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Robbie’s First Spinning Ride

August 18, 2008 at 8:45am By: Mr. Wilson Posted in 625 Elm Street

The Wilsons went to the Christ Schools Fifth Annual Family Film Festival last night. They had a bunch of games, blow-up slides and bounce houses, a police car, a fire truck, and so on. They also had a ride that Robbie was really interested in trying. The man running it said The Missus was small enough that she could ride with him, so we thought, “What the heck”. Famous last words?

Robbie was enthusiastic from outside the gate, but once he got on, he wasn’t so sure any more.

Robbie and The Missus on a ride. Robbie looks uncertain.

Uh oh, is he going to get sick?

Robbie and The Missus on a ride. Robbie looks a little ill.

Now he’s relaxing a bit.

Robbie and The Missus on a ride. Robbie looks much more relaxed.

Aha, there we go! Now he’s making faces for the camera.

Robbie and The Missus on a ride. Robbie is making a face at the camera

And so Robbie’s first amusement park-style ride was a success. Next up: roller coasters! Well, ok, maybe in a few years.

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Piddle Me This

August 4, 2008 at 8:15am By: Mr. Wilson Posted in 625 Elm Street

Have you ever seen a two year-old fall asleep on the toilet? Actually, hold that thought. I’m getting ahead of myself.

Early this spring I (rather arbitrarily) decided that we would start potty training Robbie on or about his second birthday. Robbie has always seemed to be an intelligent boy who is capable of controlling himself when he really needs to. That seemed like enough to make potty training go relatively smoothly. Then again, what did I know? My last direct experience with potty training came 28 years ago. Well, Robbie’s second birthday came and went in mid-May. He clearly wasn’t ready to shed diapers just yet, despite a few early successes with #2. And so we waited.

Fast forward to a few weeks ago. Out of the blue I said to The Missus, “I think we should seriously consider starting up potty training in earnest.” The Missus wasn’t quite as gung ho about it as I was, but we began to investigate our options. First we had to check with Theresa, our daycare provider. By coincidence, one of the girls at daycare was also ready to begin using the toilet. Since kids tend to learn these things best in groups, we decided to start together the following Monday. That was a week ago.

In the first couple days Robbie had one accident per day. That seemed about right. On Wednesday, it was two. Then on Thursday he became ill and we had to temporarily revert to diapers. Uh oh. On Thursday night I glumly informed grandma that “it might not happen right now”.

But since then he has been doing awesome. We had an accident-free weekend. And on Friday night Robbie began waking us up in the middle of the night rather than doing his business in his diaper. (We’re keeping the overnight diaper ... for now.) Have you ever sat in the middle of the night with a semi-conscious toddler with a toddler who is trying to pee? Who knew it could be so cute. Last night he even fell asleep on the toilet, upping the cute factor considerably. It has been three days since Robbie woke up with a wet diaper.

I’m nowhere near ready to declare victory over the diaper because, well, toddlers often take the two-steps-forward-one-step-back approach to learning and development, and because it takes a lot longer than a week to make sure these things stick. For now, I’m enjoying the thought of a diaper-free future. I just have one pressing question: how do you keep pants from falling off a diaperless kid who has no butt?

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