We started potty training a couple of weeks ago.  I know 18 months is a little young these days, and I hadn’t planned on starting until he was 2, but then I read the book Diaper-Free Before 3, and it changed my mind.

She makes a good point with the data:  it wasn’t really until the 1960s, when disposable diapers first started to appear, that potty training started getting pushed out to later and later.  Back in the “old days,” mothers were more motivated to get their babies trained when everything had to be washed by hand.

She advocates actually starting when the child can sit on his/her own (around 6 months), and just adding the potty time to the regular schedule.  I’d heard of people doing this, and thought a) they’re crazy and b) it’ll take too much time, but after reading the book I decided to give it a try.

Obviously we’re starting later, but we’re following the same principle, which is that we have Jack sit on the potty every 3 hours or so (generally whenever he’d normally have a diaper change).  He seems to enjoy it; we have lots of books and he either “reads” them or one of us reads to him.  The point is just to make it part of the daily routine, and eventually, he’ll get the association between actually going to the bathroom, and the potty.

So far he’s peed in the potty 4 times.  He’s also peed and pooped on the floor in the bathroom, in his room, etc., so it can be a bit messy.  And when we’re out and about, I don’t bring the potty with us or anything.

Eventually, when he starts to get the hang of it, I’ll have him wear training underwear during the day.  I don’t have a particular timeline for when he has to be potty trained, so I don’t feel a lot of pressure to get it done.  I just figure, I’d rather have him get used to the concept before he hits the 2s and REALLY wants to assert his independence.

The author says this method (if you started around 6 months) takes more time in the long run, but the child will end up trained at a younger age, and hopefully with less hassle.  She also says that to be “trained” doesn’t mean there are never any accidents; it can simply mean that the majority of the time, the child uses the potty.  We’ll see what happens!

Question for other people who’ve done potty training:  what do you use to clean the potty?  I don’t want to use something too harsh, but I do want to make sure it’s cleaned properly… and where do you clean it?  Seems kind of unsanitary to clean it in the bathtub.

The weekend == Daddy time.  Jack’s been very attached to his dad lately.  Yesterday morning Chris got him out of his crib and was holding him for a bit til he had to go take a shower.  He handed Jack to me and Jack started crying and sadly saying “Dada!”  When Chris comes home, Jack runs over to the laundry room door to greet him (it connects to the garage).  It’s wonderful to see him love his daddy so much.

In general, Jack hasn’t shown a lot of preference between me and Chris, but when Chris’s parents were visiting, there were a couple of times when he wanted me more.  Very unusual.  It’s nice to see it go both ways.

It also cracks me up to see what Jack refers to when he points and says “Mama!” or “Dada!”.  The TV, the beer in the fridge, and the blue toy car are all “Dada”.  Things that are “Mama!”:  pictures of blimps (because of the time Jack and I saw a blimp together.. what were you thinking?) , the washing machine (great), and the chair where I sit at the table.

I had a physical therapy appointment this morning, but our sitter has the flu so had to cancel.  Since I couldn’t do that, I packed up the jog stroller and we went to Sawyer Camp Trail, at Crystal Springs Reservoir.  While there, we heard bagpipes playing, and found a man playing them in the parking lot.  We stopped to listen for a bit, so Jack could soak in some of his Scottish heritage.

I have slowly, slowly been building up my running again, now that my knee’s healed.  It gets sore sometimes, but it’s held up well.  Today I did 5 minutes of walking, then two rounds of 90 seconds running/90 seconds walking, 3 minutes running/3 minutes walking.  Not much, but I was doing less than that when the stress fracture occurred.

Our jog stroller is a hand-me-down from my sister, and I am so grateful to have it, but it’s one of the original models and a bit of a pain to cart around.  You have to take off the side wheels and a bunch of other pins to get it to fold up small enough to go in the back of the car.  But it does the job.

The trail is very popular, and we saw lots of joggers, walkers, cyclists, kids on scooters, and even a guy on a unicycle.

Jack had a great night of sleep last night; I didn’t hear a peep.  He had a good breakfast this morning.  I think he’s definitely on the mend.

Last night, Jack slept in his crib all night!  Woo!   He was restless and cried out a lot, but it never got to the point where we needed to go in.  Chris peeked in to his room just before and 8 and was greeted with “Dada!”

This morning he ate his breakfast and we went to the grocery store and things were pretty good til we got back, and he refused his snack.  Then he cried and cried when it was naptime.  Finally he went to sleep, and woke up 30 minutes later!  Ugh.  Lunch was a little painful but he soldiered through.

I think he’s on the mend, but not quite back to his old self.  This afternoon we’re going to a playdate.  I think I will enjoy it more than Jack; I have certainly been missing adult company.

And it’s only Wednesday!  With Jack’s being sick, we’ve been cooped up at home all week so far, and his night-sleeping has gotten even worse.  Tonight I did get out of the house:  I went to a 3-hour neighborhood association meeting.  Well, it was nice to be out with rational adults for a bit anyway.

Jack’s fever has gone down, but the tongue blister is still there and makes him really not want to eat.  I’ve actually been spoon feeding him… it’s like he’s a baby again!  I don’t know why his sleeping has been so awful; is it the blister?  Does he have other ones I can’t see?  Is his throat sore?  Who knows.  Last night he just wouldn’t sleep in his crib, no matter what.  He’d fall asleep fine on one of us, but put him down in the crib and he’d leap up and start crying hysterically.  In the end, Chris slept on the floor with him in his room, but Jack still didn’t sleep much.  Tylenol did not seem to help.

