30 Friday Nov 2012
Posted in Life and Love
Tags
1,900 words left to write.
I wrote 3,000 yesterday and another 3,000 the day before, trying to catch up.
Tonight, PH won’t be home. He’ll be off playing DnD with some friends. So I have to get Owl his dinner, put him to bed by myself, and then write like a MOFO.
This is gonna be CLOSE.
27 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in Life and Love
Tags
So, while I was showering this morning, Owl pulled down his undies, moved his stool to the grown up toilet, picked up his potty seat, lifted up the toilet lid, placed his potty seat on the toilet, clambered onto it and pooped.
I knew nothing about any of this until I stepped out of the shower and he said proudly, “Yook, Mommy, my pooped!”
I officially declare this kid potty trained.
If daycare tries to tell me otherwise I will LAUGH IN THEIR FACES.
He did have an accident yesterday, but that was after a supposedly 10 minute stop at the pharmacy turned into a forty five minute wait for a prescription that I had dropped off four hours ago.
He still wets himself during naps and at night, too, but I don’t think unconsciousness counts.
I’m going to call off my diaper service.
The kid UNDERSTANDS.
24 Saturday Nov 2012
Tags
We have a potty fairy!
Now, you guys know that I was worried about the whole cleaning-the-potty thing. I was originally hoping to get Owl using a regular toilet all the time and totally skip the plastic potty because I didn’t see the value of having to clean a potty vs having to clean a child’s bum. It’s still cleaning up poop.
Not that I’m unfamiliar with poop.
In fact, the other day at work when a client handed me his dog’s poop sample, and his nine year old daughter recoiled in disgust, I brought it up to my nose and dramatically inhaled its bouquet, just for the fun of making her gag in horror
But since the whole benefit of potty training is supposed to be a reduction in your daily poop quota, cleaning soft, squishy poop off the bottom of a plastic cup didn’t really entice me.
I ended up laying some toilet paper in the bottom of the cup, so that when I dump the potty into the toilet, the whole thing comes off leaving the remained relatively clean and in need of a minimal wipe.
That works pretty well.
But we may have an even easier solution:
I was staggering with exhaustion when I went to bed last night – bowed down by a long day at work, followed by a dog training session, not to mention many late nights of NaNoWriMo over the past couple of weeks.
I noticed a puddle of yellow pee in the potty, which PH must have forgotten to empty before putting Owl to bed. I intended to empty it, but by the time I passed that way again, I had forgotten.
When I came down in the morning, though, the cup was empty and clean, so I figured PH must have emptied it before leaving for work.
I only found out later that he had seen the empty potty and assumed that I cleaned it before bed last night.
Shortly after, Owl peed in the potty. We did a potty dance, I gave him a sticker, and he demanded his breakfast, so I took him into the kitchen and fed him.
When he was finished, I went to empty the potty. Except that the yellow first-pee-of-the-morning contents had entirely disappeared.
Like, it was bone dry.
That’s right, something had magically cleaned the potty for me while I was getting Owl his breakfast.
When I went into work that morning, I asked my boss if she had ever heard of a dog drinking urine.
“No, why?”
“Because I think my dog might have drunk Owl’s pee this morning.”
Beloved Dog has never shied away from eating most things organic. He will eat our cat litter if we give him half a chance, but he has never been interested in eating dog poop, and I’ve certainly never seen him try to drink urine.
Maybe we just had a magical fairy who was cleaning the potty for me.
Or maybe I was so tired from NaNoWriMo that I was cleaning the potty and then forgetting all about it.
This evening, after dinner, Owl announced that he had to poop on the potty and with much effort and facial contortions, produced a fat brown sausage of impressive proportions.
“Yay! You pooped on the potty!” This was only the second at-home poop since the Sunday Of Many Poops, so it was a big, big deal. “Look at the size of that poop! High five, buddy!”
