Practical & Conscientious Parenting
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Surprise Potty ‘Training’
14 years
Note: Edie is probably going to ask me to remove this post when she’s older…
So, in a previous post I wrote about how we picked up a BabyBjörn Little Potty for Edie when we were in Seattle. We got it thinking it would be nice to have for when she’s older, or maybe for the summer when she can run around with just a diaper on and no diaper cover. We decided to give it a try, though, just for kicks. And…
We have not had a poopy diaper in four days!
We had been noticing that Edie has mainly been pooping in the morning, so we’ve been sitting her up on her Little Potty as soon as she wakes up. She actually seems to enjoy sitting on it a lot, I think because she has a little longer reach into her basket of toys. And like clockwork, about 3-5 minutes after sitting on her Little Potty, she puts it to good use.
Now, I know we don’t have Edie potty trained by any means, but we sure are getting closer to getting ourselves potty trained as parents! It kind of makes me wish we had tried elimination communication earlier, but I feel like Edie is just now falling into a schedule, with her sleep and everything else. It almost feels like it’s been too easy to get her using it. Ashley has started putting her on it after she wakes up from her naps to pee, also, which I think I’ll start doing as well. I’m not confident it will last, but for now it’s pretty fun, and it’s really nice to know that she doesn’t have to sit in poopy diapers!
Baby Shopping in Seattle
I wrote a couple of days ago about our trip to Seattle, and it says a lot about me that my top priority was to write about the great vegan restaurant we went to, Pizza Pi, and not about the main purpose of the trip: baby shopping.
I got an equal helping of my mother’s joy of shopping and my father’s joy of frugality, so I’ll admit that I’m a little difficult to shop with. I tend not to buy anything unless it’s used or on sale, and I’ll tend to buy the 20% off $100 item over the full price $5 item (it may go on sale soon…). Ashley and I have very different styles of shopping, too: I decide pretty quickly on a purchase, where Ashley tends to think about things a bit more (what’s there to think about if it’s 20% off, right?). This trip was a lot of fun, though, and we were able to get a lot of things that we’ve been needing and couldn’t find in Yakima.
Edie has been nibbling on solid foods for a couple of months now, and it’s been more than evident in her diapers, so we finally picked up a bumGenius Diaper Sprayer. It hooks into the water line that supplies the toilet, and it was really easy to install, although I did have to mop up about a quarter cup of water from the back of the toilet tank. The only issue we’ve run into so far is that our changing pad is set up in Edie’s room/Ashley’s office, which means our poopy diaper routine goes like this:
- Strap Edie in
- Take the diaper to the bathroom, spray it off, and try to fold it in such a way that it won’t drip
- Take it back to the room and say something to try and amuse Edie
- Go back into the bathroom and wash hands
- Run back to the room where Edie is most likely getting board
- Put on a new diaper with a now thoroughly unamused Edie
Anyway, I think it’s just logistics we need to get figured out. We talked about moving the diaper pail into the bathroom, but that makes it inconvenient for the 80% of diapers that don’t require spraying.
Looking towards the days when we won’t have to think of such things, we also picked up a Little Potty from BabyBjörn. It’s cute, little and Edie definitely likes sitting on it. Before she was born, Ashley and I talked about trying elimination communication with Edie, but I’ve only given it a half-hearted attempt on our toilet a few times. Edie gets pretty board just sitting with me holding her over the toilet, but she’s already used her Little Potty a couple of times because she can sit on her own and play with things. I think it will help me get more familiar with her rhythms and maybe make a little headway towards potty training myself 🙂
By far our biggest and most fun scores came from Sugarlump, an awesome new and consignment kid’s shop. We’ve been to a few other stores that sell specifically used kids clothes, and even found a bunch of cute clothes at a store while we were visiting my folk’s in Texas. But judging by the clothes we found at Sugarlump, nobody dresses their kids cuter than Seattleites.
This sounds kind of lame as I talk it out in my head, but the whole experience of baby shopping in Seattle made both Ashley and me crave living in a place with other like-minded parents. It would be so nice to be able to find even cloth diapers in Yakima. But for now, we always look forward to trips to Seattle, Portland, or Corvallis for some good ol’ loot spending.
Edie enjoying her new booty
Jolly Jumper
Edie striking a pose in her Jolly Jumper
I remember these cool little jumpers from when I was a kid. We decided to get one for Edie, but it’s been about a two month process. We looked around town first, and the only thing we could find was really bulky and had lots of plastic parts to it. Plus, the spring was really stiff, so it didn’t really seem like much fun for Edie. After looking around online, the only place Ashley could find a decent old-fashioned style jumper was at Toys-R-Us — in Canada. This is not the first time we’ve had to look outside the US for cool baby things.
Fortunately for us, our friend Owen went to the Winter Olympics in Vancouver, and he was able to stop at Toys-R-Us and pick one up for us.
Edie isn’t as big of a fan as I thought she would be of her Jolly Jumper. If I’m there playing with her, she and I can play for probably 20 minutes or so before she gets board. If I’m watching her from the kitchen table while I’m cooking, she tends to get board after five minutes unless I hand her new toys to play with.
What I like about it is that she’s upright, and has a chance to use her leg muscles without me bending halfway over and “exercising” my back. Once she gets a little bigger, I could see there being a risk of her hitting her head on the door jamb if I’m not watching closely, but this isn’t something I’d leave her unattended in anyway.
Kelty Kids jogging stroller
All set to go
The weather is finally getting warmer here, and I’m getting restless and ready to be outside more. Anne and Ben lent us their Kelty Kids jogging stroller, and the other day I decided to make sure it was ready for a run with Edie. Of course, all three tires were flat. I used it a few times last fall, and all three tires had goatheads in them (if you don’t know about goatheads or puncturevine, be very thankful – you can see a picture here).
After applying five patches and still having the rear tires go flat, I decided I needed to get some reinforced tubes, like what I have on my bike. The local bike shop is only a few blocks away, so I walked over and talked to the owner for a bit. I figured I’d get reinforced tubes, tube liners, and fill the tubes with goop, but he suggested getting flat-free tires, which I didn’t even know they made for bikes! The idea of never having to worry about flats on the stroller, combined with the fact that it was only going to be about $5 more a tire, was all I needed.
The tires were probably the toughest tires to put on the rims that I have ever dealt with, but that’s a good thing, because it means they won’t wobble at all. The guy at the bike shop said that solid tires aren’t the best for bikes, because there’s a danger that the tire will pop off the rim if you take a corner really fast. Fortunately, I don’t run quite that fast.
I was concerned that it would make for a bumpier ride, but they have about as much give as a properly inflated tire, so I don’t think it’s much different.
All in all, I’d have to say these are one of the best purchases I’ve made in a while, for the peace of mind if nothing else.