. With Tristan, he had his heart and head set on Annie and Claribel coaches to go with his Thomas Tank Engine sets, and once we told him he could earn them with stickers by going on the potty, he was all over it like, well, like a dirty diaper. We put up one of those little cataloges that come with the trains beside the toilet, and Tristan would happily sit on the potty and gaze at the entire population of the Island of Sodor.

Simon is a different creature. He's not obsessed with anything the way Tristan was at this age, and he doesn't seem the least been interested in transitioning out of diapers, even though he professes to be a big boy and is more than capable of at least peeing on the potty when the mood strikes him.

I think, though, that we've finally found his motivation. Queen Amidala. Yes, the one from the second Star Wars trilogy.

The boys are certified Star Wars junkies now. It does my heart good to see them running around the house with their little light sabers, pretending to be Darth Vader and Darth Luke (that would be Luke in his dark Jedi outfit from Return of the Jedi. No amount of explaining will convince them that he's not a "Darth" at all.) They hum not only the major themes, but the love theme and the victory theme, all day long. They quote large portions of the first trilogy from heart, and they while away their precious computer time playing Star Wars Lego, the video game.

Which brings us to Queen Amidala. They wouldn't know about her, or even the existence of the second trilogy, except Beloved brought a Phantom Menace Star Wars Lego video game home from the library a while ago, and Simon has been asking to see the Queen Amidala movie ever since. Purist that I am, I've decided that the Phantom Menace and its sequels are too violent and too dark for a three and five year old.

This week, Simon paused from some imaginary play where Luke Skywalker (a battered original action figure just like the one I had when I was a kid, scored from a local flea market) joined forces with Queen Amidala (represented by a Polly Pocket doll) against a pirate from a Playmobile set. Simon looked up at me with wounded brown eyes and said, in an unmistakably accusatory tone, "You won't let us watch the Queen Amidala movie." So struck a deal. If he fills his chart with stickers earned by going on the potty, he can watch the Queen Amidala movie.

Does it strike anyone else as wrong to put a poster of Natalie Portman in the bathroom for inspiration?

Pulling the plug

I've noticed that almost every transitional milestone that marks the end of babydom has been later for Simon than for Tristan. Last child syndrome? Tristan nursed until he was nine months; Simon was closer to 19 months. Tristan was out of his crib at 20 months; Simon was 34 months. Tristan gave up his bedtime soother at three years old. Simon? We're well past his third birthday, and there's no end in sight.

I know, I know, it's time. We've been talking up the idea of giving up his soothers for months now, so he knows it's coming. He even slept right through Sunday night without one - he forgot to ask and we forgot to give it to him. But when Monday night came, and we tried to convince him he was a big boy and he was ready to give it up and three year olds simply don't use soothers anymore, he started to cry. I'm a sucker for tears. I've really got to work on that.

It wasn't even all that traumatic with Tristan, the original suck-junkie. We told him one day that we were going to go to the toy store and use his soothers to "buy" something he truly wanted, a Gordon tank engine. Aside from a rough first night, and a heartbreaking moment when I found Tristan late the first afternoon trying to cram Gordon back in his box so Tristan could take him back to the store and get the soothers back, it went well.

I don't think Simon's going to fall for that trick. First of all, there's nothing he covets as much as Tristan coveted that Gordon. But mostly, he's just a different kind of kid. I swear to god, this mothering thing is so frustrating - just when you've figured out how something works, the next kid comes along with his own personality and peccadilloes and all your hard-learned lessons from the first time around don't work anymore.

I've seen lots of ideas for giving up the binky, everything from cut off a bit every night until there's nothing but a stub left (can you spell choking hazzard?) to painting it with hot sauce before giving it to the child (somehow I think Simon might like the idea of flavoured pacifiers even more than plain ones.)

I like the idea of using the soothers to 'buy' something because there is an element of self-determination in it. Even though he's being strongly encouraged by us, in the end Simon is left with the idea that he relinquished the soothers for something else of his own accord. A trade was made, and he chose the new item over the soothers.

