Like Adam trying to hids his nakedness…Ethan took off his clothes to get out of bedtime…this is the only appropriate picture that can be shown:) 
I guess Ethan has gotten used to walking around without clothes for using the potty so now he takes off his clothes when he is in bed. He takes off all his clothes during naptime and bedtime and then yells “potty, pee.” I think in an effort for us to let him out of bed. Last night when I put his clothes on in the dark I discovered this morning that I had put his pullup on inside out.
I was reminiscing today about when I was working (pre-Ethan) and I got sick, I would go home early from work, retire to my bed and not get out until I was better. Not so, post-Ethan. I haven’t been taking my allergy meds lately and I think I may have a sinus infection. I don’t function well when I have a fever. George was supposed to do a 24hr shift in Boca today but stayed home instead. Thank you! Unfortunately there was a crisis at his other job so he was on the phone most of the day. He did his best to watch Ethan while talking on the phone but you know men and multi-tasking:) So I tried to watch Ethan as well but I felt horrible. Poor Ethan had numerous accidents today in the potty training dept. He had been doing so well, going peepee whenever he felt the urge to go but with me sick and George distracted…and what was I thinking giving him raisins as a snack when he is potty training? (Obviously this means no success using the potty for pooping).
Ethan began his third gymnastics session today. The last two sessions he had the same teacher, whom he had become quite attached to. Today with a new teacher and all new classmates, Ethan had trouble adjusting to the changes. He saw his old teacher leading another class and became quite upset. He didn’t want to do the routines and didn’t even want to do the parachute (one of his favorites). I had him say hello to his old teacher before we left. He has such a difficult time with changes (if it’s genetic it comes from his father).
He was doing great with the potty thing all day. He had just used the potty and I was busy putting groceries away. He was walking around naked but I wasn’t monitoring him since he had just used the potty. He was in the living room and started fussing and saying “sock, wet.” I walked over there and low and behold he had pooped on the rug and walked over it in this socks and smeared it everywhere. If he had done it in his diaper I would have said that it was the most poop he had ever produced in one sitting. I asked him to go play in his room so I could clean it up and while I’m doing that I hear him playing in the bathroom. He had taken the part of the potty that holds his urine and was using it to scoop water out of the toilet onto the floor. Another mess…I was almost in tears and he was looking at me like I was looney. Looney?! He’s the one crapping on the floor!
I posted a few months ago about Ethan getting a potty. He had demonstrated some interest in the process so I got him one to get acquainted with. I didn’t really have any expectations about it. He was fascinated with it and for a while used it about once a day. Then the newness wore off and he wouldn’t even sit on it. I also noted that he fit most if not all of the developmental signs of readiness for learning to use the potty so I decided to take it a step further. While he had gone potty on his potty once a day for a while it seemed that he didn’t care to go further with it. I think this is because he didn’t like to be taken away from his toys to sit on it and the diaper is much more convenient. And as much as I dislike food rewards (though having studied Skinnerian psychology I understand that it is effective, I have issues with the long term consequences of such rewards) I decided that for a short term thing like potty training it may be the best thing to get Ethan motivated away from the diaper. I’m thinking of the diaper as a habit or something he is attached to in some way and needs to be weaned off it so to speak. So that’s where the M&M’s come in. The past several days he has been walking around the house without his diaper and whenever he uses the potty he gets one M&M. Since he never gets any chocolate he is really excited about it. So far he’s gone about five times each day and I don’t always have to tell him. He seems to recognize when he needs to go and he has gone on his own to sit and go. Such a big boy! This process will obviously take a while but so far it is going well. I think I will wait for him to have proficiency at home before I have him try going out in public.
Ethan caught some sort of stomach bug. Thankfully it didn’t last long. I lost count how many times he threw up. I wasn’t quick enough and he threw up on our new upholstered ottoman. We had towels and sheets down all over the living room but he found the one spot open. It didn’t stain but I’m not sure about the smell…
One of the neat things about staying home with Ethan is that I see the slightest changes in him and get to experience him learning new things. In the past month or so he has been combining several words together, not quite a real sentence, but on his way to one. For example, “daddy, bye bye, car.” This is for “Daddy went bye bye in the car.” It’s exciting to see him try new words and repeat what he hears other people say. He’s really good about remembering where things are in town as well. When we drive by neighborhoods where his friends live, he says their name. I usually have to go to the bank almost every day and it is next to the place where we go every Tuesday to get my allergy shot. Whenever I go to the bank, Ethan says, “shot, shot.” He’s also been counting objects. There’s a towel in the bathroom that has five ducks on it and he counted each one the other day. He recognizes half the letters of the alphabet. We’ve learned that he does not sleep well unless he exerts himself physically both before his nap and before bedtime. Otherwise it takes him forever to fall asleep. One day this week it rained really bad, with hail and everything, after his nap, so the rest of the afternoon we stayed inside and didn’t go anywhere. It took him two hours to fall asleep that night. He hasn’t been on any asthma meds for about a month now and he has been a delight to be around this month. The negativity and constant whining we had going on (because of the meds) for quite a while has stopped. I fear the next time he catches something.
