The Potty Wars

Well, at the risk of putting a jinx on the whole affair, it finally looks as if LR is well on his way to being potty-trained. At the ripe old age of four (almost) we are finally getting him to the bathroom on a fairly regular basis. While I really am well-aware that his age hardly qualifies him for the Guinness Book of World Records, neither can I boast about his potty-going skills.

As with virtually anything that one tries to get a four-year-old to do, toilet training is all about control. In this case, he has it and he knows it. No matter what I do or say, no matter how much I cajole or threaten, no matter how many Chocolate Chery Cordial Hershey's Kisses I bribe with or how many hours of television he doesn't get to watch there is no possible way for me to force him to go potty. And yes, those Hershey's Kisses formed an integral part of our not-so-well thought out bribery plan a while back; the only thing they accomplished that I'm aware of is that he got extra desserts whenever he wanted them for about a month.

We tried absolutely everything we could think of. We asked everyone we knew for suggestions and, by the end, we had pretty much tried all of them no matter how bad an idea we had originally thought them to be. (As witnessed by The Great Cherry Cordial Debacle of 2009). The end result was a four-year-old boy who knew precisely how to go potty but who categorically refused to do so no matter what.

We had known all along, at least in theory, that the trick was making him want to use the bathroom. This was, however, far easier said than done. (Please don't make me mention the Kisses again). Someone finally suggested that the way to go (pun intended) was to simply make him as uncomfortable as we possibly could whenever he didn't go to the potty. In hindsight, this seems incredibly obvious but therein also lies the genius.

Instead of all the other nonsense we had been going through we finally told him he had two choices: He could either put on his brand-new "big boy underwear" and begin going to the potty every hour on the hour in an attempt to stay dry (he simply had to try) or he could sit in the kitchen in his birthday suit until the next time he went. He was not sent to the kitchen by himself, nor was he there on a "time out;" he was still allowed to play. He was simply not going to be permitted to pee on the carpet, but neither was he going to be allowed to pee in a diaper or a pull-up and thus avoid the necessity of using the bathroom.

Within twenty-four hours he was using the potty on a semi-regular basis and had gone poopy in the potty for the first time ever. Now, six days later, he has only wet himself once or twice in the last two days and he has gone poopy in the potty four times in the last five days. Not bad for a child who had never done this before, not even once. While every hour still brings its own battle, it's definitely getting better. It's still very much a matter of control, but it's largely devolved into a matter of when, not if. Using his own very special grasp of the intricacies of the English language, of course.

"Okay, it's four o'clock! Time to go potty!"
"Not quite....!!"

Who Wants A Dead Animal For Lunch?

I think I traumatized my son the other day. I was eating a corned beef sandwich when he came over, watched me for a minute, and then decided he wanted some. As I am always happy to get food into him, I quickly handed some over. After eating for a minute or two he turned to me and asked "Where does corned beef come from?" Without even thinking about it, I answered "From a cow, sweetheart." He looked confused for a minute and then said "Oh. How does a cow make it?"

After I finished choking on my half of the sandwich I tried to explain to him, delicately, that it wasn't so much made by a cow as it was made from a cow. Once again, I got that confused look and a noncommittal "Oh." He then put the sandwich down and walked away. When asked, he told me in no uncertain terms that he was finished with his lunch.

Any day now he's going to join PETA and tell me he's going Vegan.

Knock, Knock! Who's There?

Well, it finally happened. LR's two weeks' shy of turning four and he's discovered Knock, Knock jokes. We had a Knock, Knock scare about six or eight months ago, but it never really went anywhere. At the time, he didn't really understand what he was doing and all we got was the punchline: "Knock, Knock!" "Who's There?" "Orange you glad I didn't say banana?" He would then giggle a lot and walk away. Okay, we could live with that; at least he wasn't making us go through that particularly endless joke. (For anyone not familiar with this joke, just consider yourself lucky and move on with your life).

Now, he still doesn't entirely understand what he's doing, but he knows that it's supposed to follow a specific formula and that it's supposed to be funny. The problem, of course, is that he still has a four-year-old's sense of what is, and is not, funny. Now, I absolutely appreciate the fact that he's actually making these jokes (and I use the term loosely) up on his own and I applaud his creativity. I do. But I also have to sit through them. So far, they are all variations on a single theme and he's repeating them endlessly with all the tirelessness that you'd expect from any preschooler who's discovered a new interest.

