Dragon on a Train

It's hard to come up something better than being a dragon WHILE riding a train--but actually his favorite part of that day was petting the milk snake, Leche. He talked about that for at least two months afterward. He has to wait a few years to get a snake of his own, but we are thinking maybe a turtle next year. They're less destructible.

Work is good! I finished my certification project to be allowed into Cumulus (the in-house cloud computing network), so now I can write actual stuff and I doubt I will ever again sit around wondering what I can find to do. Now I have actually start the multiple projects that have been waiting for me. Plus, next Tuesday I get my certification in another small web app, and then I'll finish another certification the following week, so by the time I've been there three months I'll have gotten certification in one big application and two small ones. Good progress.

Home is good, too. We sold our old tv, so we have a lot more space. I got a new sewing table, that soon-to-be-antique one. I'm not sure it will answer for the purpose; turns out it's missing the bottom piece of wood to allow one to put the sewing machine inside it. I'm hoping, instead, that the hole is small enough that I can just put the sewing machine on top of it when the extension piece is folded out and use it like a sewing table. If not, I'll get that desk I put up the link to before, keep this cabinet folded over so it just looks like a pretty antique end table, and consider it a good price on a cute wooden table. But hopefully it'll work--I'll find out at naptime today.

Feeding the Geese

This picture is from Halloween morning, when his GrandBob and I took him to Breakfast with the Beasts at the zoo. He is looking over the wall by the geese pond. Throwing lettuce to the geese is by far his favorite mode of animal feeding, preferable even to holding up slices of turkey for Belial or stealing the goats' food to eat himself.

He had his two-year-old checkup on Tue. He is in the 92nd percentile on height and the 75th on weight. We are pretty sure, though, that he's actually taller. He wouldn't stand straight for the nurse to measure, but we did get a good standing-up-straight measure at 36 inches back in November, and he seems visible taller to us judging by how far his head pokes up above the table.

He did not like his shots; apparently the cry-less days of pure scientific curiosity are over (at least for the time being). He didn't yell about the first one, but he did say "I don't like that" very clearly, and then they gave him three more! So it was more a cry of outrage than of pain. He was so upset he switched from No to No thanks, which is tantrum mode. "No THANKS! No thanks to have a shot!"

Meanwhile work is progressing nicely. I'm waiting for a project to be graded so I can pass that segment of training and be allowed into our cloud computing system, where I can start doing actual work. I'm a little concerned I'll run out of things to do again today, but come February once I'm up and running it should be very busy...it's just the tail end of training, where there aren't many projects left to do, classes are scheduled when they're scheduled, and all of that has to be done before I can really start, that tends to drag. I am still really pleased to be working with so many smart, competent people.

I am a bit perplexed, though, by the tendency to call every "ing" form the gerund form, even when sometimes it's the main verb in a progressive verb phrase and sometimes it's a participial adjective. I mean, imagine if eating in "I am eating" were actually meant to be understood as the gerund form! (Which, Jonathan points out, should properly be called the gerundative.) But that's minor, and I don't see any reason to get bent out of shape over it as long as people use it correctly.

Dragon

Oh, Halloween. He loved that costume. We kept the headpiece and the mittens so he can still play dragon at home. Jonathan has been talking about having me sew him more play costumes, now that I have a sewing machine again.

And a sewing table, soon! I found a borderline antique sewing cabinet in solid wood on eBay for a good price. A couple of shelves, one of those nice folding leaves, and hopefully my machine fits in it to be tucked away when it's not in use. If not, it will still work as a table. Should be here by next week!

In the meantime, I am feeling like a very accomplished knitter working on this sweater. I am doing it in two shades of grey, since I don't care for the orange and the woman at the store warned me against using black till I'm more expert (the darker the yarn, the harder to see your individual stitches as you go). The yarn is gigantic, so it's really easy to work with and it knits up extremely fast. I started Sunday afternoon, and now I have more than nine inches done on the back.

