On potty training and time outs

We've been working the last few weeks on potty training.  It seems to happen a lot on the weekends, when we tend to stay home rather than go out, and in the morning when it's a bit cooler.  Usually we'll get up on Saturdays, and I put underwear on Ollie.  Then he has breakfast, and we spend the morning outside while I pull weeds or something.  I take out water for both of us, his frog potty, and a few books.  And then every 20-30 minutes, he sits on the potty.  Last Saturday, we did just this.  He got up around 7:30am, and he sat on the potty almost every 20-30 minutes for the next four hours.  Did he pee in the potty?  No.  Did he pee in his underwear?  No.  I, naturally, used the bathroom at least two or three times, but Oliver -- bone dry.  He drank water.  He ate a normal breakfast, including a glass of milk, and then drank water while we were outside.  But he did not pee.  Finally around 11:30am, I caved.  I was hot and tired and not feeling especially well, and I wanted to go inside.  And while I know I might eventually have to go this route, I'm just not ready to let him have his run of the house in underwear.  I've already spent too much time cleaning pee off my rugs.  So I put him in a diaper -- which he soaked within the next 30 minutes.  It's possible that this is a good sign -- that Oliver understands not to pee in the underwear (unlikely, but possible) but doesn't understand to pee in the potty.  It's also possible that this is the first of a million setbacks with potty training.  I want the kid to potty train.  I really do.  But I'm not sure I know what I'm doing, and I'm not sure I'm completely committed to this right now.  On the days when I do keep Oliver home from daycare these few weeks I have off, I'm much more focused on doing fun things together, things that are not compatible with potty training.  But I'm thinking that next week, we might have to skip fun and potty train instead.

On a more positive note, time outs are going well.  I say that like we have to use them frequently, but we don't.  Maybe once or twice every few days, and most days not at all.  He usually gets them for some repeated behavior, like throwing hard toys, hitting the dog, getting to physical with me, or pushing on the door to the toy cabinet such that he might break it off.  He gets a warning when does something (which I'm not sure if he understands, but we do it anyway), and then if he does it again (usually smiling and looking right at us to see if we notice), he gets a time out.  Two minutes.  I tell him when I put him in time out what not to do ("No throwing the block" or "No hitting Lucy"), and I've noticed recently that when I go to take him out of time, he tells me what he did wrong or what he's not supposed to do, and he stops the behavior when he comes out.  If he's done something to me or Lucy, he gives me a hug or pats Lucy nicely.  It's great to have a kid who doesn't require a lot of discipline, but I know that could change, especially with a younger siblings coming, so I'm glad we have something in place to help if it does.

Some kind of trouble

Oliver is learning all sorts of new tricks these days.  Yesterday afternoon he was in the kitchen for a while, and I wasn't sure what he was doing.  When I walked in, I found that he had opened the cabinet door under the sink (the only one in the kitchen without a child lock) and emptied out everything in there.  And he was so proud of himself.

Oliver has become really good at a lot of those kinds of thing.  That evening, the dryer buzzed and he immediately walked over to the laundry closet and banged on the door to open it up.  I put the laundry basket on the floor, and he moved the dry clothes into the basket without any help.  (We did have to stop him from putting the wet clothes from the washer in there and redirect them to the dryer.)

Tonight I got back out his Christmas present -- a mallet and pegboard that was put away a while ago when he got a little...zealous, shall we say, with the mallet.  He can hammer each peg down using the mallet.  As a woman at the park pointed out today, he really is very coordinated (ah, the irony that my child would be at eighteen months very coordinated but not yet talking!).

And his personality is coming out more and more -- ALL sides of it.  Sunday he got his very first time out at home, followed by his very first time out at daycare on Monday (the note home said the he "had a hard time listening").  He has a tendency to sometimes smack at my face and doesn't respond to my admonitions to stop.  I put his hand down to his side very firmly and tell him "No" in my most authoritative voice, but he just laughs.  If I'm playing with him, I'll stop.  If he's up on the couch with me, I'll put him down.  But he persisted (mixing it up by kicking the dog to provoke her to growl at him -- hilarious, let me tell you).  So after attempting and failing to put him in time out in a chair, I hauled him upstairs and put him in his crib for 2 minutes by himself.  He didn't get upset while he was there, but he clearly understood when I came back that he should feel back about something.  He was contrite (as much as a toddler can be) and sat happily in my lap for at least 20 minutes.  He went back up again later that day, very upset that he was separated from us, and was sobbing when I went back for him.  Once again, he was very solemn and sat with me awhile.  I know it's just the next part of him growing up, and in some ways it's really interesting to watch, but it's also reality setting in that he's truly not a baby anymore.