When You Wish Upon a Star...

The other night, we were sitting in the family room. When the curtains are open and the lights are on, you can see the reflections of the potlights in the window - Jake likes to point them out to us. (Very big into pointing at things these days, is Jake.)

Owen looked at the lights, and then noticed he could see something else. "Mommy! There's a STAR!"

Sure enough, we could see one tiny spark in the sky, so it was time to make a wish.

"Star light, star bright, first star we see tonight, wish we may, wish we might, have the wish we wish tonight..."

Owen: "I wish for a BABY in my BELLY! Like Mickle Pickle!"

Mommy: "Really?"

Owen: "YES! And then it will turn into a blue dinosaur with PINK POLKA DOTS!"

I love that kid. Him and his weirdly specific wishes. Can't wait to hear what he wishes for on his birthday! :)

Clearly Speaking

Busy, busy, busy. Of course, whose life isn't these days? I did my EndurRace, with a personal best in both distances! I was hoping to do the 5K in under 30 minutes, and I did it in 30 minutes, 26 seconds, so I was quite pleased (my previous time had been about 34 minutes). My previous 8K time (two years ago, the last time I ran it) was just under 55 minutes - I was just hoping to beat that time. I blew it away, finishing in 49 minutes, 51 seconds! I'm so proud of myself!! And so, so happy to finally have completed both races that make up this event. Yay me! The best was having Steve and the boys cheering for me - nothing motivates you for those last hundred metres like hearing your little guy yelling "Go Mommy go! Go Mommy go!"

Lots of other stuff has been going on, some good, some not so good. The really sad news is that we lost Steve's Grandma last weekend. She had been ill for some time, with growing tumours in her lungs. At her age (94) there really wasn't anything they could do for her - her body wouldn't have withstood radiation or an operation, so the doctors just did the best they could to make her comfortable. We will be getting together with family to celebrate her life next weekend.

The boys are growing like crazy. Jake has two teeth, and is the fastest thing around here on all fours. He's literally crawling the knees out of his pants! And speaking of pants, Owen keeps getting taller. I bought new pants for him, but since we're nearly done with pants-wearing-weather, I bought them big enough to (hopefully!) fit him this fall. Which means we're currently rolling the cuffs, and he finds that annoying. Thank goodness most places are putting the adjustable waists into pants, because he's still a skinny minny. Also, those pants are staying completely dry during the day, and Owen is finally telling us when it's time to go on the potty, instead of the other way 'round. Life is good!

I will be trying to post more regularly, evenings have been kind of full of late, and while I've been wanting to post, my brain hasn't been able to handle it. But I do have to quickly post this conversation we had with Owen in the car yesterday before I forget it. (If I don't put these stories down somewhere, I'll never remember them!)

(Owen was playing with a pair of sunglasses.)

Owen (putting on sunglasses): Wow! These sunglasses are really queer!

Mommy: (Sharing a "did we just hear that?" glance with Steve) Pardon me?

O: These sunglasses are really, really, queer Mommy! I like them.

M: Um, where did you hear the word "queer", Owen? (Wondering how I'm even going to start a conversation about the heady semantics of that word with my two-year-old...)

O: On Sid the Science Kid.

M: What???!!! (Mentally reviewing recent Sid episodes... love that show, but pretty sure there hasn't been one about sexual orientation recently... wait, there was one about glasses... making your vision....) OHHH! The glasses are really CLEAR!

O: That's what I said, Mommy. These glasses are cwear.

Owen pronounces his L's like W's. It's something I don't even notice anymore, we're so used to it. Steve and I laughed the rest of the way home.

Competitive Spirit!

I don't know if this is a boy thing, or a two-and-a-half thing, or just an Owen thing. He's become ridiculously competitive! Every thing is a chance to win, or a chance to beat someone. Putting on our shoes? "I'm beating you, Mommy!" Having a bath? "I'm winning Mommy! Jakey is losing!" Driving? "We're passing that car! We're winning!" Which can be cute, but he's a TERRIBLE loser! And when everything in our life has become a contest, he loses often.

I'm not talking about losing at a game or something I could cheat at to ensure an outcome that does not involve screaming. We're talking about scenarios where I didn't even realize he was in danger of losing until the yelling starts. We were all having dinner the other night, and I was feeding Jake his "mush" at the same time. Jake finished the veggies and I told him he was a good boy for eating all his dinner. Owen burst into tears! "I lost Mommy? Jakey beat me?" Hoo boy.

