Baf-ooms and Special Potties

In the last few days, several of our friends have posted various potty training triumphs and challenges stories to their blogs, and so, in an effort to "keep up with the Joneses," I thought I'd add ours to the lot. We haven't officially (or unofficially, for that matter), begun potty training yet, but I think today marked the "Ayden is ready, let's get this show on the road" point. I had to go to the bathroom, so Ayden informed me that he, too, wanted to go to the "baf-oom." So, I thought, "Seize the moment!" We pulled down his pants, took off his diaper and sat him on the toilet. We sat, and sat, and chatted, decided to read some books, decided to include Kieran who then sat on my lap next to the toilet while I read and Ayden sat. Alas, nothing happened.

Ayden was all game to try again later, so I suggested we set the timer and try again in 20 minutes. The timer went off, and Ayden is excited to try going potty again. We go to the bathroom take off his pants and diaper and I start to put him on the toilet. Now, since I hadn't planned on potty training him today, we don't have anything that he can sit on without falling inthe toilet, and so it is a bit precarious to get him seated on our adult toilet. So, as I'm lifting him up for him to spread his legs out over both sides, he mis-guesses and promptly places one foot in the toilet.

"Oh, Ayden," I yell, to which he responds with crying and stressful sounds. Oops. I over reacted, so, not wanting to psychologically damage him when it comes to potty training, I quickly say, "It's o.k. we can clean it up." And I pull off the wet sock and throw it in the sink. Needless to say, he has not sat on the toilet since. He is, however, extremely interested in having his own "special potty," as he's been talking about that a good bit of the night.

I do think we have one other challenge to overcome, though. For about a year, Ayden has associated the word bathroom solely with sitting on the toilet. In other words, he doesn't understand that it's actually the name of a room in the house. This has led to some rather comical moments in our house. For example, I once bought him a new toothbrush and told him to put it in the bathroom. He just stood there and looked at me rather confusedly. "Ayden," I said, "take your toothbrush and go put it in the bathroom on the counter." Finally, being the dutiful son that he is, he took the toothbrush to put in the bathroom. Seconds later I hear the toilet lid open and, horrified, I dashed to the bathroom just as he's about to drop it into the toilet! Some of you might think he just wanted to drop it in the toilet, but, really, believe me, he thinks the word bathroom, in all it's contexts refers to the toilet.

In other news, Kieran is, as I've said nearly every post, growing like a weed. He just went in for a 6 week check up and he's now 12 pounds, 8 oz! He's doing terrific. He's smiling like crazy now and cooing away, so that's fun.

A few weeks ago, the boys both wore ties to church in order to be like dad. Ayden loved doing it and after a while, wanted his tie outside of his vest so that it was even more like Dad (who wasn't wearing a vest that day) and more visible.