Thursday, January 03, 2008

Good Morning, Bloggers

Reading

Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (8th Pulitzer winner for Fiction-1926) and Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata (the 2005 winner of the Newbery)

I just read the first two chapters of Kira-Kira last night in bed and couldn't sleep for the longest time because Kadohata has such a strong voice going on--it's the narrator as a child--that she kept talking in my head. (And I'm not even crazy!)

Two Questions for You Guys

1. Does anyone have any input or experience on potty training a boy who refuses to poop in the toilet? He's been trained otherwise (peeing) since the end of September. But he always begs for a pull-up to poop. And I know I'm probably enabling him by giving it to him, but, man, you should see those fits when he has to go and we withhold the pull-up. He writhes around on the floor, screams, cries, and won't go for two days. It just seems tortuous to do to him. So for now, I've just been giving in to him until he's ready?

2. This one is crazy--we are going to visit my brother in California sometime this year as a family. He lives in Martinez, in the Bay Area. So flying there was what we've been discussing in our preliminary plans. But...what if we drove? It would probably be terrible and take way too long, I'm sure, but it's a fun thought. I went cross-country the southern route from L.A. to Tucson to Albuquerque to Amarillo etc. to Graceland and then to Harrisonburg, VA and I'd love to do it again. And M. is dying to drive cross-country. BUT with a three-year-old and one-year-old? in a Honda Pilot?

But there's this...my sister is in Hawaii right now. They took off from LaGuardia and had to land in Salt Lake City because their plane had a fuel leak. They were kept on the plane for a few hours and then allowed into the airport for a few more hours until the plane was fixed. (Happily they made it across the Pacific and are safely in Maui.) I just kept thinking...thank god it wasn't me with the two little kids!

4 Comments:

Blogger ItchyBits said...

I had to really think back oddly enough because potty training for my oldest was a nightmare. He struggled with acute constipation. We went to a physcologist and everything. So we were not only dealing with potty training but just getting him to poop period. It was extreme. I think what finally got him over the hurdle was a reward system. It was a pain to have little things on hand to reward him for awhile but once he started doing it regularly the expectation of getting a reward faded away. It was a small price to pay for success. That was the only thing that worked for us. My youngest had no trouble at all.

5:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Betty-isn't it weird how stuff that was so crazy while it was going on, really fades over time? Like Little Guy's infant sleep issues--if someone asked me now, I'd say he was an OK sleeper, but if I really think about it--HELL no he wasn't!

Anyway, the little rewards worked GREAT for #1 (we used jellybeans)--for #2, it seems like nothing is worth it to him to poop in the toilet. Maybe I just have to find the right thing.

6:58 PM  
Blogger Liesl said...

Well, we haven't even begun too address the poop in the toilet issue yet. I just happy with pee in the toilet at this point. I'm really believing that eventually they decide it's OK to use the toilet, and nothing we do really makes that much difference, or at least that's what seemed to be in play here.

Not much help, am I?

9:15 PM  
Blogger lazy cow said...

My now 5 yo absolutely refused to poo on the toilet until the DAY he turned 4 (I knew he could do it, as he'd done it for his grandmother a couple of times). He would wait until I put a nappy on him at night and then do it, but on his 4th birthday he announced he was ready and hasn't looked back since. Stubborn child. Don't know if that is any help to you!

4:59 PM  

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