As parents, of course, Steve and I know that how we deal with this is extremely important. Winning and losing are a part of life, and there are some important lessons to be learned here. And as any good set of parents would do, we've completely leveraged this to our advantage for potty training.

Yep. Warm up the handbasket for us, because we've actually told our son that going on the potty is winning, and going in his pants is losing. And we haven't stopped there, oh no. Whenever he goes on the potty, we tell him he's "beating his friends!" (Nevermind that practically all his friends were potty trained months ago, beating these unnamed "friends" is what makes winning that much sweeter for him. It's succeeding where praise, stickers, and even lollipops have failed!)

Say what you will about our tactics, but the kid has had "underwear under there" for three days now, and has only had four "losses" in that time. (Diapers still for bed.) And whenever he does lose, we talk about how he'll get another chance to try and win again, so it's not like it's all bad. He's a winner, like Lightening McQueen on his underpants. (Of course, tonight when we were putting a diaper on for bed, he wanted to know "Is Elmo a loser Mommy?")

We're very proud of our big boy! I should have known the time was right for him to finally get it: I just bought a club-pack of his current diaper size. I'm sure we'll use them up for overnights. We've been out and about too, using washrooms in stores, at friends' homes, and in restaurants, and he's got a perfect record on the road.

And ball hockey starts in two weeks, so we'll get another chance to screw up work on the whole "winning isn't everthing" message then. In the meantime, his jock fits lots better over Lightening McQueen than Elmo.

Share and share alike

Okay, so like all parents of toddlers, we've constantly been drilling home the "sharing" lesson since before Owen could even comprehend it. We've come a long way with him, and he pretty much gets it. He knows that sharing is good, especially sharing when someone has nothing, and that sometimes we even have share things that are special to us. When you're 2, even M&Ms are special to you, so this has been a tricky one. But the kid's finally got it.

Last weekend, after a Family Shower (yes, we have a really big shower in the master bathroom, and sometimes the most efficient way to get everyone out the door in the morning is to just all get in there together. It's chaos lots of fun!) Owen was running around upstairs, enjoying being "naked without a diaper". (It's potty-training leverage - the kid LOVES to be naked, but since he hasn't been potty trained, we usually insist he has to be naked-with-a-diaper. Since he's getting better at using the potty, he gets to be naked-without-a-diaper now. Woo hoo!)

I was dressing Jake, and Owen came running in:

Owen: Here I am mommy!

Mommy: There you are. Are you going to get dressed?

O: (running from the room) NO! I'm naked without a diaper! I'm running with my penis!

M: ??? (He was running down the hall, so I wasn't entirely sure I'd properly heard that last part. Does that really require a response? I didn't think it did.)

O: (running back into the room) Mommy, you want to run around with your penis?

M: No thanks Owen. Remember, Mommy is a girl. Mommy doesn't have a penis. Only boys like Daddy, and Owen, and Jake have them.

O: (stops dead in his tracks as he considers this, then gives me a big smile) You can share my little penis, Mommy!

Well, it doesn't get much more "special" than that, does it?

Where is Directions, so that I might follow him?

Scene: Owen and Mommy are sitting on the couch. Owen is eating a bowl of grapes. Mommy is playing Wii reading a parenting guide. Owen starts to gag a bit on a grape.

Mommy: Honey, remember what mommy told you. When you eat the big grapes, you need to bite them in half. Don't stick the whole grape in your mouth, it's too big. You need to take a bite of the big ones, okay?

Owen: Okay Mommy.

Owen: (holds up grape) Is this grape too big Mommy? Should I bite it?

Mommy: (concentrating on Donkey Kong, who is coming up fast and threatening my tentative first place position with all the banana peels he keeps lobbing my way a particularly insightful chapter, but wanting to encourage him to bite them all) Yes honey, all the grapes in your bowl are too big, you should bite them all.

Owen: Okay Mommy. (a few minutes later...) I'm done my snack Mommy, can I play hockey ball in the basement?

Mommy: (now distracted by Wario, who is trying to muscle me off the track and into the lava a poignant example of wonderful parenting in the next chapter) Sure sweetie. Have fun.

A few minutes later, Mommy has taken the gold in the Lightning Cup finished the book and is glancing down at Owen's snack bowl.

Mommy: (falls off the couch she is laughing so hard).

Anyone with a two-year-old at home want to take a guess at what had me laughing so hard? Owen had put his snack bowl neatly on the end table. His snack bowl, full of half-grapes. He bit them all in half, as per my instructions. When I recovered, I called him back upstairs and told him he could eat the other half of the grapes too if he wanted. He wanted, and hoovered them down. Then we shared some juice. The end.

