Making Cookies

Thomas absolutely loves to help around the house. The toys we have for him have pretty much become obsolete. He'd much rather help Sorcha cook, clean, whatever it is she's doing at the time. It's pretty funny. You say the words "help mama?" and he just lights up. So, Gigi came over the other day and they decided to make cookies. Of course, Thomas wanted to be right there in the thick of it. Sorcha was able to take some cute pictures of him helping. Here you go...

Potty Time

I know I haven't posted in a while, and I'll try to get some updates up soon. The biggest new thing around here is that we've officially started learning to use the potty. We're using the Montessori method which is essentially putting them in underwear and staying home for 3-6 weeks until they get it. Montessori believed that kids have a "sensitive" period, or a window of opportunity for learning the potty (and many other things) between 12 and 18 months. She said that if you miss it, it can be a long time before they're interested again.
Thomas is certainly interested. He was also showing all the signs of readiness, so even though he seems really young (just turned 16 months), we're doing it. I'm not going to push him, but if he's ready, he'll do it.

We're on day 6 right now and I am just astounded at his progress. The first day we went through 14 pairs of training pants. He would usually catch himself and not let a huge puddle out, but he also couldn't seem to relax on the potty and let it all out there either, so there was a TON of back and forth. After several days he started letting more and more go in the potty. So, here's the progression of how many pants we've gone through each day, starting on the first day:
14
9
6
5
3
and so far today he's gone through ZERO. We're still in our original pair from this morning. I also didn't clean up a single drop of pee off the floor yesterday! It's truly unbelievable. He naps in training pants and so far has only woken up wet (and then only slightly) once. We still use diapers at night b/c he still nurses, but once he stops nursing at night, we plan to try to wear underpants then too.

Don't get me wrong...we still have a ways to go, but he is getting there and making progress every day. We need to get to the point where he will just pee right when we sit on the potty instead of sitting there for 20 minutes. Sometimes he will go right away, but not every time. We also haven't had any poop in the potty yet. Thank goodness he only goes once a day!

So, overall, I'm SOOO glad we're doing this. I'm starting to go stir crazy at the house, but hopefully our seclusion will end soon.

p.s. the picture's not great b/c he jumps up every time he sees the camera b/c he wants to see the picture we just took.

Learning to Jump

Thomas has been trying to jump lately. At first he would just get up on his toes, but now he's jumping and falling on his bottom. Too cute!