But the more I think about it, the more I'm tempted to just 'lose' the damn things. "Soothers? Oh, I don't know where they are," said in my best thespian styling. "Why don't you just go to sleep now, and maybe we'll find them tomorrow." I'd feel bad deceiving him, but at least we wouldn't be relying on him to make the choice.

We've got to get on this, though. It's time, I know. But when his little face crumbles into tears at the mere thought of giving up his oral fixation, he takes my resolve with it. I'm mostly assured he won't be packing it in his suitcase when he goes off to college, but with each passing week the possibility grows.

Got any "ditch the binky" stories to make me feel better?

Simon and the Incredibles

I've posted before about how Tristan's increasing facility with the computer never fails to amaze me. Now, of course, Simon is hot on his heels.

Beloved has just set him up with his favourite Incredibles game, and he is clicking contentedly when suddenly he complains, "Mom! The game shut down!" This is a problem with our Cars game. It's incompatible with our video card and tends to shut down randomly. We haven't had the same problem with the Incredibles, though.

"What were you doing when it shut down?" troubleshoots Beloved.

"I clicked on exit and it shut down!" Simon replies indignantly.

Apparently there are nuances to the language that one has to acquire, at the tender age of three, before being completely successful with technology. The meaning of 'exit', for starters.

SImon's birthday party

Have you been breathlessly waiting for the update from Simon's birthday party yesterday? I know, you haven't been able to sleep for the suspense. Well, I'm thrilled to be able to report that despite the words you never want to hear your husband say when you have more than a dozen friends and family in the house ("Don't worry, it's only a small fire in the oven"), the party was nearly perfect.

I had set my goal for the day at a rather lofty "I'll be happy as long as nobody cries", and managed to not only pull that off, but I think everyone had a great time while they were at it.

We managed to play one game, but the kids were content to raid the snack table and play at their own pace.

Simon had a lot of helpers when opening his gifts, and he was surprisingly tolerant of them!





If you want to make a three-year-old really happy, I suggest a drum, a doctor kit, a dollhouse, a pirate ship, a handful of books, a floor puzzle, and some new clothes. (Okay, so mommy probably appreciated the clothes more than he did on the spot - but he'll be happy when I discard the flood pants that are grazing his shinbone instead of his ankle!)

And Papa Lou makes a very patient patient!

All in all, it was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday morning, watching the happy children that make up our extended family romp through the house while the adults relaxed nearby. They're the people I love most in the world, and having them all in the same place was more than enough to make it a perfect morning; the rest was just the icing on the cake... the brightly coloured Wiggles cake, of course.

A love letter to Simon

My darling Simon,

You are three years old today. Three years old... no longer a baby, but not quite done being a toddler yet. You are still my baby, and your babyness shows in your fat baby feet with their pudgy baby toes, and in the way you still have a traces of the bowlegged toddler waddle when you walk, and in the way you wrap your body around mine when I pick you up. Your skin, too, is the flawlessly soft skin of a baby, fresh and dewy.

But every day, another remnant of your babyness disappears. You speak in full sentences, and it's only occasionally that we don't quite catch the waterfall of words and ideas spilling constantly forth from you. We had a little confusion with 'shovel' and 'trouble' yesterday, for example. Most of the time, when we don't understand your words it's because you're busy thinking your own thoughts and you surprise us with your out-of-the-blue observations and opinions.

You are charming, my son, and you love to work that charm. You flirt shamelessly, and yesterday you kissed the back of my hand when trying to convince me to do something for you. Of course, I acquiesced; how could I resist? You are free with your kisses and hugs and declarations of love, and you have a way of meeting my eyes just before you tell me you love me that makes me think you realize exactly what you are saying and what it means to me. I fear for the hearts of a generation of girls who will look into those deep brown eyes, crinkled with laughter, and be lost forever!