I'm thinking about taking it to work with me; I've had a lot of time with nothing to do in the last few workdays. I finished training projects ahead of schedule, and they haven't given me the next ones yet. It's a little frustrating, because the second week of February is supposed to be crazy with lots of writer deadlines, and I COULD be getting that done now if I could just get my hands on it already. I find it more stressful to be at work not working than I do to have more than I can finish in a day, or even in a week. But I have some stuff to do today, and (I think) more coming once I finish this afternoon's class, and hopefully that will keep me busy at least through tomorrow.

Jonathan and Tristram are coming to have breakfast with me at our at-work coffee shop, since they have the car today. Tristram has his 2-year-old checkup, so they will drop me off and pick me up.

Long, long ago

Jonathan needs to send over some more recent photos. I have a small cache of newborn photos like this one on my computer--it is nice, at least, to see that I have some pictures left after the theft.

It's been a weird week. I had a great birthday, but learned the next day that one of the other new hires who started in December died on Monday. His memorial service is today, and I'm not sure if I'm going. On the one hand, he seemed like a great guy and I'm genuinely sad for him and for his family, but on the other hand, I really didn't know him well at all and I would feel weird being a funeral crasher. I just don't know the etiquette about attending coworkers' services. I contributed to his memorial fund, at least, because that seemed like it would just be indecent not to do. It is also strange because he was one of the other writers, so he would have been in all the writer-specific training that started this week. In fact, on Monday the rest of us where wondering where he was. Turns out that's the day he died.

Jonathan also had another bout of stomach yuckiness; I am badgering him to call his doctor. It seems less and less likely that it is gastroenteritis when it's happened three times in the last month now and no one else in the house has been affected. I don't know what it is, but I think he should find out.

The happier news is that we got a new TV! We have a big flatscreen on the wall now, and I will have to contrive to get rid of the old one. It's much nicer to have it nice and neat and flat and not bulky and huge. Plus, the picture is much better.

Next up, I want a sewing table! I would really love one of those sewing cabinets where you can drop the machine down into the interior when you're not using it, because that way Tristram can't get into as much trouble, but those are way too expensive. So a sewing table it is, ideally with a couple of drawers for storing stuff. I have my eye on a couple of Craigslist and Ebay options for $50-75, but if that doesn't happen I'm going with the Sullivan portable sewing table and keeping an eye on sewing cabinet sales forever.

Today is slated for sledding and football.

Wedding Nostalgia

If you want more Tristram pictures, tell Jonathan to hurry up and send me some over from his laptop!

I am having a very good week. I am certified in EpicCare Ambulatory, and I am very pleased that I did it so far ahead of schedule. I actually didn't have much to do at work yesterday; I finished things faster than they expected, so I spent most of the afternoon waiting for the HelpDesk to fix a computer issue so I can do what I need to for my classes today.

As soon as I got home, Tristram leapt up and ran to the kitchen shouting, "Mommy is happy to hold those flowers!" Turns out that when they went "to get ice cream for Mommy to eat with cake on it," the ice cream shop was closed for one day of remodeling. So they got me flowers to allay the disappointment (Tristram picked them out from the pictures on the web page), and Tristram had been waiting for hours to get to hold one. Jonathan told him if he gave them to me as soon as I came home, he could have one for himself.

We got takeout Jamaican food and drank champagne, and Tristram went behind the curtains to sing me Happy Birthday as a ghost. The ghost version is somewhat shorter; it goes, "Happy Birthday to you Mommy." He also has been singing his own version of the Bob the Builder song; it goes, "Bob the builder, Bob the builder, yes we can, we can fix it." And the emphasis is on the syllable build, not Bob. But he actually sings!

I opened presents that had come in the mail, and now I have lots of good stuff to eat and a lovely scarf and an incredibly comfy sweater. Jonathan got me a very generous spa gift certificate, and has promised me a free day to use it, so I am looking forward to that. Then I sewed on a button that fell off my coat and went to bed. All in all, a very nice birthday.

