EC Update

It's really working! After a few days of following him around with a cup, hovering over him waiting for him to pee, I got some idea of when he is likely to go. We had a few off days after the initial diaper-free weekend, but the last few have been realIy great.

During the observation period, I noticed that he always pees after naps and meals, so from then on I started pottying him with the 'pssss' cue every time he woke up and also left him diaper-free after meals. Getting him to pee on cue on waking proved to be so easy, I do it all the time now and it works really well, including when he wakes up at night. When we go out, he usually has a bottle and falls asleep in the stroller, so I just take him to a bathroom when he wakes up and presto, he pees in the pot! Today, I went to the mall and to a restaurant with him and Arron, and I pottied him before we left as well as three times while we were out and he peed every time. I only had to change his diaper once from 4:00 to 9: 30 pm.

At this point, it seems that he is really responding to the cue and that he is consolidating his pees a bit so he has bigger ones spaced further apart compared to before. Also, Arron noticed that Gunner makes a little shivery wu-hu-hu sound when he has to pee, so as soon as we hear him doing that, we take him to the can. I am still not catching all his poops, even though at first that seemed like the easy part, since he makes a distinct sound when he is about to go. The problem is that the window of opportunity for me to get him to the pot is pretty small from when he makes the sound to when he goes. Often enough, it seems to happen as soon as I leave the room for a moment. It's not a big deal, but I feel bad for him having to go in his diaper, especially since he really hates and struggles when I have to clean him up and change him afterwards

I am pretty blown-away by the fact that he seems to have picked up so quickly on what I am trying to do here. He seems to be more aware of his peeing than before and Arron and I are getting much better and knowing when he needs to go. So far, so good.

Signing Update

Gunner made the sign for 'more' today while I was giving him his lunch. We were already eating when Arron came in and joined us and he was skeptical when I told him the baby was signing, but then he saw it for himself and he was as thrilled and amazed as I was. It was so cute! He was bringing his chubby little hands together, tapping the curved fingers of one hand into the palm of the other. It was such a high to see this little creature communicating with us. Babies are so much smarter than I ever realized. I am so glad he is learning to sign and will not have to experience months of frustration at not being able to communicate.

I am so proud of my little butterbean and I love him so much.

Routines

Our whole day is nothing but routines. Here is a typical day, which I am noting for one day down  the road when I am feeling nostalgic.

 Wake up at 7:00, give him some milk and put him in the crib around 7:30, where he putters around  for a while until Daddy comes in and plays with him. Sometimes I go back to bed after putting him in his crib, other times I get up with him, but either way, the morning is always Daddy's time to play with Baby. We all have breakfast together at 9:30 and Daddy leaves at 10:00.

I let Gunner play while I clean up and around 11:00 we go back into the bedroom. He watches me make the bed. Then I put on an episode of some HBO show, wrap him in his blue blanket and nurse him sitting at the foot of the bed. Then, I put him down for a nap.

We have lunch at 1:30 and he gets another bottle at 2:00. Again, he plays while I clean up and again I take him into the bedroon for some milk and another nap when he seems to be getting tired, which is usually around 3:00. We mostly go out in the afternoons. On Tuesdays, he goes to the playgroup whenever I can bring him there. once a week, we go visit my parents. Joel comes over a couple times a week and we go out to the bookstore or a coffee shop. I take Gunner with me to go visit one of my friends about once a week. Yesterday, we went to Jana's 'jewelry party', which was like a Tupperware party for tacky home-made jewelry. Last week, we went to Leigh's first birthday party. Fridays, I work and baby either stays with Joel or comes along with me and hangs out in the playpen while I do my thing.

He has his third bottle before or after dinner, depending on how hungry he is and on whether dinner is delayed or not. We all eat dinner together somewhere around 6:30 and baby plays until his bath at 8:00. I give him a 'shower' in the kitchen sink, then rub lotion on him in the bedroom and put his pjs on. After that, we brush our teeth together. I let him play a bit in the bedroom while I set up to nurse him at the foot of the bed again.  I wrap him in his blue blanket and nurse him while watching more HBO stuff, and he is asleep every night by 9:00. It works like a charm.

Maternity leave is almost over.

As it is, I am so busy with feeding, pottying and playing with baby all day that I can't imagine having to work every day on top of it, but that day is coming soon. i don't even know what I will do with Gunner while I am working. Maybe I can get him into a home daycare-sometimes it's possible on a short notice. Otherwise, I'll try to get Joel to watch him, or I'll just have to bring him along. Although I can do that, I'd rather not because it means I have to dump him in the playen and he often ends up bawling most of the time because he hates being in there. It's really unpleasant to try to get stuff done with that racket in the background, especially since I hate to not attend to him when he needs something. I feel like I'm not being a good mother and I worry that he will become insecure if I ignore him when he is crying. He just wants to be interacting with someone all the time, which is just not possible when I'm working.

I might as well look into daycare now because though I put my name on a list for government subsidized care, it takes 2-3 years for one's name to come up and even if I don't need it now, I definitely will this summer because I'll be working with my keyboard and there is no way I can take Gunner along to do that.

God-father-dammit!