PH came running into the room to join the celebration. “Whoa, and WHAT A POOP,” he said, glancing at the potty. This poop was the father of all poops. It left no doubt whatsoever that Owl had definitely defecated in the correct place. I had been able to correctly identify its presence from across the room.
“TANDY!” Owl squealed, and ran into the kitchen. I followed to finish wiping his bottom and to offer him a range of deluxe stickers in celebration of the occasion.
Only a moment later, I heard a rattle in the living room.
“LEAVE IT!” I bellowed, leaping into the hall. Beloved Dog scuttled away from the potty guiltily. I ran to the potty and…
The long brown sausage was gone.
GONE.
Only a couple of minor brown smudges remained, and a forlorn piece of toilet paper.
OH MY GOD.
“ON YOUR SPOT!” I ordered Beloved Dog to his bed. He wasn’t even licking his chops. No signs of the poop anywhere. Somehow he had swallowed that entire thing whole in a matter of mere seconds.
“IT’S GONE, LOVE, IT’S JUST GONE!” I said with a touch of hysteria.
“BAD DOG!”
“HE ATE THE WHOLE THING!”
“OKAY, BUT WE NEED TO STOP SHOUTING!”
“Doggy eat my food?” Owl asked worriedly, following us into the living room. We turned and put on big smiles.
“No, no, honey,” I said hurriedly, “EVERYTHING IS FINE. Mommy is just going to go flush your… er… poop now…” I carried the potty upstairs and dumped the piece of toilet paper. Some part of me hoped that the poop would reappear like a magic trick, but it was definitely, unquestionably, eaten.
Does anyone want to buy a dog? You’ll never have to clean a potty ever again.
…But you might not want to let him lick your face.
…And if you were disgusted by this, I think you should share it. It’s like the ring. The only way to get it out of your head is to expose others to it.
23 Friday Nov 2012
Posted in Well, That's Just Stupid
That’s right. Now we can buy wash cloths that are WATER ACTIVATED. Just add water and you can clean your child!!
Pictogram instructions on the back for those of us who are too simple to grasp the concept immediately or, for that matter, read.
Happy Black Friday to my American friends. Are you thankful that we live in a society that can provide such amazing products?
19 Monday Nov 2012
Posted in From The Owlery, Life and Love
Tags
child care, daycare, diapers, motherhood, parenting, potty chart, potty training, rewards, stickers, toddlers, training pants
Well, it has been a little over a week since we began potty training, so I thought I’d give you an update.
I was a little nervous sending Owl off to daycare, because Daycare Lady insisted on Pull Ups.
Now, we love Daycare Lady.
I lucked out with her in many ways, and probably in more ways than I realize. For example, she just mentioned to me recently that the woman who runs the daycare down the road from her claims that it “isn’t her job” to help parents with potty training, that she “just needs to keep them safe.”
Ladies, that daycare is Daycare One, from my daycare hunting days. I never even thought to ask them, when looking for a place for my 11 month old, whether they considered potty training part of their job. It went without saying. Or so I thought.
SO. I lucked out, even with Helper Lady’s foibles thrown in.
But the diapers have always been a bit of a problem.
Despite the fact that Daycare believes in non-toxic cleaning products and organic, from-scratch meals, her hatred of germs makes her heavily pro-disposable diapers.
Which means that she insisted on Pull Ups, despite the fact that The No Scry Potty Training Solution and Hannah from Hodgepodge have both warned me against them, and I know for a fact that Not Mary Poppins over at Daycare Daze puts them in underwear to train.
I pointed out to her all the arguments against Pull Ups – that they’re still diapers, so the kid won’t feel any different, that they are more absorbable than his cloth diapers so it would actually be a step BACK and so on.
We compromised on Pull Ups OVER his underwear, because she insisted that she couldn’t allow him in only underwear, due to hygiene concerns.
For the next three days, he came home wearing Pull Ups only, with the underwear in his diaper bag totally untouched.
By the third day, I was livid.