Lightbulb Moment

Let's say you're two years old. You are trying really, really hard to understand how this wild and crazy world works. Patterns and predictability are things that help, and you expect current situations to play out similar to past ones.

Let's say that when you go to Grandma's house to play, and you like one of her toys, she will often give it to you as a bribe to take home. And let's say that last weekend at Lily's birthday party, you had lots of fun playing cars, and your Uncle Steve gave you a few (of the several hundred in his collection) to take home with you.

Is it any wonder then that you would throw a kicking, screaming tantrum when leaving Olivia's party yesterday when you were informed that you could not bring your favourite of Nathan's toys home? It shouldn't have been, I suppose, but it takes me a bit sometimes to figure out how your little two-year old mind works. I figured it out in time to explain it to you in the car on the way home, and I think you get it now. But in the meantime, everyone else just thinks you had too much cake and excitement. (Contributing factors to the scale of the tantrum, but definitely not the triggers.) Man, what a confusing place the world must be when you're two!

Friday's List of Ten VI

Ten signs of Owen's budding environmental awareness:

10. He knows the difference between garbage and recycling.

9. He knows where the garbage goes after the garbage truck picks it up. ("To Mommy's work!")

8. He knows what sorts of things go in the recycling bin ("Recycling! Not garbage!") Also funny: he insists on calling it the "recycling bin", and not the "blue box".

7. When prompted, he can actually list what sorts of things get recycled. ("Cans, plastic, and paper. Not garbage!")

6. He knows that recycling is how you make new things out of old. Unfortunately, thanks to something he saw on TV, he thinks things just all get turned back into themselves - bottles from bottles, etc. (This is only true for metal. Aluminum cans can be recycled into new aluminum cans without any loss or degredation. If you recycle nothing else, PLEASE get those cans in the blue box! Plastics become raw materials for something else - carpet, microfleece, plastic lumber, lots of other plastic things, but not food-grade plastic anymore. Glass typically is ground and used in a road aggregate, or other very base uses. Unless you're talking beer bottles, in which case they are washed and re-used. But glass very, VERY rarely (I am tempted to say never) becomes bottles/jars again.)

5. He knows the difference between the garbage truck and the recycling truck when he sees them on the street!

4. He reminds us to turn off the taps.

3. He seems excited about the prospect of taking stuff to the backyard composter (will be his job when the weather warms up.)

2. Always remembers to turn lights off when he leaves a room.

1. FREAKS OUT if anyone else leaves lights on. This is a HUGE pet peeve of mine with Steve, so I LOVE it when Owen gets on Daddy's case about the lights. :) Go Owen!

Holy Cars!

Okay, Owen was SO WELL BEHAVED! He was so great at the "Baby Party" (did I mention that was how I was billing Babytime? It definitely worked.) He helped Jake get one of the rhythm shakers, and charmed everyone during one of the songs when, during the line "climb a ladder oh so high" he ran over to a poster with a picture of a ladder and pretended to climb! He listened nicely to the story, told the presenter Jen "I love that song!" when we sang My Little Red Wagon, and then even shared his toy cars and played very nicely with another toddler brother during the playtime at the end of the class.

Wow. Mommy was heavy with the praise, you'd better believe it! He did so well, I decided to push our luck. Usually on Thursdays after this class, Jake and I head over to the indoor track at the Waterloo Rec Centre for some running with some other toddler-free girlfriends and their little guys. I loaded up the boys in the jogging stroller, Owen in the jumpseat*, and, armed with the Fisher Price DVD player and the movie Cars, off we went. Jake took a while to settle down, he's got a nasty cold with congestion and horrible runny nose, but again, Owen was a dream. He watched the zamboni clean the ice ("Look at that zamboni GO, Mommy!") and then watched his movie, ate some crackers, and was extremely well behaved.

Maybe it's because he's still got some of his cold, he's just not feeling himself, or maybe it's because he's finally starting to mature, or maybe it's the cough syrup. Whatever it was, I'm recording the memory here, where I can read it in future days when he's less of a dream-guy. Thank you Owen for being such a good boy for Mommy today! I'm very proud of you.

* Yes, this is my stroller, only ours is black and red. The whole reason we bought it was for the ability to add the jumpseat to make it a double. It's been a dream, and I HIGHLY recommend it!

My Kids Are Cute!

