Potty training Isaiah has been somewhat of a slow process. We actually were motivated to start potty training him because one of his cohorts (2 months older) was trained this past summer, and was doing well with it all. We were jealous of their diaper bills (or the lack thereof), and decided that maybe we'd give it a shot with Isaiah too. The other kid is very good with communicating, and has an extremely advanced vocabulary list, but I'd say that Isaiah is pretty good as well, so we thought that we'd give it a shot.

So far he has learned that if he sits on the potty (which plays "Royal" pep melodies if he makes a deposit--there is a sensor in the bottom) he gets a cracker, but that's about it. He has made a few successful deposits, for which he was given a cookie, but we're pretty sure that those deposits were coincidental, and he just happened to be ready during the 20 minutes when he was sitting there. He basically has learned that when he wants a cracker, he just goes and sits down and he will get one. I'm not overly psyched about this, as you can imagine. So we're going to step back a bit and start giving him crackers if he tells us that he has made a deposit in his diaper. We are hoping that by using the cloth diapers that do not let you forget that you have wet yourself will help him develop a dislike for diapers and anticipate when he needs to be changed a little better. Disposable diapers are great in that all the wonderful ecofriendly (??) chemicals absorb the wetness like there's no tomorrow, so the kids develop fewer diaper rashes and all, but I think maybe we'll try the cloth ones for now just to develop some animosity between Isaiah and diapers. I hope that's not cruel. Too bad if it is, we're going to try it. :) We're still hoping that he will be out of diapers before Furoshiki arrives, but I am willing to be patient in the meantime and let him take this at his own pace. Any tips or hints on how others trained their kids are always welcome.

Onto cleaner but maybe more gruesome subjects--yesterday Isaiah inherited my childhood nickname, "Shiner" (thanks, Dad). Dan was playing with him in the basement while I worked on some editing upstairs in our bedroom, and I heard some commotion and more prolonged crying than usual. I was curious, but figured that he stopped crying, and Dan was down there, so I kept working (Mom of the year award, here I come!). I heard them come up to hte main floor, and that is when I heard Dan say, "Wow, Isaiah, that is a nice shiner!! Let's go show Mom!" followed by clambering up the stairs and some awesome "Mama? Mama? Mama?" calling to me. I called back and when they got in my room, I saw that he had a shiner that spanned from under his eye and reached across his eye up to his forehead. According to Dan, "he pushed himself into the coffee table". Right. It didn't help that Dan was tossing him around in a moving blanket, but I can see how a toddler could 'push themself' into a coffee table. (Dan's parents broke him of lying early on in life, and now he is really bad at it.) Anyway, it had faded quite a bit by this morning, when we had to go to church, but we debated about giving him a sandwich board sign saying, "Please don't call Child Protective Services." Luckily there are enough people at church who raised kids (boys, in particular), and no one has taken us aside yet to discuss the demerits of child abuse. ...maybe they should...

One final thing--Isaiah started Stay and Play (half-day day care thing at our church) officially last Thursday. I must admit I thoroughly enjoyed the extra 3 hours to myself, and I think he had a blast. He'll be going twice a week, and I am so curious to see what he learns (English, for one?).