Meanwhile, Helper Lady was telling me at the door in the mornings that “Baby no understand. He good boy, but he no understand, Mommy.” (Helper Lady calls all the mothers “mommy”)
Oh really? Our potty chart begged to differ.
In fact, the morning she told me that, he had peed in the potty SEVEN TIMES and pooped once, and we hadn’t had an accident in two days.
Daycare Lady told me that he was going fine for her, but not always for Helper Lady. Daycare Lady also suspected that Helper Lady, being older, was losing track of time and not taking him often enough.
And as Helper Lady pointed out, “You have one baby, Mommy. I have eight.”
Fair point. Plus, there’s a difference between running around the house with no pants on and the potty RIGHT THERE, versus having a diaper and pants on, a house full of kids to play with, and a baby gate between you and the bathroom.
But still.
It pissed me off, because I am a first time mother, and they are supposed to be the child care professionals. I felt like they should be better at potty training than me, not worse.
And then when I picked him up on Thursday, I was told that he had pooped in his Pull Ups and that it had burst out of his Pull Ups and gone all over the floor in a manner that I’m sure Hannah would sympathize with.
My first reaction was actually a mild schadenfreude. That’s what they get for putting this kid in disposables. Poop has NEVER stayed within the confines of Owl’s disposables. Serves ’em right.
I guess they figured the same thing, because the next day not only did he come home with underwear on under his Pull Ups, but Helper Lady informed me that he DID understand for pees!
So I would be triumphant, BUT…
Since the Poop On The Floor, not only has he been having poop accidents in his pants, but he bursts into tears when they happen, pointing at the floor and howling “NO POOP DOWN DOWN!!!!” and “Waaaah, MY POOOPED…” heart brokenly.
Witnessing one of these meltdowns on Saturday filled PH with so much fury that he began to talk about sending Owl elsewhere.
So Sunday we went to the dollar store and bought some crappy plastic animal toys. We put them in a clear vase on the mantle and told him he could have one every time he pooped in the potty.
When he finally had a success, we gave him ALL THE CANDY, and special BUTTERFLY stickers, and CARS sticks, AND A PLASTIC WOLF.
He was so delighted he kept sticking the plastic wolf in the potty and saying “Look, Wolfie, MY POOPED!”
Over the next hour he then proceeded to produce what Not Mary P would call “iotas of shit” in order to receive a hippo and a dinosaur. After his nap and before bed, he pooped one more time for yet another plastic animal.
We’ve done what we can to reverse things. I’m going to go put him in his undies and Pull Ups, and take him to daycare.
Wish him luck.
13 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in Life and Love
Another snippet from my Twilight parody. I hope it will make you smile.
I grabbed his arm and pulled him aside. I ignored the part of my brain that squealed girlishly at the excitement of actually touching him. It was just his goddamn shirt.
“Listen, I don’t know anything about dating or romance, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not normal to just tell someone ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to make you like me’. It comes across a little desperate, you know? That’s not so hot.”
“You do like me,” he replied frankly, meeting my eyes. “I know that. We have a lot in common. If I take meals at regular times I can keep up with you intellectually, and I’m the closest thing to a friend you have here so far. I know all of this. But I can’t make you feel more for me than that, and I don’t want to force you into anything you aren’t comfortable with. I just want to be helpful to you, to be useful to you, to make you more comfortable, and not less. I want to make your days better, and not worse. So I am telling you now – tell me to jump, and I will ask how high.
“Tell me to carry your books, fetch your lunch, sort your notes, and I will do it. Tell me to leave you alone and not talk to you any more, and I will do that too. Anything you ask… and I will do it. It’s not a plea, it’s not a bribe. It just is what it is, because I am what I am. “
He paused, and looked at me. He was so calm. Not desperate or crazy or anything, just serene and still slightly monotone. He held me with his eyes and I felt transfixed.
“Tell me,” he whispered. “Tell me what you want, anything, and I promise I will do it.”
This is the moment, I thought.
