More

There's always more to it.

You think you're going to give your uncle's invisibility ring to the elves for safe keeping, but no . . .

You think you're going to have a nice reconciliation dinner with your wife at her company Christmas party in Nakatomi Plaza, but no . . .

You think that potty training means training your kid to go in the potty instead of in a diaper. But no. There's always more to it. Let me count the ways.

Find a bathroom . . . in time.
This now means that the downstairs bathroom and the upstairs "Boys' Bathroom" are pretty much off-limits to anyone else except Sam. Because if someone else is in there when Sam has to go, that person has to leave, and fast.

It also means being able to interpret nervous, non-verbal cues (such as The Grab) that signal your child is about to go. Which means you better have located the bathrooms when you walked in the door and identified the least obstructed path to that bathroom in case of an emergency.

Turn on the light.
This was one of Jonah's biggest problems. He wouldn't go into a dark bathroom and was too short to reach the lightswitch, so he would have to find the step-stool (or a sword or lightsaber) for help. And frequently, by the time the light was on, it was too late.

Thankfully, Sam doesn't care about going in the dark. Several times now we've startled each other when I walked into the bathroom and turned on the light. It's a good thing he already was . . . where he was.

Drop trou.
Sam's been working on this one for quite some time, so no problems there. Still, it has to be done, and it takes precious time. Peeing outside is a great way to practice.

Climb on the potty.
This is why there is a step-stool in a bathroom both upstairs and downstairs. Stephen and Jonah wouldn't "get on board" without one. Sam, again, doesn't seem to care; he's a bit of a climber.

The Holy Trinity
Flush. Put the lid down. Wash your hands.

Nobody who's been around my kids will believe me, but we really do try to teach these. Still, boys ages 8, 6, and 5 who've been through this already, we've still got one who doesn't flush, one (or more) who doesn't wash his hands, and one who leaves the lid up but manages to close the bathroom door after he leaves. And no, I'm not telling you who does what.

I have no prediction as to which camp(s) Sam will join. I'd put a sign in each bathroom if my wife would let me.

Get dressed.
The instigator of such famous phrases as "Lines in front, tag in back," this is Sam's hardest task. I'm a big fan of the new tagless clothes, but not for kids. Children's clothes should have giganormous labels that are neon yellow.

Honestly, this is the part that's driving me up the wall. Sure, they're semi-related tasks, but who'd have thought that I'd have to teach a kid how to go potty and dress himself at the same time. He's ready for one (and quite good at it), but not so much for the other. Nonetheless, we soldier on.

You know those folks whose toddlers run around without any pants on? I know why. I don't condone it, but I sympathize.

Alright. Next post, something other than potty training. Probably.

The Only Explanation . . .

. . . is that my wife's mother is from Ohio.

Your Linguistic Profile:

65% General American English

30% Dixie

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

0% Yankee

Via Fiorinda: What Kind Of American English Do You Speak?

Grace (or mercy, or both)

Mark it on your calendars. This past Friday (Apr 22, 2006), Samuel walked up to my wife and said, "I wanna go peepee in the potty." Actually, it was more like "Iwangopeeihpahee," but you get the idea.

This had never happened to us. Could it really be this easy?

Timothy was a little over 3 years old when Jonah was born, and was still using diapers, meaning that diaper-wearers outnumbered potty-users in our house 3 to 2. That lasted for exactly one week, when my wife declared that she had bought the last box of diapers for Timothy and that I had better figure something out (I think WebVan delivered that box; remember WebVan?).

Timothy had been resistant to the idea of using the potty, if you define resistant as lying on the ground, kicking and screaming for a diaper. In the fullness of parental wisdom, I decided that not putting a diaper on him was the best way to go about it. If something happened, we would clean it up. Thankfully, God oftentimes blesses first-time parents with First Children, and Timothy is no exception. He was so aghast (at 3, mind you) at the idea of messing his pants that, after about an hour of crying on the floor, he got up and went to the potty. He's been using it ever since.

