Regression

So, the little guy has been toilet trained since the summer time. At first we had issues with bed wetting about two or three times a week. Now, he never wets the bed (knock on wood). His track record for making it to the toilet on time has been phenomenal....or at least it was until a couple of weeks ago. All of a sudden he is regressing. Virtually every day we find pee in his underwear. Today, he had three accidents.

Today we got very frustrated with him, which probably didn't help things. I'm ashamed to say that I asked him if I needed to go out and buy him some diapers since he was peeing in his pants like a baby. That was pretty low, wasn't it? Maybe so, but it caught his attention. He's adamant that he does not want to wear diapers because he's not a baby anymore.

Everything I've ever read about toilet training has said not to get upset about accidents. All literature on the subject warns that getting upset makes the situation worse. This may explain why he had so many accidents today....

In any case, I took him out for a walk to night and we had a heart to heart. I told him that he's been doing so good at listening to his body and always putting his pooh in the toilet. He was delighted when I heaped on the praise. I asked him why he was having so much trouble remembering to go to the bathroom to let his pees out. The explanations he gave me made no sense at all -- like how his elbow hurt.

So tomorrow I told him we were going to watch Elmo's Potty Time to remind him about the importance of listening to his body. Also, I asked him to try his very best to not have anymore accidents. I said that it's okay if it happens once in a while if there is a good reason, but that he shouldn't be having wet underwear all the time.

I thought we were done toilet training. Has anyone else run into regressions like this. What did you do?

Quote of the day

This morning the little guy told me all about a show he watched on Discovery Channel last night. He went on and on about how the octopus got trapped and was pulled out of the water. He concluded his story by saying, "If you take too many octopuses out of the water they get restinked."

When I told him the word was actually "extinct" he said, "ex-inked is bad Mom."

Big weekend with the cousins!

We had a full house this weekend. The little guy was thrilled to have a two-night sleep over with his cousins.

On Saturday the kids played non-stop from 10 am until bedtime. We didn't even bother to take them out because they were having so much fun. On Sunday, poor little AK was sick with a fever and missed our trip to the children's museum. The boys had a fantastic time playing with the real crane. Afterwards we went out for burgers and milkshakes. When we got home AK was feeling much better and the marathon playing continued.

I think AK gets the prize for best quote of the weekend. We were talking about the characters in Lady and the Tramp and she said, "that movie has Siamese if you please cats." So cute!

Be my Valentine!

Instead of buying a bunch of pre-packaged Valentine's cards, the little guy made his own. We cut out hearts and decorated them with sparkles, stickers, decals etc...It was so much fun! There is one very pretty heart with a flower decal that he has reserved for Katrina, the little girl in his class that he has a big crush on. I sure hope she likes it!

The only difficult part of this project was getting him to sign the back of all 18 cards. Thank goodness we started this project early! Since the weekend I've been getting him to sign three or four at a time. Of course I'm not sure that anyone will actually be able to figure out his name. He writes up and down and puts the letters in the wrong order....I think this is pretty typical of kids his age.

Blood, guts and all that other yucky stuff

A few weeks ago our dinosaur books arrived from Scholastic. We've been reading them non-stop ever since. And in reading these books, the little guy became quite fascinated with the idea that some animals eat other animals. One of the books talks about how T-Rex was a "meat eater" and has a picture of it chomping on another dinosaur.

"What's meat mom?" the little guy asked.

I explained to him that meat comes from animals, including the chicken, beef and pork that we eat. I told him that we buy meat at stores but that lots of animals hunt other animals and eat them.

"What is T-Rex eating?" he asked, looking down at his book.

"He's eating another dinosaur."

"You mean the blood?"

"Well, yes, there was probably some blood. But mostly he was eating meat."

This led into a series of other questions about dinosaurs, including wanting to know how come the dinosaurs are now just bones. "Where did their blood go?" he wanted to know.

And wouldn't you know it, today he had a nosebleed. The sight of his own blood sparked a whole new line of questions. Why is blood red? Is the blood going to come back? When I lived in mommy's tummy was there blood there? Can my skin come off? Does my skin not come off because it's glued to the blood.

I sure hope that he moves on to some other topics soon. This one is making me queasy!