Graduating to the Big-Boy Bed

Drum roll please... Introducing our BIG BOY!

(And doesn't he look it, in his new shades?)

The breaking news is that Soren slept in his big-boy bed last night for the first time -- with no diaper on and the potty chair standing by, but he didn't get up to use it, and the bed was dry in the a.m.!!!

He is really proud of himself. We'll see how Night #2 goes... :-)

Moving the toddler bed up from basement storage was an impromptu decision made late last night when Soren refused to put a diaper on when getting dressed in his jammies. "I'm a big boy; I don't wear diapers anymore," he argued, quite rationally. (He's been fully day-potty-trained since early March.) When I asked (rhetorically) what he intended to do if he had to pee in the middle of the night, he hesitated only a second before replying, "I would call: 'Mo-o-o-ommy, Da-a-a-addy'" (his usual wake-up call from the confines of his crib).

"Um, that doesn't work for me," I told him. "You can't wake us up if you have to pee."

Which logically led to trying out the bed, something Jeff and I had been putting off as long as we could. Except for the nighttime pottying issue, it's so CONVENIENT that he can't climb out of his crib. It has a crib tent over the top and we still use it occasionally for out-of-control time outs. That option is probably defunct now...

Since we haven't disassembled the crib yet, the cute white frame toddler bed is sitting next to it right now, making for a tight squeeze in the L-shaped loft. The hastily made-up rules are:
1) Soren can't climb out of the bed once we say "good night" until morning (we're trying to enforce that this means 7 a.m.);
2) he doesn't have to empty the potty pot if he goes in it;
3) releatedly, he shouldn't climb down the loft ladder in the middle of the night (too dangerous).

When he woke up this morning, he proudly told us, "I followed the rules!"

I fully expected to be awakened by him either needing assistance to use the potty chair, or crying in a wet bed, but he didn't make a peep all night long, and slept 11 hours to boot -- 8 p.m. to 7 a.m.

This SORT OF makes up for all the sleep interruptions of the previous 2-3/4 years (!).

OK, since I haven't posted in so long, here are a few cute pix from the month of May:

Soren and friend Django enjoying popsicles today during a rare sunbreak. Note how refreshed Soren looks from his first night's sleep in the big-boy bed!

Father and son, the likeness becoming more and more apparent.

And he may be our big boy, but he's not too big for a bath in the laundry sink yet!

"I've been workin' on the railroad"

As one of Soren's favorite songs goes, he's "been workin' on the railroad." His toy railroad, that is. Working hard at his new toolbench, which is right next to Daddy's toolbench in our shop. (Thanks to the Behrenfelds for handing down this nifty piece of furniture, and to Papaw Bill for donating the vise!)

In the past month, Soren and Jeff have collaborated on building an engine shed (above) and a bridge (below) for the Take-Along Thomas railway.

Safety first! Soren dons eye and ear protection for some jigsawing on a piece of trim for the engine shed.

Look ma, no hands! No help from Daddy's hands, that is, but just for an instant, so Mom could take this adorable photo. Soren IS allowed to lock a piece of wood in his vise and file grooves in it on his own, which is highly self-entertaining.

Here's the bridge, mostly constructed by Jeff, and detailed to look like stone with his new dremel. He carved the ends so it interlocks with the plastic track. In the background you see Cranky Crane at left and the Engine Works with washdown station at right (a Christmas gift from Grandma Gloria & Grandpa Jim). We're building quite the collection.

This entry on railroads at The Roost would not be complete without mention of Soren's new train table. Jeff built this to house his childhood electric train, which needs the track tacked down in order to run properly. He'd gotten the train set out once around Christmas to show Soren and our train-crazy son never forgot about it. After much pestering, Jeff came up with a design for a table that fits over an existing climbing platform he built Soren. It is on permanent display in our basement romper room.

The electric train is temperamental, so often Soren just pushes the train cars along with his hands -- or just takes his horse for a gallop alongside the tracks! Not a day goes by without some form of train play at this house.