Jessie is a great photographer

Sorry for the long delay. Things have been a little crazy here. Jonathan had gastroenteritis twice in a row, I had a mega-hours week since I had a doctor and dentist appointment (it's really nice to have insurance again and get things like, say, clean teeth and regular physicals) and had to make up the hours at work while also getting projects done and tests taken for certification. Okay, so I didn't really have to get it all done this week, but I don't have anything else to do at work yet, I get a pay bump as soon as I finish my training requirements, and it's easier to do your homework and take your tests sooner after a class before you forget too much. So hopefully now I am certified in my first application as soon as the last test and the last two projects are graded. Long story short, I got used to seeing the sun both rise and set from my office window. (Of course, I only actually see it rise; the window does not rotate from east to west through the day. But it does eventually get dark.)

Tristram's potty training is progressing pretty well; he is usually dry through his naps now and has not yet had an accident in my car, which I appreciate. I think, though, that we need to get him one of those kid seats to go on top of the regular seat and then put his baby potty in his room as a backup. He is starting to insist on using the big potty, not the little one, and if he does have an accident it's because he's a) at the dentist waiting for someone else to get out of the bathroom so he can use it, b) at the zoo and lacking the foresight and self-control to go use the potty instead of going to look at the next animal, or c) playing in his room and too wrapped up in what he's doing to notice before it's too late. So a backup potty in the problem spot seems in order.

He also gave us some really awful tantrums this weekend. We handle the tantrums themselves appropriately--tell him that he's welcome to cry if it makes him feel better, but it won't get him what he wants, and then wait it out--but it seems clear that we must be reinforcing bratty behavior at a lower level to get him to escalate it like that. We both need to watch really carefully to make sure we don't give in when he gets fussy, or change our minds if he acts unpleasant, on small things when it really does seem easier to just accede to his demands. And we have to respond the right way every single time; that's the kicker.

The tantrums themselves, though, are mostly because he's just hit the "do it myself" phase HARD. If we pull his pants up for him, he will pull them back down to do it himself. He has flipped out twice about my unbuckling his car seat for him, even though I explained that he just has to be bigger and practice unbuckling more things before he will be able to (he's usually very receptive to explanations like that). It kind of builds to a head over small things, then something like that sets him off, then he spends half an hour standing by the car door trying to open it again to do it himself and screaming. We are trying to remember that we want him to be persistent and not easily discouraged when it comes to problem-solving, and it would be much worse if he never went through this phase and we still had to do everything for him in a few years.

The small light, to which we both cling for our hope of sanity, is that the new insistence on independence seems to have been accompanied by a vast multiplication of his willingness to play by himself for up to 20 minutes at a time.

Tristram Reigns Victorious

Day 3 scorecard:
1 small accident
Independent requests for the potty, for both purposes--he learned to tell when he needs to pee!

He has achieved a great victory. I'd consider him pretty well potty-trained at this point, though he still needs to be prompted at regular intervals to avoid things building up to a catastrophic urgency. Plus, we are quite lucky that he hates poopy diapers so much; I did not relish the prospect (though I was warned it's quite common) of BM training lagging way behind other potty training.

I am now quite the fan of this one-day potty training method. I am less of a fan of the fact that I seem to be developing another right tonsil abscess. Sigh. Hopefully this one pops soon; in any case, I am going to work well-armed with ibuprofen, and I can get all the hot tea I can drink anytime I go to the kitchen. I have an appointment with my new doctor in a couple of weeks, and I'll see what she says about treatment. Jonathan thinks I should just have the thing out, and it's enough of a recurrent nuisance now (though thankfully not the torture it was that first time) that I'm willing to do it. But hopefully it's just that it's never been properly drained, and that they can do as a much simpler outpatient procedure.

Jonathan and I are busy now trying to think of things for Tristram to do. Snowshoes might be good, and toddler skating lessons might be good, but we'd also like to get him around more kids. It wasn't an issue in Tustin, because there were so many kids in our complex all we had to do was walk outside. But social groups are not so easy to come by in the frozen north. We'd really love to get him in preschool, but that would require Jonathan to get a job...which he might be ready to do before long. In the meantime, I'm looking for playgroups and so forth online. There's a drop-in YMCA indoor playground, and a Little Gym, and the Madison Ballet company has parent-child dance playtimes for kids as young as he. Unfortunately the Children's Museum closed yesterday to move to its new location, which won't be ready till the end of the year.