There have been times over the last few days where I’ve felt like a great parent, and times where I’ve felt like a terrible parent.  On the great parent side, we’ve been spending hours and hours just playing or hanging out together, reading books, coloring, singing, stacking blocks, and just plain cuddling.  I’ve rocked him and sung the same lullabies over and over.

On the terrible parent side, today I was speaking to him like he was a jerky adult, not a sick 19-month old.  He didn’t nap long today, and I was exhausted, and trying to eat some leftover pizza for lunch (haven’t been to the grocery store, either) and he was wailing and wouldn’t eat and wouldn’t play and I said, “What?  Now I can’t eat?  What about me!!!!”  It was kinda pathetic.  I hear myself saying things and at the very same moment I’m thinking “Give me a break, YOU are the adult here!  He is 19 months old and SICK!” but sometimes things just come out.

Earlier he wanted me to color and I said “Jack, I am just too tired to color,” and he had a little tantrum.  He threw each crayon on the floor, then all the paper, then started shaking his head back and forth and pounding the table.  It was kind of cute, actually.  When you’ve been stuck in the house three days, this is what passes for entertainment.

Poor little guy.  I wish he could tell me what was hurting.  I am crossing my fingers he’ll sleep a little better tonight.

Jack naps once a day, anywhere from 45 minutes to 3 hours.  Usually, it’s an hour and a half.  I wish that somehow I would know how long it was going to be beforehand.  Then I’d know whether it was worth trying to lie down for a nap, or get involved in a project that might last more than 45 minutes.  So many times I spend the first part of the nap doing chores/eating lunch/reading email, that when it comes up to a little after an hour, I am unsure of what to do next.

If I think, “Maybe it’ll be a long nap today.  I’ll start working on something that will take me an hour,” no doubt he’ll wake up in the middle of said project.   If I think, “He’s going to wake up soon,” I end up surfing the web or wasting time while he sleeps another hour.  Decisions, decisions!

*I think The Naptime Dilemma would be a good title for the 13th book in Simon Hawke’s TimeWars series.

If anyone has anything they want me to post about (whether it’s related to parenting or not), leave a comment or send me an email and I will be happy to oblige.

Jack update:  he had a very restless but long nap.  He woke up quite upset, and I noticed he had a white blister on the tip of his tongue.  Poor guy was pretty miserable and wouldn’t eat.  I gave him some more Tylenol and he felt better after a while and was ravenous, but because of the blister, eating was painful.  He’d shove food his mouth, start crying, then shove in more food.  It would have been funny if it weren’t so sad.  His fever went down, but was back up to 101 before bed… we’ll see what the night brings!

Last night was rough.. Jack didn’t sleep very well, kept crying out.  I got up with him a few times, but mostly he was in his half-awake state, not really stirring, just doing the on/off “wahh”.  So I’m pretty tired today!

He still had a fever this morning, so I gave him some more Tylenol.   He doesn’t have any other symptoms yet that I can see.  Poor little guy.  He’s down for his nap now; hopefully it will be a long one!

(That’s “Stay At Home Mom”..).  Just read an interesting article called “Mother of all recessions:  As the Bay Area’s stay-at-home moms crash to reality, Diana Kapp wrestles with a provocative question: Can the financial meltdown do us all an enormous favor by forcing career women off the mommy track and back into the workforce?”

She’s a little ticked off about how so many career women have dropped their jobs in favor of being stay-at-home-moms, and how it allows the men to go off and pursue their passions/dreams while the women stay at home just taking care of the kids.

As I’ve written about before, I have a lot of mixed feelings about this.  In an ideal world, we’d have a lot more flexibility with working, and it would be much more common for people to work part-time.  This would allow both moms and dads to spend time with their kids (or, if you didn’t have kids, doing other things in life besides working).  But the truth is, it’s hard to get part-time work, and you don’t get health insurance that way, and the bigger truth is:  it’s still almost always the woman who stays home.

Some people argue that it’s a waste for someone to get a high-level degree and then stay at home with the kids.  I don’t know what to say to that.  I do see their point….. but most SAHMs still work before and after having kids.  Wouldn’t it be nice if parents could take turns staying at home, without damaging their careers?  Wouldn’t it be nice if it weren’t the default for the woman to stay at home?

There are things I miss about working.  Some of them are related to the work itself; some are related to the more social aspects of hanging out with work colleagues.  I have no idea what the best solution is; I am sure it’s different for different people.

In other news, Jack has a fever of 102 tonight.  So it’s one of those times when I’m glad I DON’T have a full-time job, so I can stay home with him tomorrow.

Tonight, Jack had a non-family member put him to bed for the first time.  He knows the sitter; she has babysat him a lot before (during the daytime) and he is very comfortable with her, but tonight he had a hard time.

When we left he was crying and saying “Mama!” but I figured he’d be happy soon enough.  When we came home he was asleep, but the sitter said he’d cried a while after we left, and was very sad during his bedtime routine.  Apparently he kept saying “Dada” tearfully through every part (book, toothbrushing, etc).   It makes my heart break thinking about it!

I know he’ll be fine, and I think it’s good for other people to take care of him sometimes, but it still makes me sad when I imagine him feeling sad.