I could tell him “kiss me,” and he would do it. I could see it in my mind’s eye. The students getting off of their buses, the whoosh of cars driving by in the rain, all of that faded into the background. There was just me, and him, and his eyes.
I paused, trying to work up the words. I was trying to reconcile who I was with who I could be. No, Stella Blunt has never been a sap for boys with pretty words (mostly because no boys had ever approached her with pretty words). No, Stella has never done the kissyface stuff. Yes, Stella has always been the “ugh, get a room” type when passing people making out against a locker.
But Stella could change, right?
I opened my mouth, and I seriously thought I was going to be able to do it. My whole life, my whole sense of self was about to change. This could be a moment I would remember for the rest of my life. My first kiss?
Then I felt a spasm of panic and instead my mouth said, “so, what, like if I asked you to step in front of a speeding car, you’d do it?”
And the moment broke, and he smiled and stepped back, and while I was wishing I could grab those words and stuff them back into my mouth, he took another step back and
BAM
A car appeared where he had just been standing, and there was a shout of shock from all the people around us. I heard a wet thud as Howie’s body landed on the pavement.
Oh, SHIT.
12 Monday Nov 2012
Posted in Damn Dogs, From The Owlery, Life and Love, My Blag is on the Interwebs
Tags
2 year old, baby, conditioning, house breaking, motherhood, parenting, positive reinforcement, potty, potty training, puppy, toddler
So, when potty training Owl, I’ve been working off of the basic tenets of puppy potty training. I’ve received tons of advice for potty training Owl and have incorporated some of it into my program, but it’s always easier to work off of what you already know.
And so, for anyone else who finds dogs easier than kids, I present:
substitute dog with child and grass with potty
Step 1: Allow your puppy toddler to roam around the house, while you watch carefully.
Step 2: Take your puppy toddler to the appropriate location on a regular basis, most notably whenever he/she wakes up, has played for 10-15 minutes, or has eaten.
Step 3: If your puppy toddler urinates or has a bowel movement in the correct place, make a big deal out of it. Have special, very high value treats that you dispense only when your puppy toddler has voided in the correct location.
Step 4: If your puppy toddler begins to urinate or have a bowel movement inside while playing, interrupt the behavior (by picking him/her up or simply saying “oops!” or clapping your hands to distract him/her) and immediately direct him/her to the correct location. Hopefully he/she will finish urinating or defecating there.
Do not punish mistakes; simply try to interrupt them. Potty training is about conditioning correct behaviors.
Step 5: If your puppy toddler manages to urinate or defecate in the correct place once redirected, throw a big party and dispense the usual treats, even though this started with a mistake. What your puppy toddler will remember is that urinating/defecating on the floor resulted in interruption, while urinating/defecating in the correct place was highly rewarded.
Further adjustments: Since puppies are naturally naked, it is easy to spot urination and bowel movements as they happen. For this to work with toddlers, they must be similarly unencumbered. A collar shirt is optional.
Further adjustments part the second: Toddlers seem to respond better to smarties and similar small sweets than they do to freeze dried liver or cut up hot dog, but this may vary from toddler to toddler.
Congratulations!
You have begun the process of potty training your puppy toddler! While you should see dramatic improvements within a few days, the process may take several weeks to months to complete. Consistency is key!
11 Sunday Nov 2012
Posted in Damn Dogs, From The Owlery
Tags
anxiety, biting the bullet, excuses, house breaking, parenting, potty training, puppies, toddler, trying new things
Since this is the long weekend, we have decided to take advantage of three days off to bite the bullet and try potty training.
I’ve spent the last few months reading The No Cry Potty Training Solution, and asking every single parent I know for advice.
My mother has no advice, since I was potty trained by my aunt. I asked her for advice before she died and she said she had just made a big fuss over me – apparently for weeks afterwards whenever I used the potty I would ask “Auntie Helen happy??”
Not Mary Poppins over at Daycare Daze lays out her Smartie method, which she has been using with great success for decades.
