Big Poopy News in Toddler World

On Friday morning, Ivan and I went to Babies R Us to buy a baby shower gift for Andy's colleague. As we were strolling through the store looking for stuff, I decided on a whim to buy a potty. I wasn't planning to buy a potty for another few months, but since the opportunity presented itself I went for it. It's a sleek babybjorn white-green potty. No cartoon character endorsements.

We put it in the bathroom. That evening when Andy was getting ready to give Ivan a bath, Ivan expressed interest in it. He kept pointing to the toilet saying "dadda peepe" and then to the potty saying "Ee, Ee peepe". Andy asked him if we wanted to poopy in the potty, explaining that if he wants to go that that's great, but if he doesn't, that that's fine as well. He sat in it twice but nothing happened. But the third time he told Andy he had to poppy, Andy sat him in the potty and squeezed out a little inch-size turd. I took a photo of it.

We made a big deal about it, praising Ivan for being a big boy.

In the morning, as soon as he woke up at 6 a.m., we went to the bathroom. We spent some 45 minutes there, playing with the faucet, pointing to the potty, etc. I took his diaper off since we was talking about the potty. After two failed potty attempts where nothing happened, he said he had to poopy.

I whisked him off the toilet (on which he was standing to play with the sink faucet and water), put him on the potty, and he pooped. A real poop! I was impressed.

We made a big deal about it, calling Didi and Baka, Meme and Papi. He seemed proud and pleased with himself.

Of course, he hasn't pooped in the potty since. But that's OK. Since we weren't planning to start potty training him since the summer, the fact that he's managed to do it now on his own, pleasantly took us by surprise. Boys apparently get potty trained closer to three, while girls get trained closer to two.

We've been telling him it's fine if he uses the potty or not.

we went to a birthday party today, where he told me "poopy." Since his diaper was clean, I tried to sit him on the toilet to poppy but he wouldn't let me. Eventually he pooped in his diapers when we came home. I think that had we been at home when he initially told me he had to go that the potty would've worked.

Who knows. Maybe this pooping episode was an aberration and he'll give up on it, or maybe he'll really get potty trained. We'll see.

Standing by the door

Ivan slept at my parents' house last night. Apparently, he went to bed rather late. He insisted on watching some TV with my parents, sitting in those IKEA recliners. I think it was more the recliner, "Ee, Ee's" as my mom said, that the TV.

Since he went to bed late, he, of course, woke up extra early this morning, at 4:50 p.m. He apparently refused to nap all day as well.

The reason why my parents had him today was because they took him on a Thomas the Train ride in Baltimore. Apparently, he first cried, but then he had a blast.

In the afternoon, they dropped off this sleep-deprived child in Burtonsville, where we met up with them because we were on our way to Sanjoy and Rita's.

We ate pizza. Ivan and Maya at some too. Since Maya's pizza was cut up and she ate it with a fork, I thought Ivan would want to do the same. But no, he wanted his own slice to eat with his hands.

"Pita, pita" he was really excited to eat pizza.

Then they played...really calmly and nicely. Actually, they interacted but mostly they played by themselves. Very gently and calmly. I guess both are really gentle little souls.

Then we started watching a movie. It was getting late. Ivan was behaving but I could tell he was tired.

At one point, he vanished. It was around 9:30. I found him glued to the entrance door. He wanted to leave. He started to put on his shoes. So I dressed him in jammies and gave him the requested "meme". While we were packing up to leave, he indicated he wanted to go upstairs. I guess he identifies "upstairs" with bedrooms and sleep.

As soon as we got into the car, he was out. When we arrived home, we easily transported him into his crib, where he continued sleeping.

7 Weeks, 1 Day

We went for the first pre-natal visit today. I'm 7 weeks and 1 day pregnant. So I miscalculated how they calculate the weeks because I thought this week would be the eighth week. But no biggie.

Since it was soo early the doctor couldn't perform that test where she listens for the heartbeat with a little speaker device. Instead she did a sonogram. And there was a heartbeat. It's official. I am pregnant.

Since now I'm of advanced maternal age, in other words, I'm over 35, the doctor talked to us about various screening tests we could do.

We've decided to go the nuchal translucency test, which tests for Down Syndrome, etc. It's basically a sonogram and a blood test that needs to be done between 11 and 13 weeks, and it has 95% accuracy rate. It's the first test one can do, and it seems to be the least invasive one.

Otherwise, yesterday was the first day that I felt really nauseous. It was cheese sandwiches all the way. Luckily today I feel better. I was a bit queasy but nothing as bad as yesterday. Yesterday was really bad.

The only other symptom I have is that my nose is already very stuffy. As the doctor said today, it's because of extra testosterone or progesterone, one of the two. I forget. I'm just very tired, and I'm about to go to bed now.