"Knock, Knock!" "Who's there?" "Daddy." "Daddy who?" "Daddy YOU!" [followed by hysterical giggling].
"Knock, Knock!" "Who's there?" "Mommy." "[Sigh]Mommy who?" "Mommy YOU!" [more hysterical giggling].
[Repeat the above ad nauseum.]

It's going to be a very long year.

Bad Parent Syndrome

I was catching up on my Daddy Blog reading today and I came across a recent post on Mommy With a Penis. As is often the case with this blog, he had me thinking "Damn straight!" while simultaneously trying to keep myself from collapsing on the floor, giggling uncontrollably. This particular post was the latest installment in a series of posts called Bad Mommy.

Specifically, it was about Bristol Palin and her baby appearing on a recent cover of People Magazine. I strongly recommend that you go read it for yourself, but suffice it to say that you can have a great game of "How Many Conflicting Messages Can You Find in This Picture?" There's also an extremely amusing note regarding color choices, but I'm not going to repeat it here as I've already compromised this blog's wholesome image by using the word "damn." (Uh, oh. Now I've used it twice).

The name "Bristol" reminded me of a website I found a few years back that also never fails to make me laugh: Baby's Named a Bad, Bad Thing (A Primer on Parent Cruelty). This hilarious site is a critique of recent trends in baby-naming, including the use of androgynous names, creating a name by melding together pieces of the parents' names, and the creation of baby names out of whole cloth in an attempt to give the child a "unique" name. Basically, the author went to a number of baby-naming sites and collected the worst (best?) examples of child cruelty which parents have engaged in via the process of naming their child. Among my favorites are:

1) We aren't having kids for another year or two, but we like Kellyna Nychole, Taryn Mykah and Mykenzie Kathryn for girls.
This woman was indicted under the Flagrant Over-Use of the Letters K and Y Act of 1983.

2) i have a 20-year old son named case mitchell and an 18-year old daughter named cheyenne autumn. my daughter has some of the most beautiful red hair in the world so her name fits her to a tee.
Not only does she have beautiful red hair, Cheyenne Autumn stars James Stewart and Richard Widmark and is regarded by many critics to be John Ford's most cynical of his later Westerns. She runs 2 hours, 35 minutes and is available on VHS.

3) This is for my niece, Dawn. She is expecting a baby girl in September. I suggested that they name her Dusk. What does everyone think?
I think her grand-daughter Nighttime would not approve. Or her grand-nieces Afterhours and Graveyardshift.

4) I've suggested to my sister that she name her little girl to be - Manchester. She's not sure about it but she's considering. What do you think?
Clever. Like being named Pittsburg or Schenectady. Kid'll grow up to be beaten to death by Liverpool fans.

There are many, many others. Go take a break from your kids and enjoy!

(And revel in the knowledge that no matter how sure you are that you've failed your child in some major, life-altering fashion you couldn't possibly have done anything as bad to them as the damage that these parents inflicted on their poor, unsuspecting children).

You Know They're Watching Too Much T.V. When...

LR has been trying to figure out "time" for a while now. Our bragging about his intelligence not withstanding, he just hasn't been getting it. Not that this is surprising from a child who tells me about the petting zoo he was at yesterday when, in reality, it was two months ago. I don't have a problem with that; it's the age. His failures have not kept him from trying, however. And this kind of stick-to-itiveness (would you believe that word is actually in the dictionary?) will certainly serve him well in life. It may not be too much fun for me when he's trying to convince me that chocolate is a perfectly good lunch, but overall it's a good thing.

Now, on what would appear to be an unrelated topic, I know that the television is on far too much in our household, but I didn't realize quite how bad it had gotten. In general, it has never been a problem. LR has never been one of those kids who will just sit in front of the screen and zone out whenever the t.v. is on. Frankly, there have been many, many occasions when I've wished that he was one of those kids, if only for an hour here and there; it would have helped with my sanity (not to mention the cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.). But for him, it was almost always just background. He'd be playing with his cars, for example, and he'd look up and watch the show for a minute or two and then go right back to his cars for the next ten minutes.

LR has now invented a new use for our television set. You guessed it, telling time. While he remains completely unable to properly read a clock, even our digital ones, he is now able to confidently tell me "Dora the Explorer is on. It's seven o'clock."

I have no clue if I should turn off the t.v. completely, or buy him one for his room.

Online Coloring Books and Drawing Tools for Children

I came across some interesting online Coloring Books and thought I would share. They're provided by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and while they also have conventional coloring books to print out and use, they have some nifty online drawing tools as well.

