Then the dirt. This weekend is a big weekend for several reasons. The two most important are: I'm putting my raised beds together finally and we're switching Ragsy to underwear. Switching Ragsy over has been a long time in coming. In the room he's in at daycare, even though he's stayed dry all day, they've encouraged me to keep him in pull-ups, I think because they don't want to deal with the mess if there's an accident. They say that he needs to be pooping on the potty everyday. I'm not buying it. We listened at first, then our Parents as Teacher educator told us, "You know, there's nothing in it for them to potty train." Then the lightbulb went off. Duh. There really isn't anything in it. So, as she suggested, we waited for a long weekend and here we are - long weekend, making the switch.
He's stayed dry all day, but it's only 3:30 and he's napping. I expect it's very likely he'll wake up wet. Oh, well. If he learns to wake up when he needs to go, it will have been worth it. Apparently other parents of kids in this room have done the same thing we are. We haven't switched to a different room (where they train earlier) because they do so well with him in every other respect. But I'll be glad for him when he's in pre-school.
Anyway, the other big thing, putting the beds together, isn't so much a huge deal to anyone else but me, but it's extremely cathartic. I've got one done and one to go, but before I do number two, I need to dig up all the sod in that area. I just put the other one over a bed I created last year. Now I need to figure out how to get dirt into them because even I don't think I should be hauling around 40 50-pound bags of dirt and manure. I'm only 3 and a half months pregnant, but I've done that while not pregnant and it's not pleasant. I think I'll have a local nursery deliver. If they refuse to put it directly into the bed (a distinct possibility), I can get a wheelbarrow. My back can handle that.
So, that's our big weekend. What used to seem totally lame to me when I wasn't a homeowner really gets me excited now. There's something incredibly satisfying about planting a garden. And I never thought I'd be so excited about my child's bathroom habits.
3 comments:
I understand completely about both the potty training, and the gardening. We actually liked the idea of a small yard when we bought our house because it was less to mow. And then I bought a rose bush, and everything's been downhill since then :) Never knew I'd like to garden. And now I'm wishing we had more yard to work with.
Enjoy the raised beds :) Did you buy a kit or what kind of materials for sides (wood, stone, other? Curious because we have an existing bed in need of an overhaul and I'm trying to decide how to prep it for a veggie patch for next summer....
Good luck with the underwear. With Charlotte, too, we just had to switch her. She made quite a few messes for a while before she made the decision to stay dry (and it had to be her decision). Just be prepared to do some extra laundry for a while, and things will click. If Ragsy can stay dry most of the day, he can do the whole day once he realizes that its more trouble to make a mess and have to change clothes than it was to stop and go potty in the first place.
I'm doing raised beds. Despite having threatened to just go to Lowe's and get some wood, I opted for a kit I got at www.gardeners.com. I did it largely for the convenience - AD's not big into gardening like I am, so it would have taken forever to get us over there, rent a truck, get the boards and bring them here. And I'm not strong enough to do it myself. It was much easier to just have a kit delivered, and because I bought off-season, it cost about the same as all the lumber and truck rental would have. When I originally priced them at the beginning of the planting season, they were double what they are now.
I got cedar beds. I was originally going to use a wood composite, but decided not to. I'm having some dirt (a compost/topsoil mix) delivered from a local nursery this weekend. All I need now is a wheelbarrow. I was going to start from seed, but since it's so late in the season, I got some starter plants for those with a longer growth cycle (like tomatoes and chilis) or that I just didn't want to wait for (basil) and will start other stuff, like lettuces, beans and cucumbers from seed. I've also started some harder-to-find herbs (like fenugreek) from seed. I'm hoping I'll get to expand next year if this year works well and maybe even grow some fruit. I think I missed my calling as a farmer.
Thanks for the encouragement on the potty training. Ragsy did well today at daycare - no accidents until he got home, then 10 minutes later calmly announced that he'd peed on his train. I think you're right that it'll take a while to click. Unless he's slightly bored (i.e., not completely absorbed in something), he doesn't go unless we ask. It'll take a while for him to get that he shouldn't wait for us to ask.
Ada always lets me know promptly when she's had an accident. The other day she came running to find me and tell me the urgent news.
"I wet, Mommy! Needa wash da zebra!"
For some reason that tickled me so much that I chuckled about it for the rest of the afternoon. (She and Ellie were playing with hand puppets and Ada had, indeed, wet all over the zebra. Fortunately, he came through the laundry just fine.)
I'm all for the potty stories. Gardening, I detest. If anyone wants to come over and cultivate our bleeping half acre, you're welcome to it! I enjoyed my apartment balcony container gardening but now just resent the great outdoors.
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