Joel is pissing me off. We had been in a relationship years ago that didn't work and had stayed close since, still loving each other very much as friends even though we both knew we were no good as a couple. We have been like brother and sister, like family, and he is also friends with Arron. I made him godfather when the baby was born and up until now he has been a huge part of Gunner's life, visiting several times a week, babysitting, giving him lots of love and affection, and saying all along how much he loves the baby and wants to help bring him up. On Valentines Day, he gave me a box of chocolates. Suddenly, as of last Monday, he disappeared. Not a word as to why he wasn't coming around, he just fucked off. And he blocked my number.

I was freaking out, worried to death, and called his mother and sister to find out what was going on. His mother was able to reach him and told me that he said he feels like he doesn't fit in this family, like he's a fifth wheel. I was relieved to know he hadn't gotten run over or something, but pretty upset that he just up-and-vanished without even having the courtesy to tell me what's going on. I knew that he sometimes felt weird spending so much time with Gunner and worries that Arron would mind. I have told him many times that there is plenty of room in Gunner's life for Uncle Joel, but the guy is pretty insecure. What really did it, though, was when he slept over last weekend so he could take care of Gunner first thing in the morning when I went with my brother to get a couch. Arron came up to my place and, surprised to see Joel there so early, said 'What the fuck are you doing here?' He didn't mean it as bad as it sounded, but Joel took it in the worst way. I could just about strangle Arron for talking to Joel that way.

I understand he is upset about what Arron said, but it's not a reason to desert me, his close friend, and his godson just like that without a word. As much as I will miss Joel coming around and especially babysitting and helping out, I think it's just as well that he stay away if he is going to be fickle and jerk us around like this. It's not good for the baby to have someone he is so attached to just come in and out of his life. Gunner needs stability and Joel is not the most stable person, when it comes to relationships. When we were engaged, he took my ring back on three occasions when we had a fight. The last time, I refused to re-accept it when he came back full of remorse and regret, pleading with me to take back the ring. I told him the ring was a symbol of his commitment and was worthless if that commitment wasn't there.

Our relationship didn't work out but I gave him a chance to be godfather to my son and now he is treating this honor as something to manipulate me with, to  punish me for something Arron said that upset him. I refuse to let him treat my baby like that engagement ring.

It's working!

I am amazed! After 4 days of following Gunner around with a pot as much as my day would allow, cueing him with 'psss' everytime I noticed him peeing, he is starting to respond to this and pee in a pot on cue. Of course, it doesn't work every time and timing is key so it is crucial to do it about half an hour after eating and when he wakes up from a nap, as well as 15-30 minutes after nursing and after his bath. I don't expect to 'catch' it every time and we are doing this in a very relaxed no-pressure way, with the main point being to get him to regain or retain some of his bodily awareness in the hopes that this will make eventual transfer to pottying smoother when the time comes.

I am just astounded that it actually works. Last night, he peed in a cup on cue three times in a row and Arron and I were just thrilled. I even made up a little song and sang it for him with glee:
"I held you up, I held you up, I held you up and you peed in a cup!'

When it comes to catching his poos, I wait until I hear him grunting in a particular way and then hurry to place him on the can where I make the potty sign, ask him if he needs to poo and, when I see he is starting to go, mirror his grunting with mmmmh mmmh. I guess after a while, I will see his pooing pattern and place him on the pot before he starts to go and will be able to cue him with the sound like I do to get him to pee.

We had a first today!

I have been doing a little baby signing with Gunner for the last month and today he actually signed milk for the first time when we offered him his bottle this morning. Smart baby! I am so thrilled!!! I can't wait till he starts using the signs to communicate when he wants so he won't have to just cry in frustration as I fumble through various guesses.

It's all so exciting and I'm so proud of him.

It's such a struggle, I might just not do it anymore

I've been reading about EC- Elimination Communication. I had heard about this while I was pregnant and just blew it off as ridiculous, but now that I'm giving it a second look it is making more and more sense. For instance, if you consider in many countries around the world babies are taught to eliminate on cue from the get-go and never even need diaapers, the North American practice of keeping kids in them till the age of three and over seems inane. Why train babies to tolerate sitting in their own mess when nature has endowed them with the same loathing of this sensation that we adults take for granted in ourselves? And then, once they have grown accustomed to sitting in sopping nappies, retrain them to once again revile it?

I suspect our practices over here have more to do with the diaper industry's profit margins than with what nature intended.

No, I'm not going to go off on some nutty trip and take my baby out without a diaper just yet, but I'm going to give him a chance to go bare-bottomed around the house a little so I can train him to a cue and hold him over the toilet when I get the chance and hopefully this will make toilet-training easier and earlier. If it's hard at 7 months, I just can't imagine wrestling all day with a 2-year-old  to get him changed.

I'll start with his predictable wake-up poo. Hopefully I'll catch it on time and he'll deposit it in the toilet  and make it easy for me. We'll see what happens.

In Other News: I found out yesterday that I have lost 7 lbs since September. I have been working hard since then to eliminate all my bad eating habits one by one. First, replacing jiuce with water and full-fat chocolate milk with skim milk with vanilla and Splenda. Then, giving up one type of junk food at a time, slowly, and eating more fruit instead. Very slowly. I can't go 'on' a diet or I'll just go 'off' it at some point but I figure that if I completely revamp my eating habits, hacking away at them like I have been, eventually I'll have only good habits and and then the weight should come off on its own without any special effort. this approach has worked in the past. I'm very encouraged to find I'm making some progress.