First, they have what are essentially online coloring books. They provide a wide variety of different pictures with each one divided up into small parts (they look a lot like a picture made out of stained glass). At the bottom, they have different "crayons." You simply click on the color you want and then click on whichever small part(s) you want and it gets filled-in with that color. You can change anything you've done, including putting it back as plain white.

LR has very little problem doing any of this and he's just shy of being four. Granted, he does have a fair amount of experience with the computer and he's also able to do such things as moving the page up and down, hitting the "Back" button, and closing out a window entirely. [Note to self: don't leave important pages in other open windows unless they're bookmarked]. But I don't think most children will have serious problems once they've put some practice into it even if a computer mouse is new to them. However, I should warn you that many of the pictures do have one, or several, areas that are very small and thus very difficult to color; you may want to point out to your child just how hard they are so they don't get too upset if/when they can't do it.

They also have an interesting (free) online drawing program here. This one is a bit harder to use but it lets you draw your own picture, allowing you to "draw" in a variety of colors and patterns. The have many, many other things on their "Kid's Pages," including songs and jokes among others, but I haven't tried them out yet.

All of this is just wonderful for developing fine motor control, hand-eye coordination, and computer experience. They may as well get started now, they'll certainly be using them pretty much incessantly for the rest of their lives.

They're also great for rainy days, which we've had a week of. They're even better when your child has been stuck home for nine days (see my last post) and is going very, very stir crazy. Best of all -- they're free.

Enjoy!

The Things We Do

Well, the poor Munchkin's sick. I've had a cold since the end of last week and apparently he caught it. (Although it probably came home with him in that petri dish they call a preschool). Last night he began tugging at his ear and told me it was hurting. Of course, this was about two minutes after the doctor's office closes. He was up most of the night crying on and off despite some attempts on our part to help with Tylenol. At least he got to sleep in Mommy & Daddy's bed.

Went to the doctor yesterday. Normally, this would be ample cause for major anxiety on the part of both parent and child. Luckily, our pediatrician is so incredibly good with him that he actually likes going to see her. No really! As far as he's concerned, a trip to the doctor means pushing elevator buttons, playing with a cool toy in the waiting room, getting read a story and playing with nifty crinkly-paper on the examining table before the doctor comes in, and then getting to play with the doctor. Granted, he hasn't gotten a shot from this doctor's office yet and his viewpoint may change quickly and drastically when he does, but in the meantime I'm definitely counting my blessings.

Anyway, the Munchkin has a "moderate" ear infection (I guess that doesn't sound too bad). He got a panda sticker and an antibiotic. In the past, the couple of times he's needed an antibiotic it's always been Amoxicillin. This usually comes pre-made with what they claim is a cherry flavor but which tasted like used bubblegum to me. No matter, LR loves the stuff calling it "Yummy Amoxicillin." (Yes, he really can routinely get out five-syllable words perfectly clearly and without hesitation).

This time the doctor wanted him to have something a bit stronger. The fact that this new stuff was only one dose per day and didn't need to be refrigerated made it an instant hit with Mommy and Daddy. Unfortunately, this time it came pre-made in what was apparently a not-so-yummy berry flavor. It took a trip back to the pharmacy for a pseudo-cherry flavor, a few drops of food coloring from Mommy in order to match the color of Amoxicillin, and then two hours of coaxing in order to actually get the dose into the sick child. In fact, I was reduced to telling him that this really was Amoxicillin; "Can't you tell from the color and the taste, sweetheart?" This from the Daddy who is constantly reassuring his son with "LR, you know I don't tell you things that aren't true."

But I'm going to have to leave the angst and the guilt for another day. Right now, I haven't slept since Monday night and all I know is that between some judiciously-timed Tylenol and some fabricated Amoxicillin my son is out cold and he's even in his own bed. I intend to enjoy it.

Worst Father in the World

I know that LR is exactly the same person as he was two weeks ago. Our going to a psychologist and hearing from someone else that our son has strengths and weaknesses that fall into a pattern making it probable that he has Asperger's or something else included in the Autistic Spectrum Disorders (ASD) category changes nothing. As I said in my first post: "Our son is still the exact same wonderful little person that he's always been."

And I mean it. I know it in my head and I even know it in my heart. So why do I find myself analyzing his behavior trying to figure out if this or that little thing is related? Why do I suddenly care more than I did before what other people think of his behavior? I know it's a cliche to say that "Anyone who doesn't appreciate him for who he is isn't worth wasting our time on. It's their loss." But many times cliches are cliches simply because they're true.