Potty Training P.S.: We've now had one month of total success in Soren using the potty and keeping his pants "clean and dry." Four times in that month he's woken up from a nap with wet pants, but NO other accidents. We're thrilled he's adapted to this new reality so completely. Diapers seem like the distant past...

Jumping for joy: He's potty-trained!

Yesterday, Soren and Jeff were on a "guys outing" to the PT Aero Museum and when it came time to use the bathroom, Soren wouldn't let Jeff into the stall with him. Our 2-1/2-year-old locked the door behind him, climbed up on the big toilet by himself, peed, flushed -- the whole works. Jeff reported that when Soren emerged, his pant waist was a little crooked, but that was all that needed parental follow-up.

Whoo hoo!

The breakthrough came 2-1/2 weeks after the day we switched from diapers to underwear and undertook an intensive training session. There were only two "dry days" (no accidents all day long) in that spell, and I was beginning to think we'd screwed up somewhere. The accidents (with both pee and poop) would happen randomly, but more often when Soren was away from home or deep into play and unwilling to take a break to use the potty -- even though he would be crossing his legs and holding his crotch. Sheesh, it was enough to make a parent flip!

But I'd read somewhere that three weeks was a common adjustment period, so I kept telling Jeff and myself we wouldn't panic until three weeks had passed. We did our best to be consistent in requiring Soren to do "practice" runs to the nearest bathroom each time he had an accident. He hated these, and would be screaming and crying as we steered him along with a hand on his shoulder, saying, "Soren wet his pants. Soren has to practice going to the potty. Go fast! Now practice going from the kitchen. Now practice going from the front door," etc. Our training manual called for 10 practice runs after an accident, but we contented ourselves with three or five.

I think it finally sunk in for Soren that he would have to keep up the hated "practice" every time he wet his pants; that it wasn't just a game we were playing for a little while. From March 2 on, he has not only stayed dry, he has also taken more and more responsibility for pottying himself without any help.

Now that that's behind us, we can look ahead... As Soren does here in last winter's rainbow stripeys. (I dressed him up one more time in this adorable but getting-too-small ensemble for this archival photo in mid-February before we handed down everything but the scarf and socks.)

Pottying milestones in just the last few days have included:

• Waking up from a nap on the big bed, which he can climb off of, and meeting me at the top of the stairs saying, "I have to go potty." And then going!
• Hopping down from the table as we lunched with Great-Grandpa Gerry, saying he had to go poop, and stopping me from following him to the bathroom with a traffic-cop hand. "No, Mommy, you stay here and talk with my grandpa [sic]." Then he pottied himself, accepting help wiping at the end.
• Peeing standing up, including outside at a roadside bus stop halfway through his first public transportation ride from Seattle home to PT (one ferry, two buses, and no bathrooms once we board the bus, which had me worried). We have to help him hold his penis for now, so it doesn't dribble on his clothes, but I very much doubt that will last much longer, at the rate we're going!

Nora and Gerry both witnessed Soren's skills, so they'll vouch that I'm telling the truth. We so enjoyed a four-day visit from Auntie Nono and a day visit with Great-Grandpa this past week. Here they are after helping Soren with a jigsaw puzzle. Our little boy has many reasons to be proud.

Our big boy is using the potty (mostly)

We're on Day 6 of underpants, having abandoned diapers cold-turkey on Feb. 11. Soren is such a BIG BOY. Aren't you proud of him?

Day 1 was impressively accident-free, then we had to wait until Day 5 (yesterday) to achieve all-day dry again. If this trend holds, I guess we can say Soren was potty-trained by age 2-1/2!

OK, so how did it happen? Well, the background is that we've been experimenting with "diaper-free" techniques from the time Soren was nine months old (we should've started earlier, but didn't learn about them until then). So he's been peeing sporadically on his Baby Bjorn potty chair since then (see photo from Summer '09). The concept of the toilet is quite familiar to him, and both Jeff and I have demonstrated and talked openly about its use.