You are a happy little boy. You are almost always cheerful, content, and easy to get along with - unless you are hungry or tired. Much like your mother, when you are hungry or tired, you are - well, I was going to say you are a little bit cranky, but 'an angry tyrant' might be a little closer to the truth. But once those basic needs are met, you are a pleasure to be with.

I have to admit, you seem to be the more mischevious of my two sons. You find small ways to get into trouble every day that would have never occured to your brother. You like mess, and you like chaos, and you love to play with water. Personally, I'm not so fond of those things. It was you who dunked the blanket in the toilet, and you who coloured on the fridge and microwave with magic marker, and you who found Papa Lou's scissors and started practicing your cutting skills, luckily with a scrap of paper. I think you're getting used to hearing your name said with an exhalation of frustration: "Si-mon!" as your daddy or I follow in the wake of your mischief, our eyes rolling as we try not to laugh - or yell! And yet, you are so lovable that you are forgiven for your transgressions, and we learn to live with a little bit more chaos and clutter in our lives.

You love music and you love to dance. You are going through a drum phase right now, and we can't help but laugh at your energetic "dum dum dum"ing as you drum on an imaginary drum. Last week, Papa Lou dug out some of his old drumsticks and turned over a bowl to use as a makeshift drum, and you were not only patient of his teaching but showed an impressive aptitude for rhythm that must have made Papa Lou feel better after the abysmal lack of rhythm that I've always displayed.

You are so very clever, and you have no idea that because Tristan is two years older than you, there are things that he can do that perhaps you cannot. You've recently learned from him how to work the remote control for the DVD player, and you display your prowess with the remote by watching at most three minutes of every feature on your many DVDs, flicking with abandon through the various menus for special features, advanced settings and scene selection. Who knew I would pine for the days when we simply sat down and watched an entire 30 minute DVD from start to finish? You still love the Wiggles, but you also love Scooby Doo and Garfield and Spot, and you have been indoctrinated by your father's love for old Superfriends cartoons and your mother's love for old skool Sesame Street.

I can't think of a day in recent memory that hasn't begun with you creeping quietly into my room before dawn to crawl under the covers and cuddle into me. For such a small person, you take up a lot of bed space, often sleeping with your arms thrown wide to either side, or sleeping sideways across the bed with the top of your head pressing into my back. You also like to sleep with your hand twisted through my hair, and as you sleep you twitch the hair at the back of my neck, keeping me just awake to be aware of you but not awake enough to move out of your reach.

You are so unfailingly sweet, and can be surprisingly well-mannered for a three year old. This morning when I picked you up and told you it was your birthday, you said, "Oh, thank you, Mommy!" in your most gentle voice. And when I sang a quiet and private "Happy Birthday To Simon", you beamed and blushed and said "thank you" again.

Tonight, we will celebrate your birthday with Granny and Papa Lou by having your favourite food - guacamole and cheese roll-ups, and I won't even try to hide any extra vegetables in it in honour of your birthday - and cupcakes with candles for dessert. We'll celebrate again on Saturday with the whole family - even your cousins from out of town.

So let me end this by saying for all the world to see how much I love you, Simon, and how much you make every single day a joy with your quirky sense of humour, your endless affection, and your boundless energy. Happy birthday, my sweet Simon!

A sad excuse for a post

Simon doesn't get sick too often, but he seems to be making up for lost time this week. He has a horrible, snotty head cold, a fever AND he's barfing. Sheesh, I'm *so* very glad we got our flu shots last weekend. (insert eyeball roll here)

He's also so incredibly grumpy and needy that I can't even tear myself away for 10 minutes to write up a blog post. Hopefully more later... or maybe I'll just see you tomorrow.

Bed switching

It's been a little more than a week since we switched Simon from his crib to a bed. He'll be three in six weeks and he weighs somewhere around 40 lbs, so I'm thinking it was about time.