I kept Owen home from the babysitters today. He's better, no more fever, and seems to be mostly back to himself, but you never know. (Okay, what kind of fever just comes on at bedtime? It was a horrible night, Owen was restless, Jake was restless, therefore Mommy was restless. I'm so tired. Why am I not in bed??)


We did, however, go to the grocery store. We needed milk, and a few other odds and ends. I was very pleased with Owen. Often, when a stranger starts talking to him, he'll play shy, or yell "NO!" at them. But he had a lovely conversation with the checkout girl. To wit:


Check Out Girl: And how are you today?


Owen: (smiles shyly) Good. (pause.) We ran out of SYRUP!


COG: Oh! Well, that's not good.


O: We had to buy some more at the store.


COG: What sorts of things do you like to put syrup on? (Uh oh, I'm thinking, a question. Yelling is sure to follow...)


O: French toast! It's delicious!


COG: (obviously smitten with my son at this point) How old are you?


O: Two.


COG: Is that your little brother or sister in there? (Jake was in the bucket, facing away from her).


O: My baby brother. He's Baby Jakey!


COG: Do you help take care of him?


O: Yes. I love my baby brother! (At this point, I'm wondering just how high the fever was last night, because this charming little gent is NOT the usual public facade of my son!)


COG: You have a good day now, okay?


O: Okay! Thank you! Bye!


Seriously, that is the first Owen conversation with a stranger that did not degerate into Owen just yelling "NO TALKING ME!" at them. It was a milestone, and Mommy made much of Owen and how nice he was to the nice girl, and how proud mommy was of his nice conversation all the way home. (There may also have been M&Ms involved. Nothing like a little positive re-inforcement!)


Jake is also very cute these days. He claps his hands. He waves, but in his own v-e-r-y subtle way. He holds up a hand, fingers splayed, and only waves the thumb. It took me a while to figure out that's what he was doing. Finally, I've actually been doing a small bit of sign language with Jake. One of the signs we do is for "nurse". (A presenter recommended teaching this sign instead of "milk"* when breastfeeding, so that baby doesn't get frustrated when they ask for "milk" once they are weaned and they no longer get the breast, but actual milk.)


The sign I learned for "nurse" is to brush your hand down your chest just above your breast (fingers held together, palm in towards you - picture it like brushing the milk down to your breast... um, from your shoulder, I suppose.) Anyway, Jake has started signing when he wants to nurse! Except, again, it took me a little bit to figure it out, because he doesn't brush so much as tap, and he doesn't do it to himself, he does it to me! He'll reach out and tap my chest, just where I do it when I'm signing. Clever monkey! And now even Steve knows that when he's holding Jake, and Jake starts pounding on his chest, it's time to hand him off to Mommy for something to eat. :)


* Squeezing your fist, reminscient of milking a cow. Another reason I'm not too keen on this sign for nursing! :)

Are You Kidding Me?

Jake is well. Owen is sick. Jake hasn't thrown up in over 24 hours, so I'm pretty sure he's on the mend. (Messy diapers continue, but those I can handle.) Owen, on the other hand, has spiked a mystery fever. Halfway through his swimming lesson tonight, he started shivering, and he had a terrible chill. By the time we got home and got him into bed, he was burning up. So, kiddie Tylenol ("the white kind, Mommy, not the cherry!") and lots of water, and hopefully he'll feel better in the morning. I guess he's not going to the babysitter tomorrow, regardless, which means I won't get in the naps I was counting on with Jake to start to recover from some missed sleep. Sigh. Such is life. Something pretty good must be just around the corner!!

Why I Am So Tired?

(Edited to say I had originally titled this post "Why Am I So Tired?" and then realized that I know why I'm tired, so changed it to "Why I Am So Tired". I forgot to remove the question mark, but I think I'm going to leave it. It's a much better indication of my current state of mind.)
For the past few nights, Jake has only been waking up to eat once. In theory, that means that I go to sleep, wake up once to feed him, and go back to sleep until Steve's alarm goes off Owen sees a Wake-Up 7. (What, you're not familiar with the Wake-Up 7? Owen has a digital clock in his room, and he knows that he has to stay in bed until he sees the Wake-Up 7. If he wakes up before then, he's supposed to "snuggle Yellow Bear and go back to sleep", which he actually does. I've been in Jake's room, and heard Owen stir, call out "Yellow Bear? Yellow Bear?" and then settle when he finds his friend in the covers. He knows that the Wake-Up 7 is the one to the left of the ":", as opposed to the Not-A-Wake-Up 7, which shows up every ten minutes. It's a good system, and has been working for us for several months now. )

I'm not staying asleep though. I wake up several times a night, not just sort-of awake, but fully was-that-the-baby-I'd-better-wake-up-more-and-listen-in-case-it-was awake. I haven't had any trouble falling back to sleep, but I'm finding my rest is way more disturbed then it was when Jake was eating 3 (or more, hello growth spurts!) times through the night. I'm waking up far more often, it seems, NOT hearing the baby, then I did when I heard him.