Both of the last summers he ran naked a good deal of the time, eliminating mostly in the great outdoors and occasionally indoors on the floor. I was keen to potty-train him last summer, especially as his best friend (a girl) made the leap around two years of age, but I didn't have a strong training script to follow and I guess Soren just wasn't ready. He often resisted our suggestions. We also were not bold enough to forgo the diapers. So we stopped pushing it but kept the potty chair in full view.

I saw new signs of readiness in Soren in December, but plans to potty-train were waylaid by him suffering a low-level cold all month as well as the looming holidays. The New Year turned and I was more focused on planning my first night away from Soren (see previous post) than I was potty-training him. Yet I'd stationed his favorite potty chair in our main floor bathroom and had done some library reading on the subject over the holidays. I decided to order my own copy of the book Toilet Training In Less Than A Day.

This method was first published in 1976 -- the year I was born -- so it has stood the test of time, and its no-nonsense behavioral psychology resonated with me. I also liked that it makes potty-training a fun challenge for the child (and a rewarding one, literally, with lots of treat options). It recommended training before age 2-1/2 for maximum effectiveness, so I felt some time pressure since that happens on Feb. 27. I found a date on my calendar -- Feb. 11 -- that fell after two upcoming weekend trips and preceded a free weekend at home, and wrote across it, "Potty Training Day."

The book came in the mail and I left it on our dining room table, where Soren soon found it and began looking at the illustrations. This was not part of my plan, but he studiously examined the pictures of the child figure following the steps to potty himself self-sufficiently, including pulling down pants, emptying the pot into the toilet, replacing it in the potty chair, and flushing.

Then GUESS WHAT?? A couple of days later, in a diaper-free moment (we were still giving him lots of those), Soren hopped off his seat at the dining table, said, "I have to go to the bathroom," ran to the potty chair in the bathroom, sat, and peed right away. Before I could offer to lend a hand, Soren was on his feet, had the removable potty chair pot in his hand, lifted the toilet lid and seat together, dumped the pee, replaced the pot on the chair, closed the lid, and climbed up to flush. I was stunned. I only had to remind him to wash his hands.

I have to give some credit for Soren's new interest in the potty to the Love & Logic parenting class I'd started that same week (it's an eight-week course that is still ongoing). Without going into details, the Love & Logic approach involves sharing control with the child through small choices, and I started implementing this right away (see examples of how to do this). I could see that Soren immediately felt more empowered in his daily life, and I think he freely CHOSE to use the potty once he no longer felt it was a task we imposed on him.

Interestingly, for the next two-and-a-half weeks, Soren continued to pee in his potty when he was bare-bottomed, but consistently peed in his clothing every time we experimented with no diaper under his pants. So we waited until we'd returned from our planned trips to do the big training that revolved around giving up diapers forever (we started giving premonitions of this a week prior). On that day -- last Friday -- we shared with Soren the exciting news that he would no longer be wearing diapers, sent Jeff off to work, and started our hard work around 9:30 a.m. This included making and eating lots of popsicles and drinking lots of fluids so that Soren would have the urge to pee. Here he is in his Thomas the Train underwear, enjoying one of those popsicles and looking so big-boyish!
Training Soren's doll "Baby" (as he has always called it) came first in the Less Than A Day technique. Before asking Soren to sit on the potty, I asked him to show Baby how to use it. So both Soren and Baby donned underwear (I'd made Baby a pair from a cut-up sock toe) and had something to drink. Then Soren pulled down Baby's underpants and set his doll on a little toy potty. Here's where I got creative: the book suggests a wetting doll that you can "feed" water and then squeeze to "pee," but gosh darn if I couldn't lay my hands on one. I asked everyone I knew, to no avail, and I wasn't going to buy one. So we pretended to give Baby sips from a cup of water, and then when Soren was momentarily distracted, I used an eyedropper to drip some water dyed with yellow food coloring into Baby's potty.