You might have noticed it’s not so much a bed as a mattress on the floor. We’re working on that. The bed frame has been ordered (no bunk beds for now) but in the interim, he’s thrilled just to be in a close facsimilie of a 'big boy' bed. And the bedding isn't even a close match to Tristan's because when I bought it on sale seven months ago, it was supposed to go in the purple and yellow room next door.

By the time we finally got around to boosting Simon from his crib, there was no longer any need for the boys to share a room, but we had done such a fine job of selling the idea of room sharing that we couldn't have convinced them otherwise.

They've been surprisingly good. One night, Granny came over to babysit and there was giggling and shenanigans until well after she left after 9 pm. Other than that, though, they've both been great about settling in and actually going to sleep.

Even more surprising, Simon is actually staying in his bed. Those of you who have known me for a while will remember Tristan's nighttime wanderings when we liberated him from his crib at the tender age of 21 months. He was so incorrigible in his midnight-to-three a.m. wandering and I was so sleep deprived and exhausted (still working full-time, eight months pregnant, in December) that one night I checked that the gate to the stairs was in place and locked my bedroom door to keep him out. The next morning, I woke up to find him curled up fast asleep against the door. It was one of my worst bad-mommy moments and I can still taste the bitter guilt three years later.

That's why I've been nothing short of astonished (relieved, but astonished) at how easily Simon has made the transition that I've been dreading for three years. The only hiccup came this past Saturday night, on the one-week anniversary of his liberation from baby-jail. On my way to bed, I checked in as usual to kiss both boys goodnight. Tristan was snoring lightly, and when I turned to look at Simon, the half-smile on my face faded in confusion.

Simon's bed was empty, and we hadn't heard a peep from him. I checked his crib, thinking maybe he had crawled back into it, but it was empty, too. I finally found him deeply asleep smack in the middle of my bed, duvet pulled comfortably up to his chin.



I laughed and laughed and laughed. I was laughing so hard I could barely call Beloved to come and see, and was still snickering when I finally crawled under the - still warm! - covers myself after putting Simon back in his own bed.

When I asked him the next morning why he had slept in my bed instead of his own, he answered logically, "Because I just did, Mummy."

Tristan was my well-sleeping infant. We had to wake him up every three hours to feed him when he was a newborn. Simon, by contrast, didn't sleep a full six hours straight until until well after I went back to work, sometime around 14 or 16 months. As toddlers, they have switched places and Tristan is restless through the night where Simon falls asleep in minutes and stays that way.

Funny how that happens.

Kid fears

Simon seems to be going through a fear stage, and I don't remember Tristan ever going through something similar.

The first time I noticed it a couple of months ago, we were at the Farm and when the cows mooed in the next field over, he practically leapt into my arms and buried his face in my shoulder. Also at the farm, he was terrified of the bleating sheep. He curled his whole body into mine as I carried him through the barn; I've never seen him react like that, but could feel his fear in his posture.

Lately, the list of things that he says he is afraid of has grown to include clowns (okay, so I get that one), the sirens and truck horns at the Santa Claus parade, ghosts, and... snowmen. It's going to be a long holiday season if he's afraid of snowmen, considering they're one of my favourite holiday icons and I'm sure I have a dozen or more iterations on the snowman theme in my box of Christmas decorations.

He doesn't seem overly troubled by most of what he claims to be afraid of, but when he saw clowns at the parade (even across the street) he curled himself into me and averted his face until I assured him they were well out of sight.

I've been dismissing this as a two-year-old phase, but now that the list of things is growing incrementally toward pantophobia, I'm beginning to be concerned. This past weekend, at least a couple of times a day he would tell me he was afraid of something. Not to mention the fact that he's getting to be a big boy - close to 40 lbs - and cradling him in my arms with my own growing belly is getting to be a problem!

Care to share your experiences with kid fears? Is it a phase to be indulged and waited out, or would you try to confront the fears?