I love every single part of whom with all my heart.

But I still can't stop worrying about his behavior and what it might mean. And I still can't stop worrying about what other people think. See? Worst father in the world. Maybe I'm just being human. I hope so.

Too Sweet for Words

LR went on a field-trip with his school the other day. They went to a local farm, had a hayride and picked fresh strawberries. Why didn't my school do cool things like that?? Anyway, that afternoon, when I asked him if he wanted to eat some of them he said "Yes" and insisted that I wash five of them. I knew there was no chance of him eating five strawberries. While he's remarkably good about eating a wide variety of foods, and about trying new ones, getting him to eat anything in quantity has always been.....um, trying. Being a good Daddy (And one who's learned the hard way about picking his battles; this one didn't even come close) I proceeded to wash five of them figuring I could always eat whatever he didn't. That was apparently the plan all along. He categorically refused to eat more than one, saying that the rest were all "for Daddy." I thanked him several times for sharing. But, despite being an incredibly sweet gesture, I didn't think too much about it because one of his best qualities is that he will almost always offer to share whatever he's eating, even chocolate.

But tonight, after we got him to sleep, I realized that we had forgotten to give him more of his strawberries. Time was very much of the essence because they were all very ripe to begin with and apparently four-year-old fingers tend to squish very ripe strawberries. But my wife corrected me. It turns out that she had offered them to him more than once today and was turned down each time. Why? "They're Daddy's strawberries. I picked them for Daddy."

He may not know it yet, but he's got a "Get Out of Jail Free" card for at least a week.

Being Polite is Never a Bad Thing

We have, of course, been trying (and trying) to teach LR manners over the course of his short life. This recently bore surprising fruit.

I was on the phone and LR came in from the other room. He walked right over, said "Excuse me Daddy," and then stood there waiting for me to acknowledge him. For a moment I was a bit stunned, because this occurrence was about as likely as Bill O'Reilly moving to Massachusetts and marrying Barney Frank. Once I collected my thoughts I asked my friend to hold on and said "Thank you very much for saying 'excuse me,' what can I do for you sweetheart?" Surprisingly, he had already turned around and was halfway out of the room by the time I asked him this. I tried again. "LR, did you want something?" He turned and said "No. I burped in the other room so I came in to say 'excuse me.'"

It may not be what I expected, but I'll take whatever I can get.

Analyzing Myself to Death

I took a quick look at my last post and realized something. We always considered LR's hair-splitting legal arguments as very amusing and indicative of nothing more than a bit of a stubborn streak combined with one heck of a good vocabulary. (I may be wrong about the vocabulary, but the other three-year-olds I know don't have the word loveseat in their vocabulary and they certainly can't distinguish it from a sofa; half of my adult friends can't do that last part!)

But now I'm constantly over-analyzing every single thing my son says or does to see if he really does (or doesn't) meet some of the diagnostic criteria for anything on the Autism Spectrum of Disorders. So now, instead of simply enjoying his retorts I spend my nights worrying about whether or not the examples I gave are actually a "symptom." Many tests for ASD include questions asking whether your child is "overly literal." So which is it? Can anyone possibly know for sure? At the end of the day, does it really matter??

I'm trying to convince myself that it absolutely does not matter in the slightest. I'll keep trying that for the next few days and let you know how it turns out. Although I think we all the answer already.

As an aside, when your little one comes back with a great line (intended or otherwise), it does get more than a little difficult to reprimand them while you're trying to keep yourself from giggling. C'mon, don't try and give me that little superior look disparaging my parenting skills; you've all been there and you know it.

My Son the Lawyer

LR has a strong history of trying to get out of trouble by splitting hairs. After he repeatedly splashed his Daddy and his Nana while using a wading pool last summer, I asked him "What happens when you splash Mommy or Daddy on purpose when your in the bath tub?" I asked this question fully secure in the knowledge that he knew the answer was "I have to get out" because we went through this exchange at least twice a week. He looked up and replied, fairly indignantly, "Not in a bathtub. In a pool!"

Another easy example is the following exchange. LR knows very well that jumping on the sofa or his bed is very strictly Not Allowed. When I saw him doing just that on one of the sofas I asked him "Are you allowed to jump up and down on the sofa?" He quickly came back with "Not a sofa. It's a loveseat!"