But not today. Today the car is mine--I have to take Belial in for teeth cleaning. Ironically, I've gotten dental cleaning scheduled for the cats before I have for us. I'm going down the list calling dentists on our new plan, but they don't so much call me back. Maybe every dentist on our plan is already flush with patients, or maybe they all take obscenely long winter vacations around here.

A Real Boy

Tristram has adapted our claim that using the potty makes him a big boy. He says it makes him "a real boy." I overheard him explaining this to his blue-footed booby yesterday: "Booby, I don't poop in a mess anymore. I put it in the real boy potty. Tristram is a real boy, Booby!" He then took Booby into the bathroom and taught him to potty too.

I'm pretty pleased with our success. Tristram is still a ways off from potty independence--for one, he doesn't have the manual dexterity to quite get his underpants up and down on his own (like, he'll pull them up in front and leave his rear hanging out). More importantly, he still relies on us to notice when he needs to pee and get him to the potty. He had two accidents yesterday, one very small one because I was about 15 seconds late in noticing the pee-pee dance and reminding him to run to the bathroom, and one larger one because he walked into the bathroom while I was running his bath and stuck his hand in the warm water. I'm not sure that a running-water-sounds plus hand-in-warm-water induced accident counts like a regular accident, though. He will run into the bathroom shouting, "Potty! Potty! Potty!" if he needs to poop, which seems like the more important accident to avoid.

I predict he'll learn to recognize impending peefulness on his own gradually over the next month. Our next big hurdle will be taking him out--we may stick to pull-ups for trips out of the house till snow pants season is over, in defiance of empirically sound potty-training advice. I just can picture getting about 10 minutes from a potty, and seeing the pee-pee dance, and trying to get his jacket off so we can get his snow overalls down and then his pants and then having him throw a fit because his nether regions are exposed to the cold...

In any case, despite the first very painful day, it's pretty sweet to have your kid wake up the second morning mostly potty-trained.

Riding Dan

Tristram misses this summer's pony rides a lot. He also misses Sea World. I am trying to find him replacement activities here. Turns out lots of kids start skating at 2, and there should be skate rental at the park next door. Our worry is that, since we don't really know how to skate, that will lead to tears and recriminations. The more immediately promising path is to get kids' snowshoes for him. They make some good small ones, including several that look like dinosaur feet. He might like that a lot. He tends to wander off the trodden paths and then despairingly shout, "Help me!" We also might be able to get him on cross-country skis sooner than I thought, which would be good. Or I could try just pulling him on his sled while I ski...

Anyway, all these things must wait on the current project, potty training. We started yesterday, and we're doing the one-day method. So is he now trained? No, not as I'd define it--he can and will go in the potty, but he can't yet get himself there to avoid an accident.

Nonetheless, we're pretty pleased with our progress for one day. He tries very hard to get there; it's just that he's still learning to tell when he needs to go and to develop the self-control to stop playing and run to the bathroom in time. I think he might make it today, though. In one day yesterday, he learned how to use the potty for both his, ah, outputs, and got incredibly proud of himself for doing so, and he is genuinely sad when he has an accident. I am reminding myself of three things:

1) He is extremely young for potty training--barely to the minimum age pediatricians recommend for girls, and earlier than most recommend for boys. We went for it anyway because he's started trying to remove his dirty diapers himself, and we don't want a poopload dumped on our carpet. Plus, he is starting to get really upset if he pees in his diaper when we're out, and says he had an accident and has to go clean up.

2) The "one-day" method was, when it was first developed in the 70s, conceptualized as a 1-3 day method. The "less than a day" label is more of a marketing term than a guarantee.

3) I have heard from plenty of parents who spend weeks trying to get their kids to go in the potty at all.

I figure if I toilet-trained cats, I can certainly toilet-train a human.

But before all that, we had Jonathan's birthday! He is now 28. He likes his presents, he got to go out for what is supposed to be the best burger in Madison (and Tristram behaved perfectly at the restaurant), he got to see OU win its game, and I had the day off work to celebrate with him.