WE HAVE A CATCH!

Even as I type this, I'm in awe of the whole process. But Emil seems to be well on his way to being potty trained. He has successfully been pottied about six times since last night! He has caught on immediately, and seems perfectly happy to pee in a bowl instead of his diaper. All I have to do is hold him over the bowl in a supportive way, with his back up against me so he's comfortable, make the cue pssss sound, and he immediately begins to pee and/or poop. I know he has to go pretty soon after he wakes up and pretty soon after he eats, so all I have to do is get him over the bowl at those times. It's amazing.

And I have to confess something. The EC lingo has been creeping into my head as my enthusiasm for this whole process grows. I feed him, and my thoughts race unbidden to this new language: "Yes, it's a pottitunity! Maybe we'll get a catch!"

I have decided to keep using diapers on him as if they were underwear. That way accidents - or misses, as the EC community would say - aren't as frustrating. Reading other women's accounts, many people choose to take that route and continue to be successful.

Today comes a new challenge - getting the nanny to potty Emil. I think mother's intuition plays a large role in my knowing when he has to go, especially when he has to poop, since we haven't seen an identifiable pattern there yet. But in 24 hours we have already gone further with Emil's potty training than we have gone in six months with Esme. She knows how to use the potty, but simply refuses. And if she does go, she sets a limit of once or twice a day. No amount of stickers, jelly beans, or praise is reward enough to train her away from that nasty habit of peeing and pooping in her diaper. Better to prevent the habit in the first place!

Update on the Infant Potty Training

There's not a lot of progress to report at this point, but we've been letting Emil go diaper-free for a few hours at a time to get an understanding of his patterns. Basically, he goes just when I thought he did - almost immediately after eating, and within 15 minutes of waking up. We've also started making the pssss and hmmm sounds to get him to associate those with elimination.

The next step is the big one, actually trying to anticipate and aim him into the bowl, making the sound cues. I'm not sure how long we will give it - if it doesn't come too easily, we may abandon this whole idea. He's just on the cusp of being an older baby, and thus harder to train in this method. But we'll see. If you want to read a little about this whole process (and verify that I'm not making it all up!), you can check out the following links:

Diaper Free Baby organization
A good description of EC is on this site.
This site is by the author of a book that is the de facto reference on the topic.

Diaper free baby

In starting to write this post, I have already accepted the fact that many of you will think I'm off my rocker. Others will smile a knowing, supportive grin. But here it is: I'm going to try to potty train Emil, who is only 5 months old.

The official term isn't potty training, it's Elimination Communication (EC) or Infant Potty Training, or Natural Infant Hygiene. And I am going to do it b/c we're having such a hard time potty training Esme that I can't help but think there must be a better way.

The idea is that there are many diaper free cultures where mothers learn to communicate with their babies about needing to pee or poop. Like all communication, this is a two way street. The mother must recognize baby's habits and signals (squirming, funny faces, grunts), and the baby must recognize a certain sound that is associated with pee (pssss) and poop (hmmm), so that when baby hears those sounds he knows it's okay to let go. Does it still sound crazy to you? If so, then maybe it's not for you.

But I realize that communication with Emil is very possible. He can tell me what he wants pretty clearly, whether it's the boob, a toy, or sleep. I know him well enough to recognize his signals, and I already know when he pees and poops much of the time, so why not give this a try?

The first step is to observe. That is, find out when he goes (how soon after waking, how soon after eating, etc.). This involves having him naked or wearing a cloth diaper without the cover for a period of time (a morning or a day if possible). When he goes, I make the sound of choice (I guess I'm going to go with the tradition psss and hmmm, although you can make any sound you like) so that he starts to associate his elimination with those sounds. Once I recognize his patterns, we'll start putting him over a bowl or small potty to let him go.

Now there's a whole host of terminology that goes with EC - from a "catch" (peeing in the correct place) to a "miss" (yeah, uh, missing, although they say it's missing an opportunity not the receptacle) and pottitunity, or something like that. This all gets a little too cutesy and cult-like for me, so I'm going to stick with my normal vocabulary. I just don't buy that "miss" is any less negative than "accident." It has more to do with tone of voice than the word you choose.