"Check and see if Baby's peed," I casually suggested to Soren. He looked at me a little funny, but obediently lifted up his doll and did a double-take. I nearly laughed out loud when he then turned Baby over and stared hard at his soft-bodied crotch, like, "Where did THAT come from?" I DID laugh when he followed this with, "Baby's pee is green!" That's what you get with yellow liquid in a turquoise blue potty!

Both Baby and Soren got edible treats (kept handy in my pocket) for this pottying success, and Soren seemed to be enjoying this little game. We redressed Baby and showed him how to feel between his legs and report that his pants were dry when we asked. Again, when Soren's back was turned, I spilled a little water on Baby's underwear. When Soren conducted the next "dry pants inspection," he reported (again, with a sense of wonder) that they were wet. Glory be! We then showed Baby what to do when he'd had an accident. We used the language of "wet pants are bad, Baby," and "wet pants are no fun," and "big boys have dry pants." Then we ran Baby through a Positive Practice drill, where he had to hurry through several practice potty runs from different spots in the house, including where he'd had the accident. "Go fast, Baby wet his pants, Baby has to practice..." Only then did we change Baby's wet underpants and put on a dry pair. (Soren is supposed to follow this same routine when he has an accident, except he has to remove the wet underpants himself and dress himself in dry ones, plus help clean up any mess.)

After that, Baby successfully peed on the potty one more time before we pronounced him trained. Baby was now a Big Boy, Soren agreed. And here are my two Big Boys, pictured below:
By this time, Soren's little bladder was filling up, and the first time I suggested he try sitting on the potty, he peed as if on cue. We went through the motions of emptying the pot, etc., then had more fun together eating treats and drinking juice, with him wearing just underpants the whole time. He then took the initiative to pee on his own (which I was elated at), then we had the perfect learning opportunity of a poop coming. Soren was playing with his train set in the living room, when he stood up and I saw the funniest contorted look on his face. "Run fast," I urged, and he made it to the potty in time to pull down his underpants and eliminate. He has rarely pooped on the potty in the past, so this was also a big step forward.

We tried to lie down for a nap, but Soren was too wired to sleep. He pottied himself again soon after getting up, then a couple of more times before the day was done. He managed to keep the same pair of underpants DRY all day, which was impressive. Maybe it was the promised reward of a caboose for his new model train (which I'd been keeping in reserve)! Here's the battery-powered and immensely popular train without the caboose:
But it was Soren's Day 1 success that lulled me into making a big mistake on Day 2 -- we went on an outing. And not just around town, but an hour-long car ride away, carpooling with a friend. So where did he have his first accident? In a public place away from his potty. We couldn't very well do Positive Practice runs to the public restroom. I kick myself for being so confident of his abilities to not foresee this. Yes, we carried a potty with us in the trunk of the car, and we even stopped on the way down and set it on the side of the road because Soren said he had to pee, but unsurprisingly he was unable to relax in the cold wind. He didn't want to pee in the public restrooms once we'd arrived at our destination (although he had done that before, so I didn't think it would be a sticking point). Then he peed twice in his carseat on the ride home. Ug.

Day 3 we stayed at home and practiced, needless to say. So we're on our way after a smooth then bumpy start.

It's not soon enough for me. I am heartily sick of diapers, and the longer Soren has resisted pottying, the more mortified I have felt about all the solid waste we were generating. We dabbled in cloth diapers but the routines never stuck, so we've been using disposables all this time. Now, in addition to the money we'll save not buying diapers, we can cut our garbage pick-up service back to once every two weeks.

So from now on it's underwear (except at night for the time being, because he never wakes up dry and he's still in a crib he can't climb out of without help). Next time you see Soren, be sure to tell him how proud you are that he's wearing Big Boy Underwear!

Soren's sleep-over and my night out

Let's just call it inertia. The force that held Soren and I captive in our bedtime routine for nearly 2-1/2 years. It took a great deal of planning and resolve to break free of, but this force was successfully overcome last week.

What am I talking about?!

