Potty Training & Other Things on My Mind

About Blogging

I switched to a different blog template so that I could move a few things to a sidebar. I think this template looks better overall, too.

About Potty Training

JF amazes me every day:

• Yesterday morning, I heard him say, "More sit on the potty?" AF didn't understand him at first. Instead of waiting for Daddy to understand and take him to the bathroom, JF ran to the bathroom on his own! Yay! (Afterwards, AF said he had heard, "More silly putty?" Is this an indication of JF's pronunciation?)
• Today, Just as AF arrived at the daycare, JF had pooped in the potty!

I think JF's sudden series of successes on the potty are due to the following:

• Months of preparation (having him sit on the potty every morning, teaching him how to pull his pants up and down, teaching him about pee and poop, and so on)
• Support from his teachers at daycare and PEP
• Two and a half days of Potty Island (described in a previous post)
• After Potty Island, schedule training (we tell him it's time to sit on the potty when he wakes up, before bed, before we leave anywhere, after we arrive anywhere, and after each meal)
• After Potty Island, reserving diapers for when he sleeps and using underwear otherwise
• Neutral reaction to accidents ("Okay, let's clean it up. Maybe next time you'll get to the potty in time.")
• Rewards for successes in the form of hugs, kisses, praise, stickers, and especially M&Ms

I don't intend to claim that he is completely potty-trained at this point. I won't say that until I can rely on him to take himself to the bathroom as needed, during the day. Most of his successes right now are still when we tell him it's time to sit on the potty. But a few times over the past few days, he has told us that he needs to go, which means he is starting to recognize when he needs to pee. Yay!

About My Dream House

AF's brother wants to sell us his Jessup house. We're still figuring out whether we can afford to do so, but the idea has prompted me to think about my dream house, and how we might make the Jessup house more like my dream house.

I guess my requirements come from living in a trailer as a child, then an old house on Cobb Island, then a series of apartments as an adult, and now our current old house in Gaithersburg. I was frustrated with the design of each place and wanted to solve the puzzle of designing a better house. I remember a conversation with Mom in the Cobb Island house, where she said she was frustrated with the kitchen. We had to close the oven door before we could open a cabinet door. We had to climb on the counter to reach stuff in the top shelf. We had to pull everything out of one cabinet to reach stuff in the corner cabinet.

I decided that an ideal kitchen should:

• Be big enough so that opening one appliance or cabinet won't block another.
• Have doorways placed so that all corner cabinets are accessible.
• Be adjacent to a pantry so that we don't need to store things where we can't reach them.
• Be open to the rest of the house so that people working in the kitchen don't feel left out.
• Support the flow of work: Supplies in one area (fridge, dishes, pots & pans), cooking in the next area (stove, microwave, & counter top for food preparation), and clean up in the last area (dishwasher, sink, drying rack, & an under-counter trash can).

Another problem arose when I started living on my own and had to haul groceries from my car to the kitchen. I thought that houses ought to be designed so that the distance between the car and where the groceries go is as short as possible. The breakthrough in solving this puzzle came from a magazine. Maybe it was This Old House. It had an article that described a mudroom-pantry. What a great idea!

I decided that an ideal mudroom-pantry should:

• Be the hub of the house, with doorways to the garage, kitchen, office, a powder-room, and the rest of the house.
• Have cabinets on one side for use as a pantry. (Drop off half of the groceries here.)
• Have cabinets on the other side for purses, keys, coats, hats, gloves, scarves, boots, and so on. Each person in the household should have his or her own cabinet. Each cabinet should also have a mirror and other supplies for last-minute grooming.
• Have a bench for sitting on when taking off or changing shoes.
• Have a counter top for temporary placement of mail, newspapers, and other paperwork.

When I was renting apartments, I hated having to haul laundry to another building! Now that I own a house, I still grumble about having to haul laundry up and down two floors. It's better than having to go to a laundromat or to the landlady's basement, but it still sucks. I decided that an ideal laundry room should be on the same floor as the majority of bedrooms in a house.

Also, our current house has radiators. I've decided that I like radiators more than any other heating system that I've lived with, which has included forced-air heating and a kerosene stove. Radiators give off subtle heat, and are better for allergy sufferers than forced-air heating. The problem with radiators is that they limit furniture placement options. When AF and I were watching This Old House on TV one day, I was amazed to learn about radiant floor heating. You have the same subtle heat as radiators, except it comes from the floors!

Alas, we probably won't be able to implement all of these ideals in the Jessup house. AF broke it to me gently that I can't move the laundry appliances upstairs. But maybe we can implement pieces of the ideal kitchen, most of the mudroom-pantry idea, and radiant floor heating. That's a heck of a lot better than our current house!