Tomorrow, I'm planning to have an observation day with Emil. I'm sending the nanny to the library with Esme, and Emil and I are going to communicate about pee and poop all morning. I know that sounds thrilling, but I'd much rather do it now than change a gazillion more diapers over the next few years. I'm not aiming to have him 100% potty trained anytime soon. We'll still use diapers when we're out and about and at night. I just don't like using and changing all these diapers, so if we can use fewer and he can be on the road to full potty training a little sooner, then I'm all for it.

Stay tuned. This is going to be interesting.

Welcoming two new bloggers on the Daily Spitup

The Daily Spitup is growing up, but just a little bit, as we have two new bloggers joining the ranks. My sister Caitlin has already posted an entry about school applications, and you may soon be seeing posts from my dear friend Emily, who just gave birth to her second child Atticus. Emily is raising her family in a quaint little town in northern England, so I am sure she will have a fresh perspective. She and Caitlin are both fabulous mothers who have been an inspiration to me as I trek the parenting path.

We're in Palm Springs this weekend visiting Jacob's grandmother. But I'll be posting more later this week. Until then....

Down in Fraggle Rock!

I had mentally prepared myself for the dreaded but necessary excursion to Costco. If you see me walking in there, shoulders hunched in defeat, you know that we have either run out or almost run out of diapers. Normally, I move with precision to navigate the oversized cart straight to the diaper and wipe area, stopping perhaps for some bulk oatmeal along the way, but today I had another stop to make: the movie aisle.

My sister had tipped me off to Costco's cheap movies when I was lamenting the cost of classic Disney films the other day. I browsed the bins of movies, mostly either the latest box office hit just released or some children's straight-to-video, sub-par sequel to a Disney classic, but as I reached for a Peter Pan video (the original!) another box set caught my eye. There on the cover was an old friend whom I hadn't seen in years: Gobo Fraggle.

There were two box sets, actually. The Complete First Season and the Complete Second Season. They were about $25.99 each (much cheaper than Amazon), and I snagged them quicker than you could say Doozer. I wasn't a big TV kid. Many cultural references sail right by me unnoticed. But for some reason, I did watch the Fraggles when they aired on HBO. I think I must have seen every episode. It was like Sesame Street, only better.

Not familiar with them? They are a Jim Henson creation. Fraggles are cute little creatures (like muppets) that live underground. They coexist with the Doozers, busy little guys who are always constructing something. The Fraggles themselves are like little kids, exploring and singing through their days. Unlike many children's songs out there (I could kill Barney to stop his "music"!), the Fraggles' songs are actually pretty good. As I popped the first DVD into the player for a trip down memory lane, I immediately started grooving along, singing "Down in Fraggle Rock!"

I hope Esme and Emil enjoy these videos as much as I do. I hope Jacob does too. Cause they're all going to have to watch them. Repeatedly. I have no illusions: I bought them for me as much as for my kids!

Pumping pains

Yesterday I flew to LA for a National Geographic Traveler seminar. It was the longest I've ever been away from Emil - about 16 hours - and I had to take the good old Medela Pump in Style with me since I wouldn't be nursing him. I took one look at the bathrooms where the seminar was and knew I was in trouble. There were only two ladies stalls for about 60 women, and we were given 10-minute breaks for all of us to use those two stalls. Needless to say, the line was long. Very long. I wasn't cherishing the idea of taking up a stall for five minutes to pump, but I had to figure out something.

The first time I pumped, I actually left the seminar room shortly before the break to beat the crowds. This worked perfectly, though I missed part of the lecture. The second time, I decided to go on the tale end of the break, hoping the crowds would have cleared out. It was a bizarre experience, sitting on a toilet without a seat cover and pumping in a public bathroom anyway. But doing it with scores of women coming in and out of the room, each one commenting, "What's that sound?" and being answered with hushed explanations of "It's a breast pump" was particularly weird. I had explained to the women right behind me in line that I was going to have to monopolize one of the stalls or risk exploding all over my shirt. And the women were all very understanding - they were the ones who whispered to the newcomers what that mechanical droning sound was - but it was a little embarrassing nonetheless.

Is it asking too much for private nursing rooms in all public places? Yes, I suppose it is. I just wish that breastfeeding and the pumping that active mothers are required to do to continue breastfeeding didn't so often seem a source of shame.

