Boy pee-pee

So how come no one told me that when you are potty training a boy, one of the biggest issues is finding boy friendly potties and getting them to not pee on the back of their undies when they sit on the potty! When I started out potty training my son, I had no idea that (little) potties are not unisex. There really are boy potties and girl potties. Do they mark this on the packaging? Do they give you any clue whatsoever? NO. I had to go through three potties before I found one that works to keep the pee from spraying over the edge every time.

First I should state that I have no idea if my son is normal. He can not only pee about 4 feet but also pees almost horizontal. He has easily peed over 3 inch pee guards. He hates when I touch his penis while he is peeing so I get one chance to aim it and that is it. He will not do it himself. He also loves to watch himself pee so he angles his hips upwards making it even harder to keep the pee going down. This has led to many embarrassing times at friends houses. "Oh I am so sorry but my son peed on your shower curtain!" This does not make people want to invite you back to their houses. It is also embarrassing having to change my son's pants when he DID go pee on the potty but managed to get most of it on the back of his pants.

I did finally find a potty at the Dollar Store that has a very high back. My son straddles the chair backwards and that solves the peeing over the top problem when we are at home at least. When we go out I keep a wash cloth handy for catching the stream before it hits his pants.

Baby Sprinkles

I am planning my own sprinkle for our baby girl. Sprinkles (I am told) are what you throw when you are having your second child. I hope that it is not too tacky to throw my own. I figure that because I have not registered anywhere and have put in the invites not to bring gifts that it is ok. I felt so proud of myself because I sent out e-vites without messing it up and everyone received them. It sounds silly but I am always afraid of messing things like that up the first time I do things. I am very impressed with how many of my invitees responded the day I sent them out. So much faster then sending invites in the mail. With my son's baby shower, my sister in law insisted that she throw the shower. She is normally a very organized person, and I really trusted that she would do a great job, but she really dropped the ball with my shower. First of all, no one received the invites until a week before the shower and some people did not receive them at all. Then for the shower, there was no games or entertainment just cake and ice cream. It turned out that her whole family had had a very bad flu the week before and she just could not get things together. I wish she would have just told me. I would have been happy to help. It did work out and turned out to be a good party but some of my friends and family were hurt that they did not get an invite. So this time I am going to take care of it myself. My friend has offered to bake us a cake (and she always does a great job) and I have found some games online that look like fun. The only theme will be girl. I am really looking forward to it.

Going to far

Well I have done it. I have gone too far in my cheap crunchiness. I have converted the family to cloth wipes for the potty. I stay home all day with my son and I noticed that we go through a lot of toilet paper. Mainly this is my fault because being a pregnant women, I pee a lot. I started thinking about how much money and trees I could save if we did not go through so much toilet paper. Then I realized that I could just do what we have been doing with my son from the very beginning. He is cloth diapered so we have always used cloth wipes. It works very well for us because we just throw the wipes in to the hamper with the diapers when we use them. They just get washed all together, no big deal. Well why couldn't I do that for the grownups? So I went out to Target and bought 3 packs of 12 white wash cloths at $5 each (I did the same for my sons wipes). Then I bought a cute basket to put on the back of the toilet for 25 cents at Goodwill and away we went. We only use the wash cloths for pee and we use each one twice and then it goes in to the hamper with the cloth diapers to be washed. We use the cloth, then fold it in to its self and set it next to the basket so that the next person knows that it can only be used once before washing. We use white wash cloths because we don't use white for our body wash cloths so there is no mix up. I have to say it has worked out really well for us. My husband was skeptical at first and my mom just laughed at me but I was right. We have cut down our toilet paper use by 70% and I still do the same amount of laundry as before. It is just a bigger load now but still not a full load. So yes I have gone to far but it still saved our family some money!

It's a...

We just found out today that we are having a baby girl! We are so excited. My husband claims that he knew all along and I had been having girl dreams so maybe we did know but today we got the proof. The baby was very happy to show us the goods. She is a very healthy looking little girl to boot. I am almost 20 weeks now. We spent a very nice hour in Target's clearance section looking a girl cloths. So now we will have a boy and a girl, two years apart. This is our last child so we were really hoping for a girl. We could not be happier.

Foreign potties

We had a huge speed bump in our potty training. My son stopped going potty when we went out. He would go potty if we went to a house but no where else. He would just hold it until he couldn't and then pee all over himself. When we started potty training he would go anywhere. He even went potty at our county fair. Then out of nowhere he just stopped. I was talking with my mom about this and she said "Do you give him a treat if you go out?" I said no because I don't like carrying cookies around with me. She pointed out that that was most likely my problem. I realized that she was right. I tested the theory at the gym. He had never once gone potty there. It worked! I showed him a piece of candy corn before he sat on the potty and told him that if he went pee he would get the candy. He sat down and peed. I was so happy! No longer do I have to dread going out with him. I refused to put him back in diapers because I knew he could do it and I was right. I just needed the right tool. Bribery. I did spend a minute being worried about how to wean him off treats for the potty but I am sure it will be just like everything else with him. He weaned himself off the breast at 12 months, then the pacifier with out a fuss. I have still not figured out how to get him to poop in the potty. Maybe my mom will have another brain storm.

Next week we are going to visit my grandma in Phoenix AZ for a week so the potty training will go on the road! I am really excited that I don't have to pack diapers (cloth ones) for the trip. Since he only wears them at night, I will just use paper ones. He is down to one or no pee accidents a day and now that he will pee anywhere again, I think we can do this.

Naked buns

Potty training is turning out to be a much bigger learning experience for me then I had anticipated. When we started my son would stay dry better when we were out of the house then in the house. Now he rarely has pee accidents at home and about 80% of the time stays dry when we leave the house. His biggest undoing is when he is distracted when we go somewhere to play and he will not tell me he has to go until he has already gone. So I have found that when we go out it is best to watch the clock more then my son. When we are at home I let him run around with no bottoms because for some reason he does better that way. He went though a faze where he would have like 6 accidents a day in his undies at home but when I took them off that stopped. At home he is really good about telling me when he needs to go. I just need to watch him not the clock.

Poop is of course another mater. What makes me feel better is that it is clear that getting pee down before poo is very common. I have been trying to tell him that poop goes in the potty and letting him see when he does poop in the potty instead of whisking it away like I normally would. I think it may just take time. I do catch some poops (in the potty) but he will not tell me when he needs to go poop unlike when he needs to pee. He just stands there and gets a far away look in his eye. I call it his poop stare. I never did anything to get him to tell me when he had to pee so I guess that he will just figure it out on his own.

Day 14

We are still on the potty training band wagon. We have got it down to no more then one pee acadent a day. We are still working on the poo. My son poops mostly in his diaper at night or during nap time. Nothing I can do about that really so I try not to think about it too much. I am really quite proud of him over all. I am asked quite often how I know when he has to pee. At first I said that I didn't know, I just took him and I think it did start out that way but now I am seeing that more and more he is telling me when he has to go and when he doesn't. He will grab his crotch, point at the cookie box, or just go and stand by the potty when he has to go. I am also seeing that he is holding it longer and does not want to go early. He will often hold it for an hour now. This is really great when we go shopping.

For those that wonder if I have an advanced child I would like to point out that I don't. I (of course) think he is just the cats meow but he is really very normal. He did not start walking until 14 months, the words he says are so garbled that only I can understand him, he does not use a fork or spoon, and he only does two signs so far (eat and more). So he is really just a normal little boy. I think that putting him in cloth diapers really helped with potty training later because he knows what it feels like to be wet and what causes it.