This month has been rough!

Well, this month's class is over and I am thrilled to reach the end of the month.  this month was harder than usual due to the illness that went raging through the house.  After it laid us up for a week, I realized that I had lost so much time and missed the grading I needed to get done.  It was horrible trying to catch up.  But last night at 9:30, I filled in the last blank spot in my gradebook and submitted my grades. 

Another month down and now I have a week off.  This break is definitely needed and I will be taking advantage of it.  Part of it is going to be spent finishing the recuperation process from this illness.  There will also be cleaning, crocheting and hopefully calmness.  I need to do some prep for next month, but I am free baby! 

Little Guy and I are going to continue to work on the potty thing.  He's still balking at the potty,  He wants to do what he wants to do and doesn't want to take a break to sit on the potty.  It's turning into a major headache but I cannot give in.  We've relegated diapers to sleep-time.  And, unfortunately, I've learned that sleep time cannot include rest-time in the front room because he'll take advantage of it. 

However, this weekend we have a birthday party to attend and I am rapidly realizing that Easter is approaching and we have gotten NOTHING for Little Guy. This needs to change. 

Potty training body parts

Stephanie at The Dirty Mommy blog discussed an amusing tale with her young daughter showing her anatomy smarts on the playground.  I think most parents can recognize how embarrassing it is, particularly since kids seem to pick times when you least expect to be having that particular discussion. 

We've been dealing something similar with our Little Guy.  We try to use the correct terms for his body parts and he seems to understand it pretty well.  He's known for a while that he has a penis.  However, he's reaching a point where he's now recognizing the difference between boys and girls.  So far we have established that (always at the top of his lungs) Little Guy has a penis, Daddy has a penis and boy-cat Tiger has a penis.  He's always so proud of himself for identifying them.  Petting girl-cat Caitlin, on the other hand produced shock and concern. 

Caitlin was sitting on my lap, getting pettins, and I was scritching that little spot where the tail connects to the body because she loves that and always arches her back for more.  As we were petting her, Little Guy noticed that there was something different about her. 

"OH NO MOMMY!" he screeched.  "Where is Caitlin's penis?  Where did it go?"

I explained that Caitlin was a girl and, therefore, did not have a penis.  Big Guy and I both emphasized that boys have penises (penii?) and girls do not.  So far, we have not had to deal with what girls have instead.  Now, however, he's just as proud of his knowledge of who has a penis and who does not.  This is becoming even more important to him as we work on potty training and he spends a good portion of time nude.  This makes it difficult to try and enforce appropriate times for identification because right now he needs to be naked to get to the potty in time.  Add to that, our desire to not give our son body issues and sometimes the embarrassment reaches epic levels. 

On Sunday, as I was preparing to take a shower, a very naked Little Guy burst into our bathroom proudly announcing that "Mommy has no penis!" 

Er, yes, thank you.  Go find Daddy. Go sit on the potty.  Go do SOMETHING else! 

"Little Guy has a penis!  It's naked, see?"  Cue typical boy dance.  "And dancing!" 

Yes, I know.  Go into the family room. 

"I have a butt!  It's naked too!  See?" 

Luckily, Big Guy appeared to shoo our son into the family room and his little potty.  I know I need to thank my lucky stars that I have a smart, clever son.  He puts pieces together and figures things out much faster than I expect.  Now, if we could just get him to understand the importance of using the potty!

Related Seeds:
Are Anatomically Correct terms okay? 

Where did you go, my lovely?

So I disappeared from the internet this weekend, but I promise it was for a good reason.  This weekend, Big Guy and I celebrated our 6th anniversary and I made a concious decision to stay away.  I guess you could say I abandoned you for love. 

Our weekend went r eletrively well.  It started around 3 pm on Friday when Big Guy showed up at the door with a cake and dinner.  The cake was made by a local bakery and was a recreation of our Wedding Cake top layer with frosting roses on the top made to look like my bouquet.  We ate dinner (and cake) and played video games.  However, the joy was not to last. 

The next day, Big Guy woke up feeling bad.  Sore throat, cough, snuffly nose, all the hallmarks of a cold.  We went out for a little bit, stopped off at Krispy Kreme, picked up a few items to help with the potty training of Little Guy and then came home.  Big Guy played a video game and we putzed about the house while I tried to get Little Guy to use the potty on a regular basis.  However, Little Guy's lack of nap caught up with him and he ended up being put to bed early due to a fractious nature. 

On Sunday, Big Guy was still feeling off but we were up "early" due to a strange noise and an even stranger smell.  We got up to find our Rainbow Vacuum cleaner was on, thanks to our cats.  And, since Big Guy had forgotten to empty it the last time he vacuumed, we were smelling the old, dirty water being churned about.  We turned it off, cleaned out the vacuum and then decided to go out for food  It was then that we discovered "Dayligh Savings Time" had occured.  It wasn't 9:30, but 10:30 in the morning. 

We got Little Guy up, went to Ryan's and then came home.  Big Guy was still not feeling well, so I let him relax and play while I graded and then we went to bed.  It wasn't an amazingly romantic weekend, adn could have been better for poor Big Guy, but we did have a good time with each other.  Today, Big Guy called in to work and is still sleeping away in the bedroom while Little Guy adn I continue to work on potty training.  Wish us luck! 

