A Boy and His Potty

James enjoying a good book on his potty in February 2009.

We have had quite a journey since January. It all started when Jordan told me about a post from our friends' blog. Our friend was beginning to potty train their son at 9 months. She was guided in this pursuit by the book Diaper Free Before 3: The Healthier Way to Toilet Train and Help Your Child Out of Diapers Sooner by Jill M. Lekovic, M.D. I was instantly intrigued because James has a tendency to get really bad diaper rashes even if his diaper is changed immediately. This and only this could have prompted me to pursue potty training so soon...it was not something that I was looking forward to in the least. So, there began our journey. Jordan gave me the book as a Christmas gift. When we returned home from Utah in January we put the methods to the test. James was 9 months old.

The basic methods are thus:

1. Familiarize child with the potty by building potty trips into the routine. Example: When child wakes up, take a trip to the potty. Just before child goes down for a nap, head to the potty. After a meal, go to the potty. Before leaving home on a trip, go to the potty. At first, there may be only one trip per day depending on child's willingness to sit on the potty. It took James about a week or two before we were going before/after naps, after meals, and before/returning from trips. We wouldn't sit long at first, just a minute or two. But soon James grew to love his potty trips. He began to want to sit and read and potty all day long. :) We sometimes have to get really creative in our efforts to persuade him to get off the potty whether he's gone or not after 20 or 30 minutes (when it has become apparent that he just wants to sit on his James-sized chair and read).

2. Child begins to use potty. James caught on pretty quick. I praised him when he happened to use it at first, which led him to realize that he was supposed to potty on the potty. He began regularly using it within two weeks of starting training.

3. Child wears cotton training pants for increasing amounts of time. So far, I have just been happy that James doesn't have diaper rashes anymore, so I haven't moved into this stage yet. But, I will be venturing there soon. James has begun to tell me when he needs to go potty, so I think I'm getting brave enough to work him into cotton underwear. The author says that the the more you use cotton underwear, the faster the child will potty train, since they don't like the feel of wetting themselves without it being whisked away by diapers. I can see this being true. When James when through a potty boycott for a week, I decided to put him in cotton training pants and it cured him of his boycott. But, once he was using the potty again, I ditched the training pants, because I wasn't ready yet.


All in all, our journey has been enjoyable. James has gone through various stages when he has wanted to use it, but then for a week didn't, but he's always come back. His desire to use it now seems to be stronger than ever, so maybe this is a good time to start him in cotton underwear. It has been a time commitment, but it's been positive since we've spent much more time reading than we probably would have otherwise. As with everything else in parenting so far, I've learned that consistency is the key to success. I hope that this will continue to be true as we move into the next stage of potty training.

The Post of a Proud Father

This is my son James. Please note that he is "chillin'" while watching tennis. He loves watching tennis. Additionally, he can say such words as "ball" and "racket". Both of these words are clearly valuable in the world of tennis, not to mention the world of sports in general. Whenever there is a tennis racket in the room, he wants to be the one holding it.

This is another picture of my son James. Once again he is "chillin'", and this time he is chillin' for real in nothing but the diaper. This picture is of special significance because, as you may note, he has a firm grasp on the television remote control and is intently watching a quality game of Saturday morning football. You will also be pleased to know that he loves playing with his regulation size football and can clearly articulate the word "football" while excitedly running back and forth on the couch in front of the television.

I am a proud father.

3.18.10

We are happily expecting again. At my first OB appointment the doctor did an ultrasound to be sure of the due date. I was 10 weeks at the time. Our sweet little one gave us quite a show in spite of being only 1.25 inches at the time. He or she was moving those little arms and kicking those little legs all over. It was fun to see. James was completely mesmerized by the baby's heartbeat coming from my belly. He wanted to hear it again and again.

BYU Beats Oklahoma

I am a BYU fan, and I am happy. BYU: 14, Oklahoma: 13. Go Cougs!

FYI Alert

Since James recently turned one, Natasha decided that it was time to take some family pictures. She found a great photographer who has posted some of the pictures on her blog. The Lubbock wind added a certain flair to Natasha's beautiful hair, and James, as always, is lookin' good. If you are interested you can check them out here. (It's the May 19, 2009 post entitled "Mr. James.")

