Month 24: We should stop counting months now
Two years: what? how?
The last couple months have been jam-packed with big leaps forward, as Toby surprises us each day with more words, songs, ideas, and emotions. She's showing us a very lively personality in the works!
Now that I'm making time to write this edition, I feel like I could ramble on and exhaust everybody's patience with tons of stories and thoughts from the last two months. So, instead of that, I'm going to pick two headlines and ramble about only those topics.
It's potty time!
Potty training has not come easily to me. I was not the best student, and I am surely not the best teacher. But we're trying.
We set up a little potty in the bathroom about five months ago, told her what it was for, and helped her see how she would use it when she was ready. We determined she was ready when she lost her patience for diaper changes and showed consistent interest in talking about her parents' trips to the bathroom. For a couple days, her favorite thing was to put diapers on her toys, then take them off, then put them on, then off, then on, then hide a paper diaper in the laundry, then throw away a reusable diaper, then find a new toy that needs a diaper. (If you don't understand the exhausted tone here, you need the subtext: I was the one doing these pretend diaper changes.)
Progress towards our goal has been slow. But I stand by our approach as the only one that would/will work. Of the methods we learned about, we thought parent-led potty training would be the way to go. So, on a semi-regular schedule, we lead Toby to sit on the potty, play games, read books, sing songs, and change into a fresh pull-up.
We've been trying this for about a month and we are just starting to see some successful trips. We don't make a big deal of it if she goes in her pull-up instead of the potty, but she gets an M&M for a complete sit-flush-handwash routine, and a special treat if she produces something for the potty.
There have been two big challenges for us:
- She refused to sit on the potty for any amount of time.
- She didn't/doesn't want to poop.
It seems cruel to everyone that potty-readiness is signaled by a desire for independence and autonomy. For the first time in their little life, a kid is saying "no" and using their body to refuse things they don't want to do. But in order for them to be independent on the potty, they need to learn how to follow a strict, multi-step process with messy consequences if you mess it up.
Anyway, I'm not sure what got her over the initial potty-aversion, but now we have a bit of the opposite problem. The potty is too much fun. After bedtime, she sometimes asks for "curtain call" trips to the potty, just to hang out and draw in her coloring books with us.
We're still figuring out how to help her build and maintain a regular pooping schedule. I am confident her diet has enough fiber, but she often goes two days between movements. Which, of course, makes them into bigger events. We kinda have to scramble the jets whenever she lets loose. You can get into a pretty classic negative feedback loop when you start withholding poop, and we're doing what we can to steer out of that skid.
(Side note for any new parent who doesn't know: some - but not all - of these training pants can un-fasten along the sides just like diapers. Making for easy, clean removal, just like you're used to with diapers. Our first ones didn't do that and we had some noteworthy drag-downs.)
"Hey Siri, rain rain"
In my role as Stay-at-Home Chad, I get a lot more opportunities to sing and play music than I did as a software engineer. It's one of my favorite parts of the job, right behind getting to take naps and go outside.
Toby is very musical. She won't perform for many people, so it is a great honor for Szuyin and I to hear her sing. Her go-tos are "Rain, Rain, Go Away" and "The Wheels on the Bus," which are definitely recognizable to us and grow closer to the standard with every rendition. She also likes "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep" and "Baby Shark." All of these songs have an opening for us to slip in the names of our friends, neighbors, pets, and household objects somewhere. If you've met Toby in person, we probably have a verse about what you do on the bus all through the town.
We've been listening to and singing these preschool/nursery rhyme songs for basically her whole life, so it doesn't surprise me that she's picking them up. But she definitely is a quick learner. Which leads to possibly our biggest blunder as parents: we played "Let It Go" for her one time. Once. And she's already trying to sing it. And asking our phones/smart speakers to play it for her. I knew it was an addicting song, but I did not expect it to infect a two-year-old on its first shot. Let the storm rage on.
We continue to go to Music Together classes every week they are in session here. In group settings, Toby tends to watch and learn before she jumps into action, so she's not doing a ton of singing and dancing during class, although she's more participatory each week. But she has a great time and we've made some actual friends there! We're very grateful for our music class community.
In other news, we are expecting our second baby in December! We'll spend the second half of this year prepping the household for the new addition and all the changes that are sure to follow.
It has been hard for me to muster the energy for my hobbies and side projects recently, so I'm not going to promise another edition of this newsletter. Also, we are kinda putting all our options back on the table as the next chapter opens up, so I may be going back to work in 2025. We will see what happens! The only constant is change.
Thanks for reading and letting me have this little space to talk about myself and Toby!