The Baby Expert

June 4, 2013

Potty Time

With Caitlyn's school starting her on potty training, we figured we might as well follow suit. I actually haven’t researched too much on the subject because I haven’t been too eager to start. I’ve tried to hold off as long as possible because I just couldn’t bear to put away my precious green rug in the living room. But from what little I’ve read, it seems that potty training is not something to be pressured and that nature (pun intended) will eventually take its course when the time is right.

We actually bought her a potty trainer a few months ago, but for a long time, it was nothing more than a novelty and a play toy for her. She knew what it was for and would go through all the motions of sitting on it and pretending to go, but would never actually do it.

When we’re at home and we remember and aren’t lazy, we’ll have Caitlyn in her training pants, which forces us to be on high alert and constantly ask her if she needs to go pee. The majority of the time she says no, and if she does say yes, it’s usually a false alarm. And when she says she needs to pee, it's usually when she’s in the midst of actually going, which doesn’t really help the cause. But at least she seems to understand what we’re trying to accomplish here.

Well, this past Sunday, we might have had a breakthrough. Caitlyn said she had to go poo, so the wife rushed her to the potty. Imagine our surprise when she actually went in it for the first time. Of course, the elation was short-lived as an hour or so later, she peed in her pants while saying she had to pee. If we can somehow get her to acknowledge her need to go just a few seconds earlier, I think we can get this potty training thing down in a snap.

With a post about poop and pee, how could I not end this without a story of my own? Back in my early twenties, I was coming home from the gym one day and was stuck in traffic. My stomach started making those strange gurgling noises that tells you something bad is about to happen if a bathroom isn’t found immediately.

Unfortunately, being stuck on a highway with no real option, I did what my daughter does on a daily basis. I pooped in my pants. Actually, it was more like diarrhea. But either way, it felt great to relieve all that pressure that was building up against my sphincter.

However, once I got home, trying to make it up the stairs to the bathroom without anything dripping out was another matter. Thankfully, neither one of my roommates were at home so I didn’t have to explain why I was waddling into the apartment with my hands tightly wrapped around the bottom of my shorts.

Apparently, pooping in our pants runs in the family because my mom told us not too long ago how my dad had to diarrhea in his pants because he couldn’t find a bathroom after eating some spoiled food. Like father, like son, I suppose. Which leads me to wonder, will Caitlyn be saying, “Like father, like daughter,” when she grows up?

I did it!

Did I do that?

Climbing

Giddy-up!

Whoosh!

Cheese

Smiles!

That's a big smile

Wait for me!

Patiently waiting for Mommy

Can I ride?

I'm riding a bike!

Steady

No piggybacking!

May 10, 2013

The Dare

Apparently, with the free-time that the wife now has because Caitlyn’s in school, she’s been taking a gander at my blog, and she’s not happy with what she sees. According to her, all I like to do is poke fun at her, while I paint myself in a rather grandiose way. Frankly, I think I’m pretty equal when it comes to poking fun at either one of us. In fact, I think it’s rather healthy from time to time to be able to step back and laugh at yourself.

Anyway, this past Tuesday, when something “embarrassing” happened to me, she dared me to put it on my blog to see what it felt like to be laughed at. Of course, I heartedly accepted this challenge because I thought the incident funny rather than embarrassing.

Every other Tuesday, I get half the day off work, and since Caitlyn’s in school the whole day now, this has kind of turned into the wife and I’s date day. This past Tuesday, date day involved watching Iron man 3. Personally, I thought some of Robert Downey Jr.’s acting was a bit exaggerated and I wasn’t exactly pleased with the way Mandarin deviated from the comics, but I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed Ben Kingsley’s unexpected performance. Overall, I give the film a 7.

On the way out of the parking lot, I had the wife go pay the parking garage fee. She returned with the parking token and as I wound up through the basement levels, I realized that I couldn’t find it anymore. We stopped and started looking for the token, but to no avail. We must have spent about 10 minutes turning our pockets inside out, sorting through all the stuff in her purse, and scrounging around the floor of the car, but the token was nowhere to be found.

Therefore, the wife had to walk back to the parking office to tell them that we couldn’t find the token, while I searched some more. She came back after about 7 minutes asking if I had found the token yet, which I had not. She then informed me that the parking office had told her that she needed to go to the information center on the first level of the mall to receive another token and left once again. Obviously, she was not pleased. This made me start searching in earnest again because I was positive that she had been the one to lose the token and by finding it, I could rub it in her face real good.

About another 7 minutes elapsed before she came back and promptly told me that the reason we couldn’t find the token was because I had already placed the token in the toll booth. Apparently, this had happened right after she had handed me the token the very first time, and up until that moment, I completely had no recollection of it.

In short, we had just spent about 24 minutes in the parking garage looking for a token that had already been put in the toll booth. Yes, it makes me look a bit foolish and absentminded, but need I remind you that we had just watched Iron man 3 and I was still processing everything that had just happened in the movie.

