Archive for the Category »Tales from Mommyland «

Big A has a wife.

Or rather, he has a girlfriend whom will someday be his wife.

Or rather, he has a couple of girlfriend who will someday be his wife and the wives of a few other boys.

These are the things that five-year-olds discuss and plan.

I really thought that the boyfriend/girlfriend husband/wife discussions would come a bit later. After all, isn’t there supposed to a “cooty” phase in there somewhere?!

His main squeeze is an adorable redhead. They share a birthday and last Thursday their birthday fell on the night of the daycare Christmas program. After all of the classes had a turn at singing their songs, the director asked Big A and his Lady to the front of the stage. She announced that it was their birthday and asked the entire audience to sing “Happy Birthday” to them.

It was adorable!

After the show, they walked around together for a while. Here’s the lovely couple. (And notice the cookie crumbs and sprinkles on Big A’s lips…I swear he is Pig Pen when he eats!)

Big A and his girlfriend

Don’t they make a sweet pair? Notice her bouquet. I think we could start planning the ceremony now.

“Da da da daaaaaa, da da da daaaaaa…”

Togetherness, bathroom style.

brothers sitting on the toilet together

I think that’s all that needs to be said.

In fact, I’m not really sure I could say anything because I’m a bit speechless at this amount of brotherly love.

Warning: Bad puns ahead.

We’ve been trying to get on board the potty train with Little A for a few months now.

As mentioned before, Big A was a potty training champ. One weekend and he was done.

Flush with a victory under our belt, The Doc and I thought Little A would get on board with things just as quickly and easily.

Woah. Were we ever wrong.

We’ve tried encouraging him with “big boy” underwear, offered treats, read potty stories together in the bathroom, followed a Pirate Potty adventure plan complete with a pirate hat and stickers for going “where X marks the spot,” and switching to pull-up pants in place of plain old diapers so he can pull his own pants up and down.

Nothing has worked.

He’s all for going pee in his potty chair. Sometimes. Other times, he’ll happily flash a smile and then tell you that he just peed in his pants and laugh. Stinker. Him, not the peed in diaper.

But speaking of stinking things, so far we’ve had zero luck with with our #2 child willingly making #2s in the potty.

We have almost run out of ideas. You could say we’ve been blocked up and needed something to get things moving again.

(I told you this would be full of bad puns. Don’t complain now.)

Here is our latest — and I dare say GREATEST — idea.

Dah dah dah…introducing the…

potty training chart with Thomas the Tank Engine

Potty Train!

(Hopefully it doesn’t take you the half hour it took The Doc to connect the dots. Potty Train. Potty. Train. Ing.)

Little A has been drooling over two new Thomas the Tank Engine characters in the store. So he now has a goal.

For each “deposit of coal” he leaves in the potty, he gets a Thomas sticker along his track. With each successful #2, he can pick a sticker for #1, #6 or #5. (That’s Thomas, Percy and James for those of you not in the Thomas-and-Friends-know.)

He has a sticker chart on the wall in the bathroom at home and a matching one at his daycare, so that we can “track” all of his business. I hope that he’s motivated enough to get the new trains that he decides going on the potty is worth the effort.

I’ll post updates and would like any back-up (ahem) ideas from you in case this doesn’t work. Chime in!

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