As I left the hotel conference area, I went to meet my brother for an early dinner before hopping on a plane home. As I loaded my pump, discreetly packaged in a briefcase-style bag, and my real briefcase, Ian greeted me, "Don't you look all professional with your briefcases."

"Yeah, well, one of them is a breast pump," I answered.

"Oh, disgusting!" was his reply. No joke. That's what he said. Needless to say, it didn't make me feel better.

At the airport, I had to check the pump, even though it was definitely small enough to carry on. I knew they wouldn't let me through security with the milk I had in the cooler-department of the case, and I didn't want to throw all that good milk away. So I got the airport early enough to check a bag, and then waited the extra half hour after landing to retrieve the pump, all in the name of a staunch commitment to breast feeding. Your welcome, Emil.

Sibling bliss

This morning, I had gotten out of bed to get my morning cup of joe, leaving Esme, Emil and Cleo all sleeping peacefully in bed. As I was finishing my coffee I heard signs of life from the bedroom, so I sneaked up to the door and listened in before slowly peaking at them. Esme was singing the ABC song to Emil, who was lying next to her and grinning ear-to-ear. Cleo was asleep under her blankie.

Those are the moments that my heart just stops. It's absolute parental bliss to see the two children, so young, and so adoring of each other. Not all sibling relationships go so smoothly, and I'm not sure whether nature or nuture plays a bigger role in how it shakes out, but I suspect it is a combination of both. I recall my mom telling me about her trip to the hospital to meet the first of five little brothers. She was steaming mad, sitting on the floorboard of the backseat with her baby doll. Esme's experience was so very different. She walked into our bedroom, where I was lying in bed with Emil in my arms, and exclaimed, "Baby brother out!"
Her tone of voice was sheer joy, like a little kid looking at presents under the tree, proof that Santa Claus had been here. She jumped onto the bed, nestled into my side and planted a big, gentle kiss on Baby Brother's cheek.

Esme has a super loving temperament, anyway, so I don't know how much credit I get to take for her behavior. That said, I did work hard to prepare her for baby brother. She got her own little boy baby doll before Emil was born. We talked about how there was a baby in my belly, and that Esme used to be there too. We discussed how she and her baby brother would be the only people to ever come out of my belly (yes, I'm pretty confident we're not having another).

And after Emil was born, we continued working to keep her enamored of the little baby. I included her as much as possible in taking care of Emil, which made her feel special. And when she couldn't actually help me, she often took care of her baby doll right alongside me and Emil, imitating everything that I did.

What's strange is how she seemed to understand that her position in the family had changed right as Emil was born. She wasn't resentful about it, either. Before Emil was born, she had this habit of referring to herself as "baby" in third person. For example, she would say, "Baby want juice" if she wanted juice. But literally the day that Emil was born, she started using the pronoun "I" and speaking in first person. It was like flipping a switch. She recognized that there was a new baby in the family, and that she wasn't the baby anymore. She had a new role as big sister, and she takes that role very seriously.

For the first few weeks that Emil was here, Esme would constantly check on him. If he wasn't in Mommy's arms, she got worried. She would ask where he was, and if she didn't see him anywhere, tears would well up as she started to panic. I quickly learned not to joke about Baby Brother disappearing. (I confess, the first time she asked where he went, I threw my arms up and said, "I don't know! Where'd he go?" I had no idea she would get so upset!)

I'm not kidding myself. I know that they will fight. And yes, there are times already that Esme gets a little jealous. She has told me on more than one occasion to "put him down!" so that I can pick her up. But overall, I think that they are off to an excellent start.

One of the reasons we had our children so close together was that my brother and I were only a year and a half apart, and we are best friends. We have always shared experiences and friends, and I wouldn't trade that relationship for the world. I wanted Esme to have someone close to her in age and close to her in genetics growing up. My brother and I were notorious for fighting, I'll admit it. Those closest to us (i.e., Mom, Dad and our older sister) called us the Brat Twins, a nickname that we earned with our behavior. For all the spats we went through (and the occasional all-out brawl), he is still one of my favorite and closest friends.

So I am prepared to cringe and bear it when Emil and Esme go at it. And in the meantime, I'm doing everything I can to encourage them to love each other. It's a good thing they make my job so easy.

