kid stuff

About 2 weeks ago, Felix started to say 'mum-mee' and 'dad-dee' over and over and over and over, much to our delight.

He now says quite a few words, but only the beginning bit. So door is 'dogh' book sounds more like 'bouh' and so on. His favourite word is doggy, but when Felix means to say doggy he actually says 'dih-dogh.'

He has a new found love for both books and doggies, and his absolute favourite thing at the moment is 'In the Night Garden.'

Jasmine's news is that she is now, definitely toilet trained. The 'can't be arsed' technique seemed to have served us well. In fact, I think it's a technique that can totally be repackaged as 'this is how perfect parents should do it'. Basically, we never pushed her. We went through all the stages - buying the potty, playing with the potty, sitting on the potty ourselves, reading on the potty, buying pants, going nappy free for small bouts, offering rewards, commending efforts - but we never really worked at it as lots of people we know seemed to have done. Let's face it - I am far too lazy to religiously stick Jasmine on the potty every hour anyway.

In the end, once Jasmine made the decision she wanted to use the toilet she did all the hard work herself. Bar a couple of accidents it's all been bloody easy (so far...). She loves being nappy free and the TTOS has halved in weight :)

And the potty training continues...

After another fail in energy and motivation (= can't be arsed) we've renewed efforts again. This time we've taken a new tack. Instead of asking Jambeans if she wants to sit on the potty, as they do at nursery, we've been letting her run around at home either bare bottomed or with just pants on.

Inevitably, it means accidents will happen and I expect to be called upon to scrub wee or poo off various bits of furniture, carpet and clothes at the most inopportune moments, but the one and only time it's happened so far she was ill and had diarrhoea and I reckon if I can deal with that I can deal with anything, so it's OK.

So yesterday we were rewarded with one wee (really, about one eighth of a wee, the remaining seven eighths in a trail on the carpet leading up to the potty as we ran to get there in time) and 10 minutes later a whole poo in the potty. Her first potty wee for Mummy and Daddy and her first potty poo fullstop.

I ought to feel jubilant, I think. But the act of taking a poo-laden potty upstairs, depositing the offending item in the toilet bowl and cleaning the potty out made me feel very very very very very old indeed. And we've only just started...

Jambeans and Felix do us proud

Today at nursery, Jasmine did her first wee on the toilet. I was totally gobsmacked. I thought we would never make progress. And not to be outdone, Felix stood unaided for about 2 seconds.

Champion children.

Jasmine does a TWITWE in the potty

Last night, at last, Jasmine did the Tiniest Wee In The World Ever in the potty. Babymomma and poppa take no credit - it's entirely down to Grandma's efforts, but at last we feel like progress is being made. This morning, of course, it's all refusals again, but at least we know she's capable of producing the goods.

Bloody bloody potty training

We're on attempt no. 3 to potty train Jasmine. The first time was too early. The last time, it started ok - Jambeans would happily sit on the potty in various states of undress (no wee/poo though) then after a couple of weeks refused entirely.
So we stopped.

Pause. Go on holiday. Come back. Wait for a while...

And now we're starting again. She is somewhat reluctant, despite going through the ritual of buying her pants to get excited about. And reading her potty book a gazillion times over. She quite happily fills the potty with plastic food. It's just the real, digested food stage she's bypassed completely.

She also likes to watch the entire parade of animals take turns on the potty (Porridge the Bear, Pedro the Capucin monkey, Luigi Penguini the macaroni penguin, Ed the Dog, Upsy Daisy, Big Po, Little Po, Tiger, Babydoll and the list goes on...), then mummy or daddy has a turn, then maybe Felix and then, if we're lucky, Jasmine has a go. For about 2 seconds.

I think the real problem though, is that Mummy and Daddy are a bit lazy about it all too. It's just too easy to give in and change her nappy.

Bloody bloody potty training. I really can't be arsed.

Jasmine potty training

We've started potty training Jasmine again. We first tried a couple of months ago but either it was too early and she just wasn't ready, or it was too close to Felix' arriving and it was too much change in one go. We stopped after many ridiculous attempts by mummy and daddy to teach by demonstration - we found ourselves on many an occasion with pants and trousers down in the bathroom hunched over the potty hoping Jambeans would copy us. Rightly, she either looked bemused, embarrassed or downright upset, but resisted sitting on the potty herself, whereas this time she's much more compliant. I was tempted to post a photo of her squatting with bare botty but fear her later wrath in teenage years. I'm obviously not as cruel as I aspire to be...