grammarwoman | The Emperor's new throne

Friday afternoon, and I have almost completely pissed away the day. Not good for the workload, but I just can’t bring myself to care.

The Emperor is…Well, he’s a handful, and a clown, and a genius, and so full of potential that I’m scared of failing him. We’ve been telling him for a while that he could have a big boy bed if he used the toilet on a regular basis, and sure enough, about three weeks ago it finally sunk into his head. He made a consistent effort to use the bathroom at home and day-care, so we prevailed upon my husband’s parents for one of their aged twin mattresses. It arrived two weekends ago.

In lieu of having to procure a box spring or put rails on the bed, we just installed it on the floor, with no Imperial complaints. He immediately set about testing its springboard capabilities; even after a half hour of excited jumping and running around, he still wasn’t worn out enough to settle down to sleep within a couple of hours. It’s gotten better since then. I’m not sure if day-care is to thank for it, but he’s also never given us grief about staying in his bed (once deposited there for the night). He’ll call us up, sure, but we’ve haven’t had any midnight visits, or even early morning ones.

In the meantime, he’s graduated to going dry almost the whole day at day-care, plus pooping in the toilet. (Those who’ve suffered through potty training can appreciate what a big leap this is.) However, he’s regressed on the home front, telling us every time that he’ll use the bathroom tomorrow. *sigh* The main effective threat now is to tell him that only big boys can sleep in a big boy bed, and if he can’t use the potty, we’ll have to put his crib back. Sometimes (like this morning) it takes several repetitions, plus outright bribery, but he comes around.

We took another big step today and put him in actual underpants. His day-care is closed for the holiday, so he’s been under Daddy’s supervision; I’m waiting to hear how he did.

Other random bits:

We have a saying that when things (usually toys that weren’t put away properly) can’t be found, that they’ve gone POOF. The other day, the Emperor informed me that he could find the latest item that had gone POOF by going POOF himself. I thought that was a delightful little bit of existential wisdom.

Our latest bedtime game is playing Bear. The Emperor picks a parent to team up with (usually me) and then decides on who will be the Bear (usually him). The non-bear party hides somewhere upstairs and waits for the Bear to find them, whereupon the Bear growls and the hiding parties scream in mock terror. Repeat until we end the game, usually to the protest of “Two more minutes, please!”. (You know that scene from “Say Anything” where Ione Skye’s character talks about having a frequently sampled scream? I feel like we’ve got an untapped market in the Emperor’s piercing cries; horror movies ain’t got nothing on the earsplitting pitches he can reach. Yowzers.)

Easter Sunday will find us heading out to the in-laws. Someone else’s cooking, a chance to hang with other grownups, and a crowd of people to keep an eye on the Emperor? IMSOTHERE.

Happy spring festival of your choice, everyone! *MWAH*

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There's a lot of daddy's family in that boy. :)

We've given up on potty training for the time being. Caitlin just isn't taking to it.

There's a lot of daddy's family in that boy. :)

I remind him of that pretty much every day. *grin*

We've given up on potty training for the time being. Caitlin just isn't taking to it.

Sorry to hear that things aren't going well on that front -- I imagine you're quite heartily sick of diapers by now.

I quite happily slept on a mattress on the floor for a chunk of undergrad & graduate school. Was comfortable--good firm support for the mattress. Easy to clean too--just flipped it up against the wall & vacuumed under it. :)

That does make for some easy cleaning.

We still have the kids on mattresses on the floor. They take up less room and we don't have to worry about them falling out of bed.

And my sympathies on the potty training. I definitely remember what that was like.

Glad to hear we're not alone -- it just made sense to do it that way.

Thanks; every parent we talk to has some story about a kid that didn't train until 4 or so. Here's hoping that won't be him.

I think I've told you this before, but we got to the point with P that we just put him in underpants and he got in trouble if he wet himself. Not horrible punishment, but a stern voice and perhaps a swat to the behind. The books all tell you not to do that, which I understand if the kid doesn't understand. But P totally understood, he just didn't go sometimes because he didn't WANT to be bothered with it. Once he was trained, occasionally he just didn't make it in time, and then he wouldn't get in trouble at all. (Like, if he seemed really distressed about going in his pants, then I just told him to do better next time. If he was all "hey, I went in my pants! Whee!" then he did get in trouble.) It finally pushed him past that point where he knew WHAT to do, but didn't do it.

T, on the other hand, LOVES to go potty, I just don't take him enough, because we're going on a trip this week, and I dind't want to start in earnest until we get back. So next wednesday we start with the Every 30 Minutes plan.

Oh, our little stinker totally understands. He just has some weird stubbornness about it. That, and it definitely came as a rude shock to him yesterday when he wet his pants and *gasp* they were WET.

Today's been OK so far -- he's off to nap with a pull-up, then back in undies for the afternoon. We'll see if he can make it.

When I was an undergrad I nannied for a family with newborn twins. From the day those babies came home from the hospital, we joked about the potty training. Every time we carried them past the bathroom, we'd hold them facing the toilet and say, "Look, the potty! Using the potty is the greatest!" or something of the like. Mind you, these were children who didn't recognize the sound of their own names yet, but the running joke was that we wanted them to be firmly conditioned to desire potty-use by the time they were actually seated upon it. I moved out long before that ever happened, so I have no idea how the little guys (who are now like 8 or something, and presumably potty trained) did when the time came.

What an intriguing idea! I'll have to try that out on the next one, whenever she may be.

I am a big proponent of just putting them in underwear and reminding them to go every two hours or so. Once they've shown that they have an understanding of when they need to go. It was not nearly as messy as I thought it might be. She's not 100% accident-free, but she's close enough.

And I'll just chime in on having one that stays put in bed. She never climbed out of her crib and still calls for me to come get her out of bed in the morning now that we've converted her crib to a toddler bed. *knocks on wood* I keep thinking she'll get more adventurous as she gets older. It is nice to hear that Emperor is the same at about 6 mos older.

I figure I'll pick up a bunch of undies today so we can just keep putting him back in them, and let him appreciate how it feels to "oops!".

I've heard several stories of kids who go wandering after bedtime, so I'm very happy (and *knocking wood*) that he continues to stay put.

The Emperor sounds like the cutest damn kid in the planet. I read your post word-for-word and I'm still in baby fever mode. Yikes. I think I'm getting to the point in my life where I'm thinking seriously about kids at the age of 26. Seriously as in I know I don't have my shit together right now, but I want to go to graduate school and then have a job for at least two years before I have kids. I also read up on every aspect of child care (the good and the bad) in articles and on forums and baby-sit every chance I get. Of course, at the rate my relationship with my boyfriend is going, we might just be married in six months. I know surprises happen, so check back with me in a year and see if I don't have a little one running around.

Aw, thank you! I tend to think so to, at least on his good days. *grin*

Pardon the old-lady advice, but you've got plenty of time to have kids. Now is when you want to go on lots of adventures and take full advantage of _not_ having to be home every night and get up early every morning. I still get twinges of jealousy at friends who are childfree.

That's not to say that it isn't awesome being a mom, and I understand baby fever. I'm still restless to have another one (or insane).

The Emperor's new throne

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