The naming of Tristan Louis and Simon Francis

A couple of weeks ago, Chantal from Breadcrumbs in the Butter ran a lovely series of posts about how each of her four kids came to be named. I am fascinated by how people choose names, and always love to hear the story behind someone's name.

I suspect I might have already told the story of how Tristan and Simon got their names, partly because I so love the topic that I tend to talk about it often and partly because after 600+ posts, it's inevitable that I start to repeat myself. Those of you who know me in person are nodding vigourously at this point.

Regardless, because you know the topic of baby names had to come up eventually, and because I don't have anything else percolating for today, let's talk about names.

With Tristan, we always knew what his name would be. I don't remember exactly when we decided on it, but we were thrilled at the ultrasound to find out he was in fact a he because we were solid on the name of Tristan for a boy and had not even an inkling of a name for a girl.

Tristan was chosen because of Beloved's love of the Arthurian legends - King Arthur, knights of the round table, and whatnot, and I simply refused to allow any son of mine to be named Gwain or Galahad or Lancelot. Not that there's anything wrong with those names, if you happen to like them. But as soon as he said "what about Tristan?", I knew it was the one. (It didn't hurt that Brad Pitt had played the noble but wounded Tristan in Legends of the Fall just a few years before, either!)

Tristan's middle name was also an easy choice. My dad's name is Louis, Beloved's middle name is Lewis and his grandfather's name is Louis. We knew unequivocally that he was Tristan Louis from the time I was five months pregnant.

The sticky part came with his surname. I didn't change my last name when Beloved and I got married, and when I was pregnant we agreed that my surname would be a second middle name for any kids. But the more pregnant I got, the more important it became to me to have my surname equally represented. Unfortunately, our names hypenated are a bit of a mouthful, and Beloved was resistant to the idea.

We were still undecided when Tristan was born, but we were literally not allowed to leave the hospital until we completed a health card application for him - with his full name. We were all packed up, and Tristan was dressed in his going-home outfit, purchased specially by Granny. I was sitting on the bed and Beloved in the chair, and we glowered at each other, each unwilling to concede. In the end, Beloved capitulated, and I cried tears of relief as I filled out the form with the hyphenated surnames. There have been many times, as I spelled out his name for a pharmacist, or to make an appointment, that I silently apologized to him for saddling him with such a mouthful of a moniker. But mostly I'm proud that both boys carry my name, a name fairly unique and unusual, and I'll let them decide if they ever want to truncate it to a single name some day. To my surprise, I just noticed the other day when Tristan's first school picture came home that he is the only child in his class with a hypenated name.

The naming of Simon is a little bit less dramatic. Right up until he was born, we were vacillating between three names, even though Simon had been a front-runner in my mind even when we were naming Tristan. My brother had a friend named Simon when we were growing up, and he always struck me as kindly and thoughtful - two characteristics I attached to the name Simon. The other choices were Thomas and Lucas.

When Simon finally made his way into the world, 10 days past my due date and after nearly 30 hours of efforts to entice him to leave the womb, I knew when I saw him that he would definitely be Simon. Since we gave Tristan the name of Beloved's grandfather and my father as a middle name, we gave Simon the name of my grandfather and my mother (in masculine form) as a middle name. Simon Francis.

I worried a little bit about "Simon says" and "Simple Simon", and I even considered the impact of one of my childhood favourite shows, "Simon in the Land of Chalk Drawings." Remember that theme song?

Oh, you know my name is Simon
And the things I draw come true.
And the pictures take me take me take me
Over the garden wall with you.

(Ironically, the Teletoon network here in Canada started running an updated version of that cartoon when I was home on maternity leave with Simon, but when I asked a young teenage acquantance of ours if he had ever had someone tease him about the song, he had no idea what we were talking about.)

In the end, of course, I love both names. I couldn't imagine them being named anything else.

Rest assured you can expect much more on the topics of baby names in the next six months! In the interim, care to share your baby naming stories?