The Potty Incident

Ever since Molly was born, the one piece of potty-training advice I've heard over and over again is, "Don't force the process until SHE indicates that she's ready." For that reason, I haven't even thought about potty-training, especially since Molly is not the most verbose toddler. I suspected it would be at least a few more months, if not longer, before she'd be anywhere close to ready.

Well, today we had an incident that in its own pitifully hilarious way, indicated that we may have to at least start thinking about the process. We spent the afternoon outside in the "Flower Power Pool", which is something we've been doing a lot of this week since temperatures have been in the mid-90s.
After playing in the pool, I stripped Molly naked on the porch before going inside. Once inside, Molly started pointing "down there" and babbling in her Molly language. I didn't think anything of it, except that she continued to very persistently point and babble. I asked her if she had to go pee pee and was surprised when she responded with a very emphatic, "UHHH" (a sound that's hard to translate into written language, but that we've learned means an affirmative response in Molly-ese).

I figured there's no harm in trying so I sat her on the porcelain throne, but she seemed scared that she was going to fall in so I quickly rifled through her closet and grabbed the potty seat we received as a shower gift before she was born. She was enthralled with the froggy potty and thought sitting on it was super-fun, but that's all she did---sit---for 10 minutes. She'd stand up, turn around, stick her foot in the potty, sit again, clap her hands, babble, squeal, laugh, point, and babble some more. But no pee pee.

I thought, "Eh, no big deal. We gave it a try. She's not ready. Perhaps I mis-read her." No sooner did I get her up off the frog potty and she started to walk toward the livingroom, then she stopped and peed right in the middle of the floor. It actually seemed to startle her. She quickly jumped back. Then she ran forward, directly through the newly-formed puddle and, swoosh, her feet flew out from under her and she landed flat on her back, you guessed it, right IN the puddle. It was a cartoon-character, banana-peel kind of fall. I tried not to burst out laughing, especially since she was definitely crying.

Needless to say, the whole episode ended with a rinse in the tub and a scrubbing of the floor, but who knows? We may have to go check out some potty-training books from the library. One thing's for sure: Molly has a new favorite seat---her froggy potty :-)

And a special thanks goes out to GG and Pop for both the pool and the potty. At least one of those two things will get plenty of use this summer . . . maybe even both of them!

Ian---Movin' & Groovin'

At 3 months old, our little Ian is a man in motion. The only time he stops moving is when he's sleeping. But when he's awake, it's go-time! About two weeks ago, Ian decided it was about time he started rolling over. In the morning he rolled from his back to his belly and then fell asleep that way. That very same afternoon, he rolled from his belly to his back while playing on the floor---both directions in the same day!!! I tried to tell him to slow down a little. I'm not ready for him to grow up so fast, but he doesn't seem to care. He's just going full-steam ahead. He didn't stop with rolling over. He can now scoot, wiggle, and roll himself all over the place. I remember commenting to Eric while I was pregnant with Ian that we were definitely in for one active little baby. The amount of moving he did in utero was just incredible. I thought Molly was active, but she had nothing on the belly moves her little brother was making!

He started on his back under the play gym and ended up on his belly, scooting his way backwards and out of the side of the playmat!

Here's one of his first attempts at "crawling". I laid him on his back under his toys and went to the kitchen to make dinner. I turned around to find him on his belly, launching himself over the boppy and onto the carpet! And he's not even four months old!

As you can guess, he started out in the middle of his blanket turned 90 degrees to the left, and he wiggled his way all the way off toward the kitchen. Maybe he wanted a snack :-)

Another new skill Ian has learned is playing with toys. He's really been enjoying the exersaucer lately, as well as his play gym. Because his arms move a-mile-a-minute, he actually ends up hitting most of the buttons on his own. I remember it taking Molly months to get the hang of pushing the buttons hard enough to play the music.

The one skill he hasn't quite grasped yet is how to let go of one toy while playing with another one. He just ends up collecting all of them until I go over and pry one or two of them out of the death-grip he has on all of them.
Another one of Ian's new discoveries is his toes. Now that he's found them, he just LOVES them. They make great pacifiers AND toys. Sometimes he'll just grab onto both feet, kick out his legs, and squeal with excitement!
He's still just the happiest little guy in the world. He smiles easily, laughs heartily, coos and babbles constantly, and is just a delight to be around! I can't imagine life without our sweet boy.