So there you have it, my “embarrassing” moment, per the wife’s request. Dare completed! Didn’t even break a sweat.

Free from clothes!

Rabbit, Teddy, and Anders

Milk does a body good

Who wants some tomatoes?

Slice and dice

Making dinner

Uncle Mickey's tiger backpack

I want a pet tiger!

Where's the food?

Future artist or writer?

Mommy and Me

Reenacting The Lady and the Tramp

Is there something hanging out?

Pigtails

April 26, 2013

School is Cool

Looks like we may have finally turned the corner with Caitlyn. We had feared the first day of nursery might have been a fluke and that upon returning the next few times, she would be kicking, screaming, and crying to be taken back home. However, that has not been the case. For the past few weeks, the wife has been dropping Caitlyn off without a problem. A simple goodbye and off Caitlyn goes.

According to the teacher, Caitlyn’s favorite activity is to watch the babies in the nursery. She also likes communing with nature and helping around the classroom. The teacher has even gone as far as to say that Caitlyn is a very well-behaved child. Not sure if he’s saying that just to keep our business, but I’m definitely pleased to hear this. The only thing is she hasn’t shown too much interest in really engaging with any of the other toddlers, but hopefully she’ll slowly come around.

Because she’s become so well-adjusted there, we decided to try having her stay the whole day instead of just half the day starting this week. The wife struggled with this decision for a bit because she worried about whether or not this would reflect poorly on us as parents. Would people question us for sending our baby, who’s not even 2 years old yet, to school so early and for the whole day?

But the truth of the matter is, she loves being there, has the opportunity to interact with others her age, and is obviously learning a lot. Plus, it’s not often that Caitlyn’s so willing to leave Mommy’s side. So, is there really a downside? Who cares what other people think. We’re not sending our kid to a slave camp that’s making her memorize her times tables and turning her into a zombie or churn out designer label shoes.

This also creates the opportunity for the wife to have time to do other things rather than just waiting there to pick up Caitlyn. She’s already talking about getting back in shape, signing up for classes, or looking for a part-time job. Anything that takes her mind off of worrying about Caitlyn is a good thing.

Thanks to the school for sending photos of Caitlyn in action!

Painting

Gotta keep my teeth pearly white!

Being a good helper

Blowing on a dandelion

Peeling a banana

Peeling an egg

Chilling on the bench

Missed a spot!

April 9, 2013

Family Vacation

For Spring Break, we took a family vacation with the in-laws to Hualien, which is a very picturesque city on the Eastern coast of Taiwan, for 4 days and 3 nights. It was the perfect opportunity for some r&r, except there can be no rest and relaxation when a baby is involved.

Highlights of the trip included:

The wife thinking that tadpoles become fish. While on a walk in the mountains, we came across a puddle full of tadpoles. The wife then matter of factly stated that tadpoles became fish when they grew up. Apparently, someone was sleeping during their first grade science lesson about the life cycle of a frog. But it provided for a good laugh.

Having the owner of the b&b ask the wife if she was pregnant with a second child. I suppose that wasn’t exactly a highlight for the wife, but it did provide me with another good chuckle. However, it was a bit unfortunate that I wasn’t there to personally witness the look on the owner’s face when she found out she was mistaken. That must have been a pretty cringe-worthy/awkward moment. Personally, I kind of like the pooch. It’s very comfortable to lay my head on. If anything, this will probably motivate the wife that much more to go hit the track with her new running shoes that she finally bought.

Caitlyn becoming bff’s with Uncle Jonathan. Not exactly sure when or how this happened, but Caitlyn suddenly became best buds with Uncle Jonathan while on the trip, seeking him out countless times throughout the trip to hold hands or be held by him. Even requests from Mommy to hold her were spurned in favor of Uncle Jonathan. So what exactly is drawing Caitlyn to him? Was it the Bluetooth thingamabobber that he had clipped to his shirt? The scent of the toothpaste he was using? Does she prefer the bigger screen of his Samsung Note over our iPhone? Some many questions, but so few answers. At least we know who to go to when the wife and I want to have a date night.

Lowlights of the trip:

Getting bit over 90 times by “mosquitoes.” I use the term mosquitoes loosely because they weren’t really mosquitoes, but more like tiny fleas with wings. I’ve never seen anything like them before, but if I had to choose between real mosquitoes and these fleas with wings, I would choose the latter because they don’t make the same annoying sound that mosquitoes make when buzzing around. In any case, I was able to keep myself busy counting all my bites during car rides, so it wasn’t all for naught.

Being stuck on a 2-hour train ride with a baby who wouldn’t go to sleep even though she was tired. The entire trip consisted of Caitlyn squirming around and playing with smartphones. When she got tired of ours, she’d go looking for someone else’s, and when she got tired of theirs, she’d go find another person. I think we’ve gotten her into an extremely bad habit. Personally, I’d rather just completely do away with the phone and iPad, but what’s the alternative? Having a screaming baby cry the entire trip isn’t exactly ideal either. Definitely not looking forward to the plane ride back to the States this summer.