Number of First Child peepee accidents: 1. Number of First Child "other" accidents: 1. Mind you, we thought this was very difficult; we were idiots.

Stephen was easier in some ways and harder in others. Growing up watching Timothy use the potty, he started trying it on his own (this is the key to Stephen: on his own; I think he learned to read on his own, for crying out loud). He started earlier, and was much more willing to abandon diapers, but there were more accidents. This is when we learned to keep diapers on at night until they wake up dry. It's a good lesson.

Our most recent pottytraining experience, with Jonah not quite two years ago, was horrific. Fully invested with his mother's will, he decided around 3 years old that he was not going to use the potty. We have no idea why. We tried lots of different things, including the Timothy Method, (i.e., no diaper; this is also called the $75 method, from a very old estimate of the carpet cleaning bill).

However, where the no diaper method worked in one day on Timothy, we wasted several weeks using it on Jonah. Along the way we discovered some interesting things. First and foremost, Jonah can hold it, all day, in the face of ridiculous pee-inducing tactics, including lots of juice, caffeine (the Pied Piper of liquids in the body), running faucets, and even dipping his hands in warm water. Nothing could break him; Jonah will probably make a great Marine some day. Second, his will is stronger than his sense of shame. Accidents would occur at the end of some especially long days, and he would wet his pants while brushing his teeth or playing in his room. When he did this, he would get very, very mad at us for not putting a diaper on him.

But he would not pee in the potty.

After a few books, it was decided that we would do that potty-training-in-a-day thing. So my wife bravely piled the other three children in the car and left the house one Saturday. I reckoned that since it was a matter of the will, he would only need to pee in the potty once to break the jam. I had him sit on the potty for 15 minutes and would read him his books. Then he could get off the potty for about 10-15 minutes. Then it was back on. Lots of juice, lots of water, a little Coke.

Finally, late in the afternoon, after much crying and begging for a diaper, I was distracting him with a game counting animals in the wallpaper and a little leaked out. He had actually, finally peed in the potty, just a tiny bit. He looked up at me, smiled, and said, "I'm a big boy! I peed in the potty!"

Gall. Pure, unmitigated gall.

We went and watched some TV, then he jumped up and yelled "Peepee's coming!", ran to the bathroom, peed in the potty again, and was very pleased with himself. He bragged to his mother when they came home. I just . . . bah.

Not to dwell on it, but for the next 6 months, there were numerous accidents where Jonah would run past the bathroom into the kitchen and yell "Peepee's coming!", looking at us expectantly. We would tell him to go to the bathroom, but often it was too late. So we've omitted the "tell us when you have to go potty" line from Sam's training.

And here we are, unexpectedly potty-training Sam. It's hard, especially on my wife, who washes all the extra underwear and shorts each day. She also is the one to watch the clock and check up on Sam's status.

Because we're still at the Ask stage, and, since we don't know the magic phrase (another important Jonah lesson), she has to ask lots of questions, all day long: "Sam, is peepee coming? Is poopoo coming? Do you need to go potty? Do you need to sit on the potty?" etc. Even given this barrage of questions, he still sometimes comes to us, crying, saying, "New pants, new pants." But . . . twice on Friday, three times on Saturday, once on Sunday, none today.

And so, as of right now, he does not wear a diaper during the day. Soon there will be none at night-time, then none at all, ever anymore. So big. Yesterday I saw him wearing a pair of map-print shorts that used to be Timothy's, and I almost cried. Okay, I did, just a little.

And someday, sometime in the next few weeks, I'll walk down the aisle at Publix right past the diapers without noticing, just like I walk past the formula and baby food. And another set of finely-honed parenting skills will just disappear.

I'm actually pretty glad that Sam initiated this. Because I could have kept him in diapers for a couple more years. The hours crawl, but the years fly.

Candyland

Yesterday was the day after Easter, a.k.a The Dentists' 2nd Favorite Day of The Year, and our house was no exception. This was the first year in a while that the boys actually got Easter baskets and, when matched with their pickings from the egg hunt at my in-laws' house, each boy had quite a haul.

