A Day of Firsts...

By Tiffany George

October 6th, 2008 was a big day for Andrew. First of all, he didn’t take a nap. I put him up in his crib around 1:15 and he may have actually dozed for 5ish minutes before Natalie woke up crying. From then until around 3:30 he just laid there, without sleeping, playing some, but mostly relaxing. When I went to get him he said “AnYou little nap”, so he knew he had not slept well.

When I went to get Andrew from his nap, I put away some laundry and he saw the stack of new Elmo underpants, nice and clean, that I put on his shelf (we went to Kohl’s on Saturday and he picked them out himself). He seemed pretty excited by the sight of them.

When we got downstairs he went pee on the potty just as he usually does when he gets up from his nap. When he was all done, I asked him if he wanted to put on a diaper or his new underpants, just as I do nearly every time he goes pee. Much to my shock, today he said underpants! I put him in those cute little Elmo underpants and he looked adorable. He thought he was very cool. He had two accidents within the next 45 minutes, so I’m not sure that he understands the concept yet, but we’ll keep working.

He typically hates whenever his clothes get wet, so I had thought that if he peed his pants he would go nuts, but he didn’t seem to mind or barely even notice the first time. The second time he did notice and he wanted to put on new Elmo underpants immediately. I think he wanted to try to get to wear all 7 pair on one day! I explained to Andrew that he didn’t want to pee on Elmo and get him all wet, and from then on he didn’t have an accident for the rest of the night.

After I put on his second pair of underpants, he kept running around the house, saying "AnYou trying fart in underpants". I have no idea if he was really trying to poop, or if this was some silly little joke that he was playing on me, either way, Daddy was proud :o)

Last night was also a tubby night, but Daddy was giving Natalie a tubby in the blow up tubby when I wanted to get Andrew's started, so I decided that tonight was the night to take the leap into the big tub for Mr. Cutie Pants. We had tried this many months back and it was clear that he was terrified, so we had dropped it.

He was equally as terrified last night, but once I made the decision, I knew I needed to follow through. He was screaming and clutching onto me as if I was about to put him in a tub of boiling water. It was probably the most scared and most upset he has ever been. It was so sad. I just kept hugging him and kissing him, saying that I understood that he was kind of scared because it was something new, but that he would like it.

I had bought some color tabs for the tubby, so he dropped one in and saw his tubby water turn blue and he seemed to start to calm down. We got some measuring cups to stir up the water and he liked that too. By this time he was actually smiling, but then the time came to get into the water. It took some serious coaxing, but once he was in and sat down, he loved it! He loved that he could move all around the tubby, and that he could really play with the toys.

He had gotten these duck suction cup “tubby stickers” as I called them, so I took them out instantly to get him into the joy of the big tubby. I told him he could put them where ever he wanted in the tubby. I also took out this big boat that Emma had given him two Christmases ago that was too big to fit in the blow up tubby. He loved it!

My last item in my bag of tricks was this wind up dolphin I had bought over the summer for his big day in the big tub. He ended up loving the tub so much that he did not want to get out. He was practically shivering because he was so chilled, but he still wanted to play. The cutest thing was that he would lay down on his belly in the tubby and sort of “swim” around. I told him to do this to help warm up and boy did he do it a lot! I am so proud of you for doing this buddy. I know that you already had a new change today with the underpants, and you didn’t even take a nap, but you still ended up being my hero! I love you so much!

After the tubby, it was time to get ready for bed. I had already decided that once we made the switch to underpants, we were not going to go back to diapers. I had bought pull ups for him to wear for naps and nighttime, so last night was his first night in a pull up. This change also went contested, but in the end, he went to bed with a smile.

We’ll see how wearing the underpants goes for the rest of the week!

Here are a few pictures from Anna's first birthday party too. It was great for the kids to get to spend some quality time with KJ & Ang and of course Sammy & Anna too. Much like Anna, Natalie was unfazed by the day's festivities, as shown below!

And here are some adorable pictures of Miss Natalie Jane testing out her new "I need to scrunch up my nose when I smile" smile!