The mothers out there are nodding. They know it's hard to believe but TRUE. I hadn't LEFT Soren for a single night since he'd been born. Not until last Thursday.

Did you hear that right? Dr. Soren will check out your ears if you think they're not working correctly...



These cute pix are not just window dressing, they're a tribute to my parents (pictured) for agreeing to keep Soren at their house for a tad over 24 hours so I could escape unencumbered to Seattle. They did this not knowing if they would get ANY sleep that night. Because they love me!

Thankfully their home is filled with things fascinating to Soren, including this doctor's kit that I played with as a little girl. He loves to give check-ups.
OK, so back to my story. The seed for my escape was planted in the theatre, of all places. I don't go that often, but one of the plays I saw in the past year was an incredible one-woman show performed in Port Townsend called "The K of D: An Urban Legend." The actress, Renata Friedman, grew up in PT and has hit it pretty big in the theatre world. She took this show to the New York Fringe Festival, and right now it is showing at the Seattle Rep.

I knew I wanted to see it again.

I wanted to take my best friend, Sierra.

I considered taking my husband, but a Thursday night worked best for everyone else involved, and he had to work Friday.

And bad luck, I came down with a wicked head cold the day before all this was to transpire.

I wasn't breathing well enough to sleep well during my first guaranteed-uninterrupted night in 2-1/2 years, but oh, well. Sierra and I enjoyed dinner out and the play was smashing (we had seats in the second row). We stayed up past midnight just talking and blissfully slept in till 9:30 a.m. A short time later my mom left a message on my cell phone that started, "You have left us a model child..." and I breathed a huge sigh of relief.

I didn't suffer separation anxiety -- and, it turns out, neither did Soren. But I was worried for my parents' peace of mind. How cheering to hear he only called out my name upon waking from the nap I put him down for, and after that he didn't ask for me again. He didn't ask about nursing, either (yes, we're not weaned, something I'm usually grateful for...), but happily drank the warm milk I suggested offering. In fact, he didn't cry or fuss once the entire 27 hours!! And then he slept 11 hours straight that night, a near record.

When we were reunited, he had a meltdown a mere two hours later. So it goes.

It was a busy weekend, because after all the planning and packing for the sleep-over Thursday night, Soren and I scurried home Saturday night to plan and prepare for a baby shower I hosted Sunday afternoon. Actually, Soren and Jeff were ordered to vacate the house so I could clean and party-prep. Then 12 of us gathered at The Roost to bestow blessings upon my dear friend Audrey, whose second child is due in just a few days.

Here we are, hands on her big belly, wishing the child safe passage to this world.

I wish for Audrey a night away LESS THAN 2-1/2 years from now!

The Little Guide that was not so little!

Happy New Year! Time to catch up and reflect. And be thankful for today's 2-1/2-hour nap (Soren's, not mine!).

I promised that I would share details of a pro bono writing and editing project that occupied pretty much all of my free time September through November. It was the creation of a brand new family resource guide for our rural county. Not my original idea, but one whose time had come and whose goal struck a chord with me, so I jumped on board in late summer. We published the first week of December.


The idea was to pull together descriptions of and contacts for the limited and sometimes hard-to-find parenting resources in our county and spare new parents the angst of searching for them and/or missing out on them altogether. The support groups, classes, and baby activities for new parents in this county of only 26,000 people are really few and far between. If it takes a new mom three months to hear about one she needs, that's really too late and/or valuable time has been lost when she needed the support. I certainly fell into that category for multiple resources, as I struggled to find my new identity as a parent in Port Townsend -- even though I'd lived here for nearly a decade before having Soren!

Dubbed The Little Guide for Little Ones (and Their Families), the 75-page printed booklet contains comprehensive descriptions—not just listings—of community resources, kid-friendly businesses, and age-appropriate events and activities for children aged birth to 5. We will consider going to a website in the future, but for now, the print version is it and worked the best for soliciting advertisements to defray the costs of printing.