I am lucky. When Jake does wake up, he fusses, I feed, and he goes right back to sleep. The whole thing takes 15 minutes at the absolute maximum, and that's usually because I've started dozing in the rocking chair, and haven't even noticed he's done eating until he's fallen off. (He hasn't pooped at night since he was about 2 months old, and that's when I quit nighttime diaper changes, which made things easier too.) He's been a much better sleeper than Owen, falling asleep on his own in the crib (no endless bouncing on the yoga ball, etc. like we did with Owen) and I know I'm lucky. I have girlfriends whose babies wake up fussy, and then STAY awake. For hours. So I really have nothing to complain about.

I remember this transition when Owen was figuring out sleeping through the night. Eventually, my body will figure out that yes, we are going to regularly stay asleep for more than 3 hours at a stretch. But until then, I guess this will be my Mombie phase with Jake. Of course, compared to that, this is pretty easy. It's Mombie Lite. (Now please excuse me while I run to my dining room and bang the heck out of my table with my fist.)

Love you too, kid.

For Christmas, I was the happy recipient of Mario Kart for my Wii. (Steve wanted to get me a Wii Fit, but for some reason, he refuses to do any Christmas shopping until he's done school and on holidays. This year, that left him with at least one weekend in which to shop. I did lots better than the year school got out on the 23rd - that year, I got a stocking filled with Stag Shop goodies. Fun, but you know, not really what I want to share with others when the topic of "what I got for Christmas" comes up! Anyway, birthday is in March and Wii Fit will be my gift.)

Happily, Owen enjoys watching Mario Kart racing. It's a lot more fun than Treehouse! Unfortunately for Owen, daddy is a much better racer than mommy, so when he watches me he gets a little frustrated. Tonight he was feeling extra cuddly, and was snuggled up next to me while I played. I was the Princess (he likes to select our characters. I'm always the Princess. Steve is usually the Koopa Troopa. Make of that what you will.) He is so funny, cheering me on. "Look out for the caterpillars, Mommy!" he yells. "Hang on, little bananas!" he says as I trail some "weapons" behind my player. "Oh Mommy, you missed the treat box." "Mommy, I wish you wouldn't fall in the lava."

I was playing a series of races I haven't done much of, and wasn't doing well at all. With every bad move, he'd sigh, snuggle closer and tell me "I love you, Mommy." I was feeling pretty good about myself, even if I was playing horribly. Pretty good, that is, until the end of the game, when I ended up coming in fourth, and not being awarded any of the "Piston cups", as he calls them.

"Well, I didn't win, but I think fourth place is still pretty good, what do you think?" I asked him. He looks up at me with his cherubic little face, and says: "Maybe Daddy should race now."

The Food on the Bus Goes...

Since there is only so much Treehouse one can watch (In The Night Garden? Honestly? I enjoyed this show much more when it was called Teletubbies! NOT!) we have taken to watching Teletoon Retro when Owen has earned some TV time before bed. Shows like Fraggle Rock, the Smurfs, and Alvin and the Chipmunks have great nostalgia value for mom and dad, and Owen likes them too.

The downside is that this channel, unlike Treehouse, runs commercials. Most of the commercials seem geared towards adults (not adult-content commercials, I know that's where you all went! I just mean they're not advertising sugary breakfast cereal or toys by Mattel). The most popular type of commercial is for World Vision/Christian Children's Fund/Plan. I forget which organization it is, but I'm sure you're familiar with the format. Sad, soulful music plays, while a photo montage of malnourished, sickly children dressed in rags tug at your heartstrings with their big eyes.

Now, I'm by no means disparaging the work that these groups do. Obviously there is a need for third world support, and these organizations need to find a way to get people to open their hearts and their wallets. That's not what this post is about. This post is about Owen's reaction to those commercials.

