Potty learning; swimming; Happy Valentine's Day!

I'd always planned to follow Carter's lead on potty learning, partly because we were told my multiple people that if you wait until they decide they're ready, it's easy. But mostly because we're lazy, and I didn't want it to be any harder than it needed to be. ;-)

His third birthday came and went with zero interest in using the potty. And then about two weeks ago, he suddenly decided he wanted to sit on the potty. And then he peed, to my tremendous surprise! Ever since then, when we're home he stays naked from the waist down and will use the potty. We put a pullup on him when we go out, and he's even used public toilets every now and then. He even poops on the potty, though he often starts on the floor, heh.

We've tried putting undies on him around the house, but that doesn't work very well yet. It seems like he's just more aware of his body when he's naked, and so he's more likely to realize he has to go and run off to the potty. When he's in underwear or a pullup, he'll just go in them. I'm assuming it will click at some point, and we're not pushing it. We've tried really hard not to show any excitement at his toilet use, but to be very matter of fact about it. That was another piece of advice I kept hearing; to make certain they don't realize that you're excited about the toilet, because it can easily become a power thing.

His cloth dapers were on the verge of being too small, so I went ahead and packed them away after a day or so. It was a little sad, because he's been wearing those Bum Genius diapers since he was about 4 months old. Happily, they have a decent resale value, so I'll soon sort them all and sell them online. I have every cloth diaper he's ever worn, including the little tiny preemie ones, so selling them is going to be a big job.

Carter was never really interested in little potties, and at this point he's big enough to go on the toilet anyway. So I went on a search for a toilet seat with a built-in child seat, and I really love this one. We put it in two of our bathrooms, and it's really helped a lot. The child seat folds completely up into the adult seat, and it's very sturdy. The top of the seat has a magnet in it, so the child seat doesn't just fall down. I especially love that a regular toilet seat cover still fits. Highly recommended!



Swimming lessons are still going well. Here is a video of Carter swimming today. The level he's at now is called Aquatots (it was previously Waterbabies), and they're starting to work on actual swimming strokes. The other kids in his class have all been swimming for as long as he has (almost two years now), and they're all really good! They're learning to pop their heads up to take a breath while they swim, and they're all swimming about 20 feet independently.



Happy Valentine's Day! We got Carter a little kitchen for Valentine's Day, and this is one of the most complicated toys to assemble I've ever seen. I worked on it for two hours today and still didn't get it finished! It's going to be really cool, though. Carter is already playing with it, even though it's not done. I'll post a picture of it next time.

Carter has been saying "Happy Valentine's Day" to everyone today, and has given lots of Valentine hugs and kisses. There's not much sweeter than your child saying, "I need to give you a big Valentine's Day hug, Mommy!" Awwww... :-)