And he's not simply preparing himself for law school with comebacks that rival every prosecutor I've ever met, he polishing up his bargaining skills as well.

My wife was at LR's school the other day. He was washing his hands at the sink and just as he finished his teacher asked him "How many paper towels do we use?" (Left to his own devices, LR will happily use at least 5 paper towels at a time and his teacher is well aware of this). LR shot her a grin and hopefully said "Three?" "Nice try. How many ?" He came back with an even more hopeful "Two?" "No. How many?" He looked down at the sink and, in a slow, drawn out tone of voice filled with such dejection and regret that it's typically reserved for a baseball player whose team has just lost 13 to 0, said "One."

As I sit here writing these stories I'm beginning to see a bit of a theme. Each of these exchanges occurred after one of us asked him a question. I suppose if we're going to keep on giving him openings like these we deserve whatever answer we get.

The Ups and Downs

Our son, LR, has always had incredible verbal skills. When you combine a "good ear" (for music, sounds, anything), with an ability to mimic sounds well enough to easily end up in the principal's office for doing teacher impressions, and attach them to an amazing memory you end up with a child who knows one heck of a lot of words. He had even begun learning how to read when he was about 3 1/4 with a natural ease that was just wonderful to watch. Words became just one more toy on his shelves that he wanted to take down and play with.

For some reason, about 5 or 6 months ago, he just stopped. Completely "cold turkey." He would sometimes still want his letter and word oriented videos, he would still, sometimes, be willing to tell me what sounds individual letters, but overall he was clearly just not interested. The number of books he wanted me to read to him also declined.

Then, the other night, my wife started to read a bedtime story to him and he took the and simply began reading it. Well. Very well. He certainly stumbled over the big words (like "especially;" heck, I know adults who would stumble over that one), but he just asked for help whenever he needed it and then went on. He ended up reading her the whole book!

While he definitely needs some help in some areas, it's nights like that that help me get through some of the other days. Thankfully, nights like that are definitely in the majority.

And So It Begins....

Well, it's official. We met with the psychologist yesterday and it seems that our 4 year old son almost definitely has Asperger Syndrome, Pervasive Developmental Disorder, or some other equally horrible sounding problem falling somewhere in the area of "Autistic Spectrum Disorders." What this basically boils down to is that our beautiful, brilliant, loving, and generally adorable child is going to have a more difficult life than he would otherwise.

It's funny. Up until recently, it would never have occurred to us that his being brilliant would count as a strike against him. While it's not something used to make a diagnosis, above-average intelligence tends to correlate fairly well with Asperger's. (And no, the intelligence assessment is not just the typical "my kid's the smartest one in his class!"; we had his IQ tested while he was being assessed and his verbal IQ is well over the 99th percentile).

I am well aware that this is not a death sentence and, unfortunately, far worse things happen to parents and children every day. But in no way can I think of this as a "good" thing.

At the same time, nothing has actually changed. Our son is still the exact same wonderful little person that he's always been. Even better, now that we have a better idea of what his strengths and weaknesses are (and we all have our own) we are in a much better position to try and help him. Working with the psychologist and his incredibly caring teacher, we can begin using those strengths (incredible memory, incredible language skills, and overall high cognitive ability) to help him work through his weaknesses. As an aside, if every teacher in the world was half as caring and passionate about their students as his is, the world would be a truly amazing place. Every day, I thank G-d for bringing her to us just as we're learning how badly we need someone like that right now).

So....He's having a problem understanding that his friends don't like him talking to them with his face only 6 inches away from theirs? Okay. We just have to get him to learn this. He may never truly understand why this is the case, but there's no reason at all that he can't be taught this just as easily as we all try and teach our children that there are "some things you just don't do." He's having a problem understanding how someone feels based on a subtle facial expression? Okay, we can help him to begin to simply memorize that "when someone's eyebrows are like "this," and their mouth is like "that," and their eyes are like "that," it usually means that they're feeling angry. (For example, I've been told that adults with Asperger Syndrome are sometimes sent to classes very similar to the ones that police officers are sent to in order to learn body-language, e.g., to help them know when someone is lying).

We know it's not going to be easy for any of us. But not only does he have good support from both his family and his teachers, he truly wants to learn these things. He's also engaging enough, and caring enough, that other children like to be with him, usually enjoy playing with him, and are almost always willing to cut him some slack when he's just "not getting it."

We're truly blessed to have him. And I sincerely believe that anyone else who allows him into their life is very definitely richer for having done so.