Hannah from Hodgepodge And Strawberries has also blogged about potty training, and vehemently expressed her distaste of pull-ups to me over Twitter.
And we’ve spent the last couple of months getting Owl accustomed to sitting on the potty (both a small potty and a potty seat on our toilet) while reading stories.
Once, while running around with no diaper on, he started to pee so we sent him to the potty where he deliberately finished the pee to great acclaim, and he was so encouraged that he did it again a few minutes later.
Our excuses for not potty training him properly were wearing thin.
Ultimately, I was afraid of failure, and afraid of change. I have anxiety issues. Change scares me. Doing something I’ve never done before scares me.
Then I had an epiphany.
I was called to a man’s house to help him deal with his new puppy. He was red-eyed with sleeplessness, and shack-wacky for spending three consecutive days holding his puppy. Every time he put his puppy down the puppy would pee or poop, and he was so anxious over messing up his dog’s house training that he was driving himself insane.
Even though this is the best kind of owner – 100% dedicated to starting his puppy out right – he was thinking of returning the puppy for the sake of his own sanity.
So I stepped in and made him put the puppy down, and as I talked him through the process of interrupting the behavior, moving the puppy to the correct spot, and then rewarding things when done correctly I realized…
…I have TOO potty trained before.
And Beloved Dog was challenging to potty train.
If I could train Beloved Dog, if I knew the steps well enough to walk someone through it and be paid for doing so (he kept the puppy, who is doing much better, and signed on for six more sessions), then I could potty train a toddler.
So I went out and bought stickers and smarties, bristol board for a (very crude) reward chart, and training pants.
Let’s DO THIS THING.
08 Thursday Nov 2012
Posted in Life and Love, My Blag is on the Interwebs
Hi folks,
I’m still alive, and for once I’m actually keeping on top of NaNoWriMo and enjoying it immensely.
As a “thank you for your patience” and a “please give me encouragement even if you have to lie”, here’s another excerpt from my magnum opus:
By the time I fell asleep that night, I was sure of three things.
02 Friday Nov 2012
Posted in Life and Love
I’m attempting NaNoWriMo this year.
Even though I am exhausted.
Even though my anxiety is clearly still an issue – I spent all night having nightmares about being late for work (because we had a home visit euthanasia scheduled first thing in the morning) and then woke to Owl going “eight! Eight there, Mommy!” and exploding out of bed in a panic because it was 8:15 and I had to be at work in 30 minutes (by some miracle, Owl was highly cooperative and I actually made it).
Even though I may be picking up two new dog training clients this weekend and am experiencing so much anxiety about it that it makes me wonder why I do it.
Even though Owl’s sleep has fallen apart again and we’re having to make a formal sleep training plan again.
Even though we’re planning on potty training him soon.
Because I have had this story idea for almost a year, and I need something like NaNoWriMo to push me into actually writing it.
I’m hoping you guys like the idea – it’s a parody of Twilight, only featuring a heavy-set, intelligent, self-condident girl who moves to the big city of Vancouver and ends up in a relationship with a devoted undead servant, who considers her wish to be his command.
Basically, it’s Twilight the way I think it should have been written.
With zombies.
Here’s an excerpt from what I wrote yesterday. It’s the opening preface:
Healthy young people don’t expect to die young, and I am not any different in that respect. When we do fear death, though, it tends to come in nightmarish forms – the monsters under your bed, the thing in the closet. Now here I stood, fearing death from the kind of terrifying, ravening monsters that haunt people in nightmares. Except that I was awake, and this was real, and I could very well be killed in a disgustingly gory way.
Maybe I should have gained some comfort from the fact that I was loved. Beloved. Adored. Worshipped, even. When you are in love, you are supposed to hold hands, and face death with serene acceptance. Maybe we could share a dramatic kiss as we died in the tradition of star crossed lovers everywhere.
“Fuck that shit,” I said as my chainsaw sputtered and then began to roar. “Let’s slice off some heads.”
—
What do you think?
If By Yes 