Some things about Gavin

On Gavin's first birthday, I sat him on the potty and he went. It was a shock, it was interesting, and it was almost a year ago.

He still wears a diaper all the time. And he still has some moments: in the last two weeks, he's pooped in the tub twice. Once while I was there, and once while I was away, which led to this call:

Ring, Ring:

Me: Hello.
Autumn: Dad. Gavin pooped in the tub!
Me: Um, what?
Autumn: Gavin pooped in the tub. (Laughing). OH MY, HE'S POOPING AGAIN (Screams)
Me: What...?
Autumn: NOW HE'S PEEING IN THE BATHROOM!

And it sort of went on from there.

The point if this isn't to tell you about Gavin's bad potty habits. It's to tell you that when we stick him on the potty, he goes. And he's saying potty more and more in a way that really means he wants to go.

He'll be two in June. And there's a real good chance that before this summer is out, we'll be out of diapers. Sure, there's lots to do. Last night for instance, I stuck him on the potty, making sure to point down his gun. He said book, and pointed to the book, which I dutifully looked at, only to see pee on my pants. He was peeing, and it was coming out so fast that it went over the little boy guard on the potty seat.

But he loves it. Stick him on the seat, and I think it makes him feel like a big boy. Which means, I guess, that he's a big boy.

The poop post

Look. Gavin is 8 weeks old today. Meaning I've gone a long time without talking about poop. But he's 13 lbs. He eats like it's a 100 metre dash (timely summer Olympic metaphor), and thus, he poops.

I can remember when Autumn had a night of pooping. And since this blog records history, you can remember too:

The first sign of trouble was the little grin on her face. She's smiling a lot these days, but this was different. I had her on the changing table, really poopy diaper off her and in my hands when all of a sudden, a stream of poop followed a quick fart. Recall please that I am alone. Rhona is out at a party. Anyway, while the stream went a good foot and a half, things were contained. I threw a cloth over it, re-armed myself with a diaper, and went back in. That's when I caught another little grin. Another quick fart, and, another stream of poop. This one with a much better arc than the first. Which was good, because I caught most of it with the diaper in my hand.

So, my daughter is lying on the changing table beside the first dirty diaper. Her feet are on a burp cloth that's covering the first pile of poop from the second explosion. In my left hand, is a poopy diaper that I just caught her third projectile poop. Things seemed under control. I tossed the diaper, grabbed her legs and watched in amazement as another stream of poop came shooting out of her butt. At this point, you could tell she was tired. This one shot meekly, which sounds okay until you realize that it most of it ended up on her back.

At this point, even the dog left the room.

That was on August 27, 2006. A little over the two month stage.

You should now know that almost every poop with Gavin ends up needing a uni-change. They aren't poops as much as small nuclear-like explosions that occur daily. Because he poops daily, and massively.

I remember back a few weeks when the wee-man was smaller. When we first brought him home, his poops were dainty little things. We changed the diaper every 3 hours, and on we went. And then changing Autumn's diaper seemed so drastic in comparison.

Things have changed. Autumn still has the kind of poop that has us wondering to 'our gosh', but Gavin can go like Autumn rarely did. And we're on edge. If he doesn't manage a poop one day, we know the next day that the clock is ticking down towards event-horizon.

Anyway. That's the poop story for a Friday. This is our life.

Autumn called

The ladies just called. Actually it was almost all Autumn. She called to tell me that she went poopy on the potty. Clearly, we're in full-on celebration mode when she goes. She also flushed.

When she flushes, she says "bye-bye poopy" and waves.

autumn and Rhona 2

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Something special or something normal

I asked this question on Twitter. I find myself using it more and more. But here's the thing: Autumn went poopy on the potty again last night. it's becoming more and more a normal thing. We treat it like it's amazing. But I wonder:

Should we treat a poopy as ordinary or extraordinary?

Poopy on the potty

We really tried to underplay Autumn's first poopy on the potty. We knew not to get our hopes up.

Since that day back in the beginning of February, she's gone pee-pee on the potty a lot. And she even points to her little bum and says "poopy potty." But we've never had a follow-up poopy.

Well, this morning she went. A nice clean log on her potty. I was in bed because the bridge was closed for about half an hour last night and I was just sitting on it waiting to get back home from curling. So I'm tired.

But I heard mom yelling poopy! And then I was witness to a site that in my wild dreams, I would never see.

I jumped out of bed, and go to the door in time to see Autumn running down the hall with her potty in her hands, adorned with the aforementioned piece of poop, screaming 'daddy, poopy.' and holding it up for me to see.

Priceless.

I looked at her poopy (she clearly wanted me to), congratulated her on it (good poopy peanut) and then helped her flush it. As the toilet flushed, she waved and said "bye-bye poopy."

I gotta be honest. I love this poopy thing. Her going on the potty is guaranteed entertainment.

Potty alert

It was easy to think that Friday night was a fluke. After her bath, I asked Autumn if she wanted to sit on the potty. We do that a lot. No big deal. But this time, she peed. I yelled for Rhona and we spent the next ten minutes high-fiving each other.

But, we thought, no biggie. A serious first, but a trend, not yet.

Then, as if we pressed the repeat button, the same thing on Saturday night. Exactly. After the bath, the question. She sits on the potty and pees. Both nights, she grabs some TP and wipes herself.

And then, and I think this is the best part, she went potty this morning. Not after a bath, just out of the blue. She peed again.

That's three times in three days. That's a trend. We're in for a long haul, but the heavy lifting has begun.

update: at 3:00PM EST on Sunday, Feb 3rd, Autumn went poopy on the potty.

How old does she have to be?

We're officially at that stage, where we're wondering when it's time to start potty training (we bought a potty), start her in a bed, etc.

We already let her feed herself with plastic cutlery. It's messy, but about half of the food gets in her mouth, the other half gets cleaned up by our four-legged vacuum cleaner.

But the thing we hear often is that every baby is different. While Autumn walked fast, she's only now getting her third, fourth and fifth teeth. That's sorta late and thus impacting on the foods we feed her.

So, we ask around. When do we try potty training? When do we try a bed? Any ideas are welcome.

Here's Autumn and her new potty.