In training

Marty's face has looked like this a lot lately.


Max, well, he's been tired a lot lately. It's hard work, having all kinds of fun at preschool for two and a half hours, three days a week. Don't you fall asleep at the table? Often?


Aside from the usual two year-old angst (you know it's true), I suspect Marty is working on his final pair of molars. Nothing to show for all the whining, crying, clinging, sleep-fighting, night waking, 5:00 am waking, Mommymommymommymommy-ing ... but I'm sure they're causing him some discomfort.

He's gone for weeks and months at a time, happily obliging to bedtime and naptime. Nary a fuss. While I was away in Manitoba last month (I'm still drafting up the post on that), he napped for my Mom with minimal protest. Now that I'm home? Well. The boy and I spent 2 hours the other day going from the door of his room back into his bed. Over and over and over and over. I conceded defeat at 3:00 and we snuggled on the couch. He was asleep by 3:02 and woke up, cranky as can be, over an hour later. He puts up a bit of a fuss for Paul at bedtime, but not nearly like the show of determination for me at naptime. Paul's out working on a side-job tonight, so I put the boys to bed. Things were not looking good as he would chase me to the door every time I stepped away from his bed. He wants us to touch his tummy, his hair, his face. Anything, really. I decided to try walking away from his door to where he can't see me, and he's only popped his head out once. I told him to go back to bed, and he did. Even closed the door behind himself. Let's hope that's the end of it today. Then Paul gets to deal with putting him back to bed at 5:00 tomorrow morning. Sometimes we bring him into our bed, but we both get frustrated and no sleep from all Marty's squirming and wiggling to get comfy. His favourite spot is on me. The part of me that is already occupied by a wee growing child.

So that's the sleep training part.

Now I'm really eager to get on with potty training. It would be so very nice to have him out of diapers before his baby brother arrives. I'm also nervous that it will take a long time to get the training done. Max was actually really easy, but I'm not feeling so confident with Marty. Today we bought a fancy schmancy cushy toilet seat ... of which he is terrified. I think I may get Paul to dig in the garage for the sit on the floor potty that we used with Max. We kind of went back and forth between the floor one and the child seat on the big potty, so we'll see. And I need to decide what the bribe will be. I *think* I will tackle the issue starting on Monday. Wish me luck!