Once he figured out that his show really does come back on after the commercial break, (THAT was a lesson a long time coming - he would FREAK OUT at every commerical break!) Owen by and large would usually ignore them, taking the opportunity to go get a toy, play, or read a story. But the other day, something must have caught his attention, because I hear the telltale music start up, and then Owen pipes up with "Mommy, what's wrong with those children? Why those children sad?" (Any grammatical errors are his, not mine. Also: first time I've ever heard him use the word "children". He usually says "kids".)

What do you say? Luckily, I had a bit of an opening, thanks to the Christmas Stuff-a-Bus drive for the Food Bank, so I kept it simple. "Those children don't have enough food to eat," I told him, "So they are sad. Remember at Christmas, what did we do to help people who might not have enough food?" "We put food on the bus!" he says. Then: "And I get a COOKIE!" Well, yes. I'd forgotten about the cookie part. "That's right buddy," I tell him, "And that's because when we have lots of something, like food, and there are people that might not have enough, we need to..." "We SHARE with them, Mommy!" he says. Then he points at the TV. "We put some food on the bus tomorrow for those children?" he asks. Bless his heart. (The Chipmunks started butchering warbling some 80's hit at that point, and our chat ended there. I'm choosing to believe that my son is a budding philanthropist, and wasn't just angling for an ever-elusive cookie.)

Steve and I have talked about sponsoring a child through some program. A friend of ours runs a charity event to benefit a village in Malawi, Africa that he spent some time in, and the photos he has are heartwarming. In addition to his charity work, he sponsors a child as well. We always give to his event, but maybe it's time to do more. We'll definitely be thinking about this more in the future, and I'll be doing some research to see which group ensures the greatest dollar amount of your donation actually gets to a child/village. (I hate those horror stories of 90% of every dollar going to "administrative costs"....) We talk often about how blessed we are to have our two healthy boys, and to be able to provide them with everything they need, and not have to worry about money. In the meantime, the next time we're at the grocery store, we'll be picking up something extra for Owen to put in the local Food Bank donation bin.

Why my bathrooms are stocked with Cheerios

So, Owen is 2 and a half now. All the little girls I know from my first mat leave have all been potty trained for months now. (They all seemed to get it right around their second birthday). While Owen has had some potty successes (he's both peed and pooped on the toilet) he is still showing no real interest at all in the process. That kid will walk around with his soaked diaper hanging to his knees, and if asked whether he needs a "change a bum", will tell me "no thank you Mommy". (We're big on the "No, thank you" around here. Sometimes he'll be having a fit about not wanting to do something, and screaming on the floor, but will still be polite: "No, no THANK YOU Mommy!")

After some unsuccessful attempts on the potty, he began to not even want to sit on the toilet. (Even on his Thomas the Tank Engine potty seat!) It was a battle I didn't want to fight, figuring that if he's THAT not into it, I wasn't going to push it! He did go through a phase where he'd ask to sit on the potty at bedtime, AFTER he'd been put to bed - But the time has come to start moving in that direction again, and rather than relying on him telling me, I've started taking him at regular intervals. On the advice of a friend (hi Kristyn!) I've started offering him the chance to pee standing up. We toss a few Cheerios in the bowl, he gets up on his stool so he's over the bowl, and, well, you can picture the rest. I'm hoping the Cheerios will encourage his aim as he progresses. Now instead of asking him to go to the potty (No THANK YOU Mommy!) we tell him it's time to go shoot some Cheerios.

There is a process to what we do:

1. Go into bathroom

2. Owen pushes his stool over to the toilet, and lifts the lid/seat while Mommy prepares the targets.

3. Owen climbs up on the stool, pulls down his pants (mommy helps) and takes aim (mommy sometimes helps here too)

4. Cheerios are sunk!

5. Climb off stool, flush ("Bye bye Cheerios! Bye bye pee")

6. PUT THE SEAT AND THE LID DOWN

7. Push stool over to sink and wash hands (while singing the alphabet song, to ensure we wash them enough).

8. Owen gets a few "gummy bears" (fruit snacks) as a reward.

I'm hoping the reward part will eventually encourage him to start asking to go on his own. We give him 3 treats for a pee, 5 for a poop, and he even gets 1 just for "trying", even if nothing happens. It went well over the weekend, and on Monday, he stayed dry until naptime. Then my timing was off, so the evening didn't work out as well. I'm hoping when he's home Friday/Sat/Sun/Mon we'll be able to get into a rhythm so that Patty will be able to pick up where we leave off on Tuesday when he's at her house. But in the meantime, there are Tupperware containers of Cheerios in the bathroom, and I'm proud to say that my son has put the seat down every time so far. :)