Grubbs n Critters

October 20, 2012

Potty training

Spud’s now potty-trained. Yay!

[And, when she is 15 years old, she probably will die of embarrassment or hate her mother if she ever finds out that I had posted her very glam picture here]

But, before you go judging on me being all smug and bragging about it, let me qualify, that, first, she only pees in the potty. For some reason, she refuses to let go of her poo in there.

Second, I claim no credit to her being potty –trained. While we have had the intention to start potty-training earlier by buying her own little potty when she was less than 18 months thinking that she has shown “signs that she is ready”, it was mostly a half-hearted effort on our end. No doubt that there had been moments when we thought that she just might be ready…well…she did not seem like she was.

And so, we continued to put her in a nappy, mainly because we were plain lazy to follow-through for most part of the day. It felt like it was all too much work to not only keep hounding her every 10 minutes if she needed to pee/poo or her telling us every 5 minutes that she has to do her deeds, but also having to take her to the bathroom THAT often and then came to the conclusion that she didn’t want to do either.

It was tiring and it can get quite frustrating. With little baby Squirt around, it all seemed like such a big effort. At that point, neither Silver Bullet nor I have a lot of energy left to deal with such things. The only times I would really encourage Spud to use the potty and make it a big deal when she succeeded was before her morning and evening shower. It seemed to be the only time where she could pee on cue and on target. Other than that, she is in a nappy 24/7.

So anyway, when I hear stories of other mommy friends putting in the effort to get their toddlers of about the same age to be toilet trained, and some who claimed with pride that their 16 month toddler is completely off nappies (I’m exaggerating here! But could be just as true), and then asking me if I started potty training my little tot yet; and if I haven’t yet, I should, it made me feel like I am such an incompetent Mom.

I know I tried, but I also knew that I was not trying hard enough. In that respect, I was somehow convinced that Spud probably would still be in diapers when she is 5 or 6 years old. It could all jolly well be my fault, and to a certain extent, I could live with the thought. I just did not have the energy to battle through this one.

So, all this potty-training-crap when she is 2 years old was somewhat quite accidental.

It happened because the school which we sent her to started her on it. It happened because, as I was told by her Homeroom Teacher, each time the older kids were being asked to line up to go to the bathroom, Spud would get curious. She‘d have this curious but unhappy and sad look on her face that questioned why she was being excluded from the activity. Her observant teacher then included her in and got her to be diaper free for half a day in school so she can join in the use-the-potty queue. Spud somehow got into the groove of it quite quickly. I was then asked if it was OK to allow Spud to do that, and if I could please bring extra underwear for her from now on, just in case of “accidents”.

So, I said, Hell yeah! Go for it! I’ll bring 10 underwear if need be.

2 days on being diaper-free for half a day in school, and I was told that Spud was doing really well. I then thought perhaps, it was a practice we should continue at home. And so, after talking to her teacher in trying to understand what they did to make it sound so easy, and did not want to unintentionally undermine the school’s effort in potty-training her, I then told the Nanny to let Spud go diaper-less for the rest of the day when she gets home from school.

Within 3 days, Spud was no longer using any diaper in the day. These days (it has now since been a month!), she goes to the bathroom herself and pees in her little potty when she feels the need to.

Truthfully, it was something which we did not expect to happen so quickly and so effortlessly. For us, it was such a pleasant surprise. I feel so proud!

The pooing, on the other hand, is a lot more challenging. Somehow, Spud seems scared when she has to go poo in her potty, preferring to keep it inside her for as long as possible. The first time she tried, she got pretty upset as she had pooed in her underpants. I reckon, this pooing-in-the-potty will somehow take a while more for her to master.

Oh well!

Last day of the term

Category: Spud: Stories and Updates

Spud’s school always organises some sort of a special event on the last day of the term. This time round, they had organised an International Day where parents were asked to please allow their child to dress up in their national costume.

Uhmmm. We had a problem. We did not have any national costume from either Singapore or Holland which we had brought along with us for Spud. Cripes!

Oh well. So I dressed her up in a dress, instead.