Potty Watch and Midterms

I'm taking advantage of the silence this morning to sit down and write this entry.  Little Guy is still asleep and so my busy day hasn't started yet.  I watched my Orange County Housewives reunion show and ate a bagel.  I'm enjoying the silence so far. 

Yesterday was full of screaming and wailing as I put the kibosh on fun times unless potty time was implemented.  By the end of the day yesterday, I was more than ready to close the day with a seriously strong drink.  I am realizing that my son is more than capable of holding his own line, even in the face of an upset mommy and daddy.  However, because of that, I spent a lot of time with an angry, screaming, whining 4 year old who could not understand why mommy would not help him or give him what he wanted. 

Tonight is the midterm night for this month's class and they have a paper due tonight as well.  I am still scrambling to finish up the papers from the first week, and I have almost finished.  However, a comment from a student threw me into a tizzy and now I am trying to decide how or even if to approach it with the students who were upset by it.  Right now, I am leaning towards getting a feel for the emotions of the class today, a full 48 hours after "the incident" and seeing if it needs to be addressed or not.

In the meantime, I'll get back to grading.  Ugh.   And here's Little Guy...  Time for another day of potty drama and cuteness! 

Back on the potty

Now that the weather has been warming up and our house isn't so cold, I am getting Little Guy back on the potty training train.  He's not happy about it but we've got to get this done.  I never thought I would have an untrained 4 year old, but he hates having to sit and take the time to go to the bathroom.  Of course, he also hates it when we have to take the time to change his diaper. 

Today, however, I tried a new trick.  There was no playing on Starfall or watching of TV in the front room until he used the potty.  There was definite wailing, gnashing of teeth, and overall unhappiness but the stubborness finally broke about 10 minutes ago when we had pee in the potty.  After a bit of celebratory yays and dancing, I flipped the breaker back on (because he knows how to turn on the computer and  the TV), and he is now happily playing away on Starfall. 

I've also told him that if he tells me when he has to go potty and doesn't use his diaper, then I will leave it on.  We'll see if this works.  I'm not so keen on using his education as an incentive to use the potty, but we're running out of ideas and this is something he cares enough about to work. My goal is not to break his spirit and give him enough encouragement to do this on his own, but I  have to get him to use the potty. 

A lot of the sites I've read say that this is something that kids have to choose to do on their own because this is the first choice they really have any influence over.  I just wish he'd choose to do what I want him to do.  I am really looking forward to his choice to use the potty. Wish us luck! 
  

Weekend Gamers

Right now I'm sitting on the sofa with Big Guy watching him play Civilization Revolution while I put together my blog entry for today.  Because trailers are not so good at maintaining heat, I am curled up under one of my two Snuggie gifts for Christmas. We're also watching my niece, G, for my sister-in-law. She's adorable, if a semi-picky and extremely slow eater. She and Little Guy are currently ensconced in the front room playing Lego Star Wars 2. Currently, they are on a roll destroying R2-D2 so they can hear him yell.

We're a pretty tech-happy family. We love our PS2 and PS3 and, when console debates begin, of course support our brand of choice. It's really not that difficult, though I do wish Sony had not eliminated backwards compatibility from the PS3. The Playstation series has a lot of great things going for it, not the least of which is the Blu-Ray player that comes with the Playstation 3. And, Big Guy and I are pretty dedicated gamers. The irony is, when I met him, Big Guy hadn't had much experience with video games. I introduced him to my Playstation 2, and the rest is history. He became a video game addict like me.

Little Guy is proving to be a video game nerd like mommy and daddy. Of course, the poor child was doomed to nerd-hood anyhow. He runs through the house singing the Imperial Death March and, for a long time, recognized dinosaurs as "dragons". His preferred weapons are the laser guns, lightsabers, or a sword and shield. He also would prefer to be a Sith lord rather than a Jedi. He can speak some small words in Mandarin and can count to 100 and does so on a regular basis. Not too shabby for a 4 year old. I've been trying to get him to read because he LOVES books, but he's been giving me difficulties recently.

We went to the bargain book store the other day and he wanted a particular Pooh book, a level 2 book which contains higher level words and concepts. I told him that he could have it IF he showed me that he could read it. We went through the first couple pages and except for a difficulty with the word "heart" he read every word on those pages. The booger has been giving me difficulties, not because he's having trouble, but because he doesn't want us to know that he can do it. This ranks right up there with our issues with potty training.

Little Guy just turned 4 and is still in diapers. Everyone is full of advice and ideas, some of which we're going to have to implement in warmer weather. I think, though, that the biggest stumbling block to potty usage, is Little Guy's own determination. He adamantly refuses to use the potty, doesn't want to have anything to do with it, and will tolerate no discussion of using it. If he chooses to, he could probably get this potty training thing down with very little effort.

Instead, he's putting all his effort into avoiding it. When it gets to be spring and summer, I'm unleashing the child on the outdoors in a pair of underpants to try and learn potty time. I think it's going to be a battle of wills. Luckily, I'm bigger, older and have a better concept of patience and time.