Sunday, August 23, 2009

yes, we bribe our child


how is it that i've begun only blogging once a week? this month's number of posts is one of the lowest i've ever had. its not that i'm too busy (though that does account for some of it). i think i'd just rather read blogs and be entertained than create one to be entertaining. i admit that i've been completely selfish in this regard and i hope to remedy the situation starting this week.

here's a couple of things that have been rolling around in my head lately:

potty training...i've borrowed books and dvd's from the library for tristan all about the potty. he enjoys these and has had quite a few successes with peeing. we have a glass of skittles up above the tv, which is a reminder to him that he gets one every time he goes pee and two if he goes poop. so far, the pooping bit hasn't happened. i understand this is normal, but the issue we're having is that his little internal "schedule" seems to have changed. he now has a poop right in the middle of (or near the beginning of) his nap. this is not a good thing. today we made sure he sat on the potty right before i put him down for his nap. no poop. so we've increased the desirability of pooping by adding some tootsie roll pops in the glass along with the skittles. we shall see if this works...

time speeding...if i thought that time went by twice as quickly once i had tristan, i now find that time goes by three times as quickly now that i have samuel. in only a couple of weeks, samuel will be three months old! i've been feeling nostalgic lately, triggered by looking at pictures of tristan as a baby to compare him to his younger brother. it suddenly struck me as infinitely sad that the chubby little boy staring joyfully at me in those photos will never ever look like that again. as big and old as tristan looks to me now, soon he'll be even bigger and older and i'm sure i'll look back on pictures of him now and think that he looked chubby and baby like. just another reminder to enjoy life in the moment, to stop wishing certain difficult stages away and to remember that each age and stage has its very own specific joys that i will look back fondly on one day.

i hope i never forget the way tristan "sings along" with me when i sing him "Jesus loves me" before bedtime. i hope i never forget his extreme devotion to a particular hat that resembles lightning mcqueen. he honestly cannot leave the house without it. i hope i never forget the way he'll simply say, "mommy. hand." and hold my hand in his while we're watching morning cartoons. i hope i never forget the special little voice he uses when talking to his brother. its sort of husky, sort of high pitched and it makes me want to cry every time he uses it. the most recent time was this morning. after receiving a green skittle for going pee, he ran to samuel, held up his candy and said "see? baby sam? GREEN tweet! tristan go pee pee on potty! yay!!!" and then he danced around making samuel grin and giggle. i hope i never forget the way samuel's little head bobbles and steadies as i burp him after a feeding. i hope i never forget the way the top of his head smells, or the way his first little giggles sound. i hope i never lose the feeling that i get when he smiles so hugely at me from his crib first thing in the morning. these moments in time seem to last so long now, but in reality they are so fleeting.

11 comments:

Jenn & Wade said...

Good job on the potty training! We totally bribed our kids too except we started out with suckers for everything and the boys got that figured out VERY QUICKLY and were constantly going pee and then getting a big ol' sucker...not good! So then we went to M&M's and eventually figured out that a sticker chart would work great and not be so harsh on their teeth. When they got a certain amount of stickers they got to pick out a little wrapped surprise from a bag and they loved this! I just went to the dollar store and got some treats and fun toys and wrapped them up. Worked great for the boys but Aleah was a whole different and frustrating story. So I say, if the bribing with skittles works...go for it!=)

kelly ens said...

ahhh, potty training. Taeya got a big, excited Dora party for peeing on the potty (sticker included) and a Dibs ice cream treat for pooping (they are the BOMB for potty training if your kid loves ice cream).

i know what you mean about time going by so fast. looking back at baby pictures of ezra, he looks SOOO different with his nearly-black hair (and SO much more of it). I compare pictures of Ezra to when Taeya was his age and it's amazing to see how much she's grown. unreal. i wish there was a slow-down button...
and thank goodness for blogs so i can remember much of their growing up...except it's a bit hard to capture the (good) smells.

Angela said...

It's so true... the moments end too quickly! I can't believe Sloan is going to be one this week... and I wish I hadn't already forgotten what sweet, little head smelled like - now it smells like whatever food she last wore as "Sloan's hat". I already miss her and she's still little...

Anonymous said...

Your post made me get all nostalgic. Rhea will be 6 months in a couple of weeks. She's already very steady with her body and will be sitting up soon. Every milestone is so fascinating to watch but heart breaking becasue I'll never have it back. We've 99% decided this will be our last one. I think I'm okay with that. I don't enjoy the sleep deprivation and sparatic chaos but maybe it would be worth it to to smell the top of a baby's head!!

Andrea

Unknown said...

Your post made me tear up, I think I'm getting broody ;)

We bribe Lena too with potty-training. She gets 3 mini-smarties for a pee and 1 winegum for a poop. Works wonders!
As soon as she has the peeing down though, I'll switch to stickers.

Unknown said...

this is Sophie from facebook-BW, by the way ;)

Thoughts on Life and Millinery. said...

A friend of mine took her two year old to the zoo, and while reading about the endangered animals being displayed, she looked down at her child and realized that two year old Emily would soon be "extinct", and never be found again.

Emily is now finishing college...and it is true, two year old Emily has never been seen again except in pictures and memories.

Thoughts on Life and Millinery. said...

PS: Potty training in summer sure is easier than in winter, and with Dad around to "demo" the fire fighting potential...it makes it so much easier. Nice to have Josh around for that!

The poop? Another outside pantless activity. (my eyes are crossing in the memory...)

lil said...

How did you do that beautiful signature of your name at the end??

Anonymous said...

So beautiful Heidi, what a touching entry. I'm looking forward to having all those experiences of my own in the near future.

love,

Sacha Wright

Naomi said...

Heidi, I don't look at it as bribing the kids, so much as earning a reward. Tristan is learning something new, trying to reconize what's going on in his body and so forth. That kind of work deserves a reward!!! :)
I wouldn't worry about the pooping. The little girl I care for took a while to go poop in the tiolet and also switched her poos to the end of nap. I think it was just a response, because she was not ready.