It was one of those mornings where we had run a little late – thanks to Spud stalling just before we got out of the house. So, when I was nearing the school grounds, I was not too pleased that I’ll get to the office a little later than usual. I had a very busy day ahead of me, and it irked me that I will not make it to the office before 8.15 am.

When I finally got to drop her off, I noticed that most of the kids were decked out in their national costumes. They all seemed to be beaming with pride, or at least their parents were! It looked like the kids were going to have loads of fun singing and dancing. They all looked so cute, and suddenly, part of me wanted to hang around for a bit to watch. Before I left, I had the usual casual chat with her homeroom teacher who was updating me on Spud’s progress, the activity line-up for the day and telling me that I was most welcome to stay for a while. With a sense of regret, I told her I really wish I could stay, but at that point in time, I really had to run off to the office. I was quite bummed. And after the usual kiss and hug with Spud, I left the school ground feeling…well…pretty darn bummed!

As I walked to the office, I somehow kept looking at my wrist watch every few minutes – not because I was trying to beat my before 8.15 am target, but rather, contemplating if it makes sense for me to walk back and watch the first bit of the activity the school had planned out for the day. A huge part of me did not want to walk away, and I have never in my life felt so compelled to want to walk back to her school just so that I could watch my 2 year old acting silly!

Still glancing at my watch every other second, 2 minutes later, I continued walking towards the end of the soi upon which, I gave myself a slap my forehead with a nagging voice that said, “Screw being late for work! I want to get back to Spud’s school and watch the morning activity! My work can wait for a little bit. This was just too precious to miss!”

Just as quickly, I made a U-turn and walked the path back again. I did not want to feel any regret for not making the effort to be there just because I would be late for work.

I got back just in time – they were just about to start. Teachers were herding the kids, amongst them, Spud who was too busy and lost in her own world that she did not notice I was back. When she finally caught sight of me a couple of minutes later, she had a confused look on her face – and just as quickly, she lit up!

The kids’ antics amused me to no end. Some were crying, some were boisterous, some were lost, and some were just genuinely having fun. I hung around for a good half an hour, taking pictures and watching Spud in the moment. Whenever she caught sight of me in the corner, she gave me her contagious, happy, impish smile.

It was a good morning, and I am glad I went back. Even without her national costume, I felt that it was a special day (she’s been practicing her songs). There’ll be many more International Days but deep within me, I felt that these were moments that I could never get back to for we will never be able to tread this way again. Spud’s not going to stay 2 forever, and I did not want to look back with regret.

I was late for work, but it was all worth it.

Getting ready for assembly

Her expression when she caught sight of me!

Lost in her own world and trying to “figure things out”

Hanging around

Singing “It’s a small, small world”

And Spud has apparently found herself a very good friend in this Italian boy! (so says the teacher)

The day Squirt got spooked

Category: Baby Milestones

Squirt’s hedgehog-looking-anti-gravity hair was given a snip a couple of weeks ago, and I have to say that I like his clipped hair much better!

This was how his hair looked like moments before the clipping:

And this was right after:

In between that, Squirt was actually spooked by the sound of the clippers. He was letting out a cry which I had not really heard before – a cry that told me that he was gobsmacked scared! Although I wanted his hair off, I could not quite handle his screaming throughout the entire 5-10 minutes process. So, I chickened out and tended to Spud when the clipping took place, leaving him balling his eyes out in Silver Bullet’s arms as (the husband of) a friend of mine clipped away his rogue-looking hair.

Thankfully, it didn’t take me too long to calm him down after that. Pretty soon he was all smiles again, and even let our “Clipper-Dad” friend trimmed some of the hair he had missed without any fuss.

We all then headed out to a birthday party of about 12 adults and 6 screaming kids we were invited to with his new spunky hairdo just a couple of floors down in the same apartment building. Unfortunately, the day proved to be too much for him, for that same evening when we got back home, the spooked-sounding cries came back again and it took us a good 2.5 hours to be able to finally calm him down before he crashed for the night.

He was clearly over-stimulated.

The good thing about being a baby is that they don’t bear grudges. He was all smiles again the next day, looking all spunky, chatty and fresh with a hair-style that is here to stay!