Happy Happy Birthday Birthday!

Our Sweet Baby James is 1! He turned 1 on March 24th (this post is a teensy bit belated). He really enjoyed wearing the crown I made for him at each meal of the day. It's hard to see in the pictures, but the crown has pictures of the last year of his life all the way around it. I'm going to make that a birthday tradition. It will of course be displayed post birthday in a scrapbook (what is left of it anyway). James quite enjoyed playing with his crown. I managed to keep it in pretty good condition. In the future I might make two--one for playing and one for saving.

Lovin' the crown at breakfast.

King James sampling some Little Ceaser's pizza for the first time. He loved the pizza! He also enjoyed the Little Ceaser graham cookies they gave him (his first taste of cookie).

James and Daddy after James finished his yummy chili dinner which he loved.

Mmmm...Texas Sheet Cake! It says "Happy B-day James" in pecans. He woke up from his afternoon nap before I started decorating, so it's not much, but it sure tasted good. James is tipping his crown to the cake. Quite the compliment if I do say so myself.

I wanted some pictures of James with his birthday sign. I was feeling a little frustrated that I couldn't get a closer picture since the sign was so high on the wall. It eventually dawned on me that I could move the sign...What a bright idea!

James again admiring his crown. He was more interested in playing with his crown than partaking of the cake. I think he was quite stuffed from his dinner.

James quickly discovered that the cake was fun to squish between his fingers.

He also quickly discovered that the cake was sitting upon a plate. He never eats off plates since they end up on the floor, so he took advantage of the opportunity to play with his plate (or bowl lid as the case may be).

Here Jordan is trying to persuade James to eat some of his birthday cake, since thus far he had only squished it and played with the plate. He doesn't look too excited in this picture...the boy must have been quite stuffed! (He now loves to partake of sweets when they are presented).

This picture reminds me of Green Eggs and Ham. Page after page the main character refuses green eggs and ham and then when he finally tastes them, he realizes that they are quite good and that he likes them. James finally discovered that cake is good thanks to Dad's help.

Do you see the cake remnant below his lip? He finally took his first bite!

The plate and crown were still fun to play with in between bites.

Eventually, James began to shovel the cake into his mouth.

What sheer cake squishing glee!
(Notice the pointed toes...his whole body was involved in the squishing.)

After eating and squishing, he was left with mountains of crumbs.

DANCE...Boogie Wonderland...yeah, yeah, yeah...
I thought it would be fun to get James a card with music. So I got him this card with a hologram of the Happy Feet Penguins on the front and the chorus (shown above) to Boogie Wonderland by Earth, Wind, and Fire. It was pretty jammin'. He got a kick out of it for days, even weeks. It was his companion on the changing table. Opening and closing it to start and stop the music kept him quite entertained until it of course broke after all the opening and closing. I, however, don't think I will be getting a card like that again. There was no price on it. I figured it would be $3 to $5. Oh no...it was $8! I should have just bought him a book. I wish I would have told the cashier that I no longer wanted it. But, it was fun while it lasted.

Opening his present from Mom and Dad.
(Jordan wrapped it...do you like the Santa Claus themed paper?)

Mega Bloks!!! I think Jordan may have been even more excited than James.

He sure loved that crown!

James did not want to pause for photo-ops after opening his present. Jordan was teasing me that it looked like I was using James as a prop. I'd grab him and turn to the camera and smile before he'd squirm loose to go play. I just really wanted to have a picture with him on his first birthday. This is the best not-so-propish shot that we got.

Jordan's creation...he used all 80 pieces!

Spoons Are Fun

James loves to play with spoons. At the end of every meal, he asks for the spoons used during the meal (in his one-year old babble and point language). On this particular day, he was trying to get all four spoons in one hand. He succeeded over and over again, but when I got the camera out to take a video, he upped the entertainment factor.

(Pardon the image and sound in in this video. The file had to be edited to upload it here and the quality suffered in doing so. I edited the video using Windows Movie Maker. Does anyone know of any other free programs or websites where you can edit video files that might have higher quality results?)