It was produced as a community project of and fundraiser for the Port Townsend Cooperative Playschool, which Soren and I have been a part of since May 2010. Every Thursday (we had a session this morning) we meet up with a dozen other parent-child couples and learn and play. It's been a great socializer for him.

Anyway, I pulled more late-nighters on this guide than I did in four years of college, simply because the scope kept spreading and there were always facts that needed to be checked and checked again. Oh, and did I mention I have next to no free time?! As I wrote in the guide debut press release:

"Out of habit, I tracked my hours on this pro bono project—then wished I
hadn’t!” Randall admits. The owner of the communications consultancy Story
Services estimates she spent 100 hours over the last three months co-authoring
and editing The Little Guide. On one fact-checking phone call with a social
service agency, she was taken aback by the question, “So, where’s your funding
coming from?”

“We’re all volunteers, which is incredible because we’re all part-time
working mothers of young children and have very limited free time,” says
Randall. “But it was a labor of love.”

Read the full press release and see photos of my co-creators (with their kids) on my website, here.

I hosted a book launch party at our studio apartment on Dec. 11 and it was a stunning success in two ways. One, I created a Gift-A-Guide wishlist of family resource agencies and organizations in our community who could benefit from having a guide on their reference shelf, and several copies were sponsored by donors who were truly glad to have the opportunity. I didn't think about matching philanthropic impulses with community need until just two days prior, when I attended the holiday party for our local community foundation (I also volunteer as a steering committee member for the new Fund for Women & Girls). Mingling with our community's prominent philanthropists was a reminder to me to incorporate giving into this project, and to model that for our children.

Two, a columnist from the Peninsula Daily News dropped by at my invitation and stayed over an hour and interviewed every parent who came through the door. She wrote up a brilliant piece that really hit the nail on the head and can be read here. (Soren isn't in the picture because Jeff had taken him on a walk to escape from all the excitement.)

But Soren's first editorial photo did appear in our weekly paper, the Port Townsend Leader, as he posed with me holding copies of the guide hot off the presses. The article (just a rework of my press release) is not online, so here's a scan of the intro with our picture.

Want a copy or want to sponsor a guide (for $10) for one of the eight or so remaining organizations on the Gift-A-Guide list? Let me know!

Happy Mis-Mis!

"Happy Mis-Mis," says Soren. "Christmas" has some pretty tough consonants for a two-year-and-a-quarter-old tot. All the same, merriest greetings from our family to yours.

I'm writing at the end of a long Christmas day that began at 7:20 a.m. with Soren waking up the household, and it is not over yet at 10:15 p.m. as Jeff makes attempt #2 to put our stimulated child to bed and quietude.

But in between was homemade cinnamon rolls, present-opening (oddly, not of too much interest to Soren, but he is appreciating his new Thomas the Tank Engine toys and branded clothing), a walk to the beach, and fine dining out at The Belmont, a waterfront restaurant that dates to 1885. We all enjoyed a delicious meal and Soren was extremely well behaved and chowed down on various bits of shared seafood entrees. The clam chowder was a hit with him.

Ah, yes, we are celebrating with my parents (Soren's Nannie and Papaw) and my sister Nora ("Auntie Nono"). Sis Jill had to work a shift at her ER on Christmas Day and Jim and Gloria are fairly well snowed in in Eastern Washington.

These photos are actually from Thanksgiving weekend, when downtown Port Townsend rolled out the red holiday carpet. We donned elf hats to take a carriage ride down Water Street.

Our be-jingled horse, with the wedding-cakish Hastings Building in the background.

The model train in the lobby of the Palace Hotel provided much entertainment that day and tonight as well, after we finished dinner across the street. Soren can stand stock still for long minutes on end, watching the train repeat the loop. I always indulge him him when he asks to "go downtown and watch train."

As the holidays have progressed, the scene on the train tabletop has gotten progressively more wintry and festive, with fake snow added and little lighted Christmas trees and random wrapped presents along the tracks. No wonder Soren thinks it's wonderland.

Here's wishing you some holiday cheer delivered on the express. Choo-choo!