Xander Week 116 – lrn2aimkthnksbye
May 30, 2009
Potty training continues… Xander is nearly perfect during his waking hours at day care, and often does pretty well in the evenings with us. We have encountered an interesting challenge though. Xander has terrible aim! I’m new to this whole potty training business, so I have no clue how most boys start out. I can’t tell you if it’s typical for boys to sit when learning and then learn to stand and pee later on, or if they usually start out standing and skip the whole sitting phase.
Xander has decided he is not at all interested in sitting to pee. Since we’re just excited that he is peeing in the vicinity of the toilet, we haven’t complained. Unfortunately, my son has not yet figured out how to aim. This means that even if he doesn’t have an accident, he often dribbles onto his pants, underwear, socks and/or shoes. While at my in-laws a few evenings ago, Xander managed to spray the wall, the plunger handle, the trash can, the toilet seat and even the litter box next to the toilet and somehow managed to entirely miss the toilet bowl. The entire time I was nearly shrieking “aim, aim in the bowl boy!” which I’m sure didn’t actually serve any useful purpose in helping him…
So, if anyone has any suggestions on how to teach my kid how to aim into the toilet, I’m all ears! I haven’t tried the Cheerio trick yet, but perhaps next week we could give that a shot…
Parker has added a new item to his diet – rice cereal. From my perspective, it’s definitely not anywhere close to appetizing. However, the boy doesn’t have much experience when it comes to foods, so we can’t blame him (yet…) He is sitting up better these days, and does great sitting in the highchair. He’s lost that expulsion reflex, so when we put cereal in his mouth, he swollows. He’s paying lots of attention to what we’re eating, and if he’s sitting on a lap, he’ll try to reach out and grab food. All of these indicators led us to trying out rice cereal this week. So far, he’s eating it like a champ! He opens his mouth when the spoon gets close, and swollows what we put in his mouth. It isn’t the “miracle drug” that some parents swear by and he still wakes up at times during the night. Rice cereal does serve to remind me that Parker is growing up so quickly! Much as I want to hold onto him forever, he is growing up and it won’t be long before I can introduce something far more exciting than rice cereal!
We have been putting potty training off for a whie now. Occasionally we’ll ask Xander if he wants to sit on the potty, and every time he gets that quite, concentrated look on his face, we’ll encourage him to poop on the potty, but usually by the time we catch him it’s too late… We’ve tried the reward method, and the peer pressure method, and we were pretty much just waiting for warmer weather and more free time so that we could devote some effort to convincing Xander that big boy potties are much cooler than diapers. Luckily for us, our day care also decided that Xander is ready to start full on potty training. Part of the motivation comes from the day care’s plan to move Xander and the rest of his “crew” up to the next room at the end of the summer. Currently the Purple Room is full, but when the kids in the Blue Room “graduate” (into kindergarden) at the end of the summer, space will open up in the Purple Room. However, one of the requirements in the Purple Room is that you be potty trained. So, the last two stragglers in Xander’s room (him and one other boy) are getting potty trained this summer.
I know I’ve missed a few weeks – life gets in the way of blogging sometimes 
Parker gets bigger and bigger every week! His 4 month check-up went well. It was one of the few check-ups that Zach has not attended. I don’t know how most families do it, but we’ve usually gone to well-child check-ups together. I think we both appreciate hearing the information from the doctor, and “tag-teaming” the boy during the visit is often easier.
It’s that time of year again when we’re supposed to remind you how much we love an appreciate you. I hope that you don’t really need a reminder. I hope that I am appropriately expressing my love and gratitude on a regular basis. I also know that you don’t really need this reminder. I know this, because I don’t really need the reminder from my children either.