Toddler proofing the car

We've had a few scary moments over the past few weeks. The first one occurred while we were in Seattle visiting Jacob's sister and her family. We were driving the rental car to their house and had just gotten on the highway. Suddenly there was a gust of wind and a loud noise in the car. Jacob's and my heads swung around to look into the back seat, where we saw Esme's door flying open. She had opened it herself!

I almost had a heart attack. Needless to say, we pulled over immediately and switched the safety lock of the back door on, which prohibits anyone from opening the back door from the inside. Somehow, when we got home, we had forgotten all about that frightening moment in Seattle.

Then yesterday, as we were on our way home from lunch in Half Moon Bay, the same sound of rushing air surprised us again. Apparently our lesson hadn't been fully learned, because we had failed to fix the child safety locks on our own cars when we got home. Another near heart attack later, our cars now have the locks adjusted so that Esme can't open the doors anymore.

And the moral of the story is, you might want to think about toddler proofing your car.

If I knew how to spell bourgeois…

A friend of mine taunted me via email about having a nanny the other day, “If I knew how to spell bourgeois…” Of course he spelled it perfectly. He had studied creative writing at MIT after all.

And yes, I feel somewhat yuppy, sitting here and writing while someone else cares for my children nearby. But when it comes down to it, I’m going to weigh finances and what’s best for my kids and do what makes the most sense. Two kids in daycare add up to the cost of a nanny, and a nanny gives me the flexibility when I’m on assignment at night (tonight I’ll be at an open mic session researching a story on spoken word in Santa Cruz) or when I have yoga classes (okay, call me a yuppy again).

It wasn’t easy finding a nanny. The nanny agencies told me no one would want to drive up our house in the redwoods when there was more than enough work down below. So I put my own ad up on Craigslist and found a 19 year old who lives relatively nearby and has spent the last year taking care of kids all over the peninsula. She’s young, sweet, not academically inclined, has excellent references, and the kids love her. But I have a baby monitor going on in the house, and while I’m in my office working I can hear how she interacts with the kids.

Yes, I know it sounds like I spy on my nanny. I guess I do. But she’s in charge of the most important beings in the world (at least to me). The stakes are high. I’m not taking any chances. And she knows that the monitor is on – she uses it to talk to me whenever she needs something.

She’s been working for us for over a month, and yesterday she took Esme out to the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo. I was a little nervous, not having a baby monitor that gets that kind of long distance reception, but I let her go. She came back with pictures of Esme playing, stories about what she did, and stories about the negligence of other caregivers.

When I was at yoga class the other night, as the teacher concluded with savasana, and told us to think of something or someone we were thankful for, Alena, the nanny, popped into my head. At least I’m a grateful yuppy.

The Family Bed revisited

The NY Times came out with a story on co-sleeping today that is currently at the top of their "most emailed" charts, following on the heels of my previous post on the subject. As I have often found with NYT articles, there's not a lot of substance here - just anecdotes about famous or wealthy New Yorkers, like Liz Lange, the maternity fashion designer.

But it does raise some interesting questions: why is co-sleeping so popular now? Are we reacting to our parents' strict rules? My parents weren't strict, so that can't be it in my case. But my parents weren't exactly nurturing either, having subscribed to the less is more philosophy of parenting, so maybe this is my way of being more nurturing for my kids. Perhaps it is going too far, though. Can you over-nurture your kids? Should you draw the line at sleeping together?

The other question the article raises is what co-sleeping means for marriages. The conclusion is that sleep is the new sex. I have to confess that my main complaint about co-sleeping is that it is keeping Jacob and me apart, but I have to admit that I love waking up and seeing my two children's faces side by side next to me, with Jacob right there. I can't help but think, "Wow, how lucky am I to have this family!"

We've tried to transfer Esme to a pallet next to our bed, and she always begins the night there. But sometime in the wee hours of the night/morning, she wakes up crying and climbs into bed with us. The other night, she skipped the crying altogether and stood up to announce, "I'm getting into your bed, Mommy." What could I say? Was I going to risk a 2-year-old tantrum in the middle of the night? Hell no. I usually stand firm with Esme and if she throws a tantrum, so be it (she doesn't do it that often). But in the middle of the night when I weigh sleep on one hand and tantrum on the other, sleep is going to win every time.