9 days

What a difference 9 days make. That was how long DH was away on a trip to Barcelona. And in that time,

• mini-b was potty-trained! (something that I never thought would happen)
• micro-b grew.... visibly
• micro-b made his first crawl
• micro-b found his toes
• I lost my marbles on a couple of occasions

On the potty training bit, it was his school who initiated the first step. I remembered his teacher, Miss Lauren, writing in the Communication book about being potty-trained as a goal for the new year and I remembered thinking, yeah right. I couldn't even get him to sit on the elephant potty let alone on the 'big boy potty', which is what we call the 'potty' that we big girls and big boys use.

But 2-3 weeks before school broke for the Lunar New Year holidays, Miss Lauren embarked on a no-diaper policy. And so upon arriving in school, mini-b changed out of his diapers and into training pants. The first time he peed into the tiny urinal, he got a two thumbs up from Cullen a 3 y.o in his class and a group hug from his friends. How sweet! Over the course of a week, he got the hang of it. There were several accidents with the washing machine kept very busy everyday and once or twice where I picked him up in school without his pants because mummy had forgotten to pack a spare one. My bad. I can just imagine the severe disapproval I must have gotten from the Chinese who would point out to me that the kids are cold without woollen beanies.... and mini-b going barelegged in winter. Tsk tsk!!!

Anyhow, when the 2 week long Lunar New Year holidays started, I bravely took that step of weaning him off diapers. (Incidentally, DH's reaction was one of pure terror when told of my plan.) As expected, there were many hits and misses. Progress seemed like a 2 steps forward, 1 step back tango. Along the way, I lost my marbles a couple of times when he peed in his high chair, sofa and even once on his bed (no, not when he was sleeping). And the worst was when he pooped in his training pants :#

Come Day 4 however, we had made significant progress. He still didn't go to the toilet on his own but I'd learnt to read his cues, like when he kept moving his feet in the hair chair, squirming on the sofa and basically acted like there were ants in his pants. He still had to learn how to aim and shoot though. Gosh, why did God made that equipment so complicated? I had also gotten him to sit on the 'big boy potty' with a duckie insert to poop! Yes! That was a major accomplishment. And I later found out that the reason for his resistance was his fear of the hole ("high up") and how he would "fall down". I broke that resistance by putting him on it, sitting beside him and giving him the car magazine that was in the bathroom. After a couple of minutes talking about Lamborghini, Ford & Volkswagon, the 'big boy potty' wasn't so scary after all.


And as for micro-b, he gained another form of mobililty by lifting his bum and with some luck and traction, inched forward towards that rattle/ stuffed elephant/ sock that he just MUST have. Most days he was sleeping through the night again but he was drinking tons of milk which translated into less time for me. I couldn't wait to start him on solids!

It had been a most eventful 9 days.


microbeanie is 5 months & 2 weeks old
minibeanie is a 2.5 year old toddler