Nevertheless, by about Noon yesterday, the stash was halfway gone (my own, hidden cache was only down by a third, thank you very much; but that third contained all of the remaining robin's eggs in the house; alas).

Needless to say, it was a loud day, and quite chaotic. Sam got his hands on a full-size Cadbury caramel egg, and so the downstairs bookcase and one couch pillow are now covered in brownish goo stains.

About 2 o'clock, my wife came up to tell me about the game Jonah was playing. He had 5 purple Skittles that he was carrying around in a large plastic egg (it had been the Grand Prize in the egg hunt, and had once contained lots and lots of Runts, Nerds, etc., which were gone by this time). These Skittles were his "children", all twins (5 of them), all four years old, all named General Grievous, and were all scientists. The egg was how they traveled around, a la Little Einsteins (you're singing that song in your head right now, aren't you? me too.).

After my wife told me this, I sat there in stunned silence (which she graciously allowed), and then I remarked, "That's a lot of detail."

"That's all I could remember. There's more."

About an hour later I came downstairs to get some water (not Coke; my mouth hurt, to be honest; I flossed twice and brushed my teeth three times yesterday). When I got there, I checked in on Jonah. He was down to 4 Skittles (Sam was following him around like sharks behind a fishing trawler), and now only one was named General Grievous. The others were named Grievious (note the extra "ee" phenome; it's very important), one was named Sidorak, and the other was named Sidorak II. They were still in the egg.

Around 4 o'clock, the mouth burn (eat half a box of Captain Crunch; that's what I'm talking about) had calmed down enough for one last Coke of the day. Jonah and Stephen were over at a friend's house, playing. Sam was walking around with the egg, a huge smile on his face. The Skittles were gone.

No worries, though. I have a bag hidden away in my office.

Discoveries

You may have noticed that the photo in the previous post is a little blurry. This is just one of several interrelated discoveries surrounding my camera. Here they are.

Discovery #1: I can post pictures on the blog.
Like this one:

This is Stephen riding his bike this past fall; it was his first day without training wheels. He had decided that he didn't need them any more, so he asked us to take them off. It's one of my favorites, an inadvertently good picture. My photography skills are not really this good.

Anyway, I had known earlier that you could post pictures to a blog using an outside image hosting service; I even used one when making the Welcome Lilla! site. I think I used Hello, which was a bit of a pain, lots of steps, etc., and wasn't really for everyday use. But this is easy, and already in the Blogger interface, so it will get used.

Note to future product developers: things that are easy to use will get used. Free is good, too.

Discovery #2: Jonah found my camera.
Here are some samples from the twenty or so pictures that he took.


This is the doorknob on the door going from the kitchen into the garage.


This is inside the garage.


This is an inflatable hockey stick from the previous night's Thrashers game. I had lots of fun at the game with other guys from our Sunday School class (no kids, sorry), and a pair of these sticks were the handout-thingy that we all received. The sticks lasted almost a week, which is very impressive for inflatable items in our house. There are about 6 pictures and 1 movie of these in the Jonah collection.


This is . . . I have no idea.

Now, lest you get the impression that Jonah received his photography skills from me, rather than from his mother, let me explain that these are the only pictures I was willing to publish on this site. There are lots of excellent, clear pictures of other members of 4boyhouse on the "roll".

In fact, some pictures were so well done that I first thought Timothy or Stephen had taken the camera. But several of the pictures were of Timothy, and one of the movies has Jonah's Vader-like snorkling as background noise (he had a cold).

Discovery #3: Someone licked the camera lens.
Probably Sam. The last smudge-free picture is one of Sam's face, and he looks very, very happy as he is walking towards the camera. Based on extensive parental experience, I can say this is a lick-smudge, not a finger-smudge.

Ew.

Discovery #4: My camera takes movies.
But I can't get them to post properly, sorry.

Jonah made two little movies. The first is 15 seconds long, starting with a lingering shot of the hockey stick, then proceeding with Jonah walking down the hall, breathing in his heavy, cold-induced, almost-snore way. We'll be submitting it to Cannes this year.

The other is a 5-second movie is of Sam and my wife multi-tasking. She's sitting in the computer chair, reading something (probably National Review Online). He's sitting in her lap, watching the TV.

Sadly, I have not been able to figure out how to make the camera take movies again, and Jonah denies having any involvement with the camera. So he won't show me how to do it.

Medicines

Last week was spring break, so of course all 4 boys were sick at one point or another. The week before that, my wife made two trips to the doctor with various children. That Saturday, the first day of spring break, I celebrated by taking all four of them back to the doctor, even though only Stephen, Jonah, and Sam actually had an appointment (Timothy was not sick . . . yet).

Many stories arose from these past two weeks. Stories to tug at the heart strings of parents and to further scare those yet to be blessed with children. However, I believe that one picture will suffice. Nothing says Spring Break 2006 to me more than this:

This is an actual photo, taken just after "the dispensation" one morning. That's three for Samuel, one for Jonah, and three for Stephen. Another one of Stephen's medicines is missing from the picture (it was still in the fridge, since he only took it at night.)

What you see here are two inhaled medicines (for Sam and Stephen), and three oral medicines (one each for Sam, Jonah, and Stephen).

Please note the three droppers, as well as the water cup that Jonah must have in order to take medicine. Five days of this, two-to-three times per day.

Still, it's better than the alternative, as any one of the dozen diseases running through our household this past month would have killed them all just 150 years ago.

And so, I am actually grateful to have this particular organizational problem.

Are You Serious?

So here's the "official" pollen count scale:

0-30: Low
31-60: Moderate
61-120: High
Over 120: Extremely High

And here are the pollen counts for the past 5 days in Atlanta:

Wed: 5,861
Thu: 2,562
Fri: 670
Sat: 1,729
Sun: 3,193

It seems that the scale might need to be reworked, doesn't it? Still, it's better than earthquakes.

Zen and The Art of Tricycle Maintenance

Sometimes, every once in a while, you'll find that something you learned in high school english class is actually valuable.

For example: today I cut out a scrap from a Coke can and used it to better secure the handlebars on Sam's tricycle. Take that, Phaedrus.

Nature vs. Nurture

Add to the list of things that are (apparently) genetic.

Adding fuel to the fire of spring break insanity, my parents have taken all 4 boys (ages 2-8) for three days. The delightful 4boymom and I had a wonderful evening out last night, thank you very much.

Anyway, 3 of the 4 boys are sick, and the amount of medications being dispensed requires a spreadsheet. The boys are okay in general, and certainly well enough to visit their grandparents, but I think I've called about 5 times already.

When I called this morning to find out how (and where) everyone slept, I was surprised when my Dad answered the phone, "Hey Dad. I thought Mom was going to stay home this morning."
"Well, she's going to take them to the park later today, so she went in to open up the office and I stayed here with the boys for a while."

"Okay, I just wanted to make sure everything was all right."

"Yes, yes everything's fine."

In the background, the sounds of happy boys can be heard in a rising crecendo. I heard my Dad put his hand over the phone as he says to them, "Hang on guys, I'll be right there."

But no hand in the world could drown out Timothy and Stephen as they start yelling: "Gaga! It's your turn!" "That's Gaga's controller!" "We're waiting on you!"

That's right. My 59-year-old Dad played hookey from work to play Crash Team Racing with his grandsons. He's a good man.

Pollentown, U.S.A.

In a fit of utter stupidity, I opened most of the windows upstairs yesterday. (The kids were gone, the wind was blowing; regardless, it was dumb.)

Now, there are actual, literal drifts of green dust on my dresser.

It has to be pine pollen, and not oak, because I can still see and breathe.

But the great and massive Oak Tree of Comfort and Discomfort -- that which supplies us with shade, which provides us with gainful outside activity (leaf raking) September-through-January, which causes us to move the satellite dish every other spring -- this great behemoth is putting out buds.

The end is near.