Sit up

Another pair of milestones for Owen: when he woke up at 3 am this morning and I went in to get him, he was sitting up on his tush for the first time, looking at me. Time to drop the crib a level or two! And two days ago, we started hearing his first authentic word, which was "up!". It's accompanied by him raising his arms way up in the air, as if he were Mr. Fantastic and could reach you from across the room to pick him up. After swimming yesterday, he asked mommy for "up!" in the locker room, and she had two other mothers confirm that it was an intelligible request. Way to go Owen!

On the topic of being up, the ongoing potty training for Zachary continues. It's been a challenging first few weeks; his first day back at school apparently passed without incident (mostly due to him holding it), but the second day he had a few accidents, and we've been burning through clean pants and underpants at an alarming rate (generally requiring a new load every night). At home, he loves the stamps he gets for successful dry checks, but still will often have accidents soon after picking one up. We try to have him help cleaning up, but of course Owen is trying to get in on the action as well, which adds an extra level of complexity. Owen has been incredibly inquisitive about his environment, and has found entirely new areas for us to babyproof than his older brother did. We've also had to start making sure any regular books stay off the ground, as Owen is big on the whole page tearing thing. And at night, Owen continues to wake up at 3 or 3:30 and can't get back to sleep unless he joins us. So definitely some exhausting times in our household. But also cute ones, here's Zachary doing a "dry check" while Owen tries to help:

Apparently at school today, they tried having him pee standing up (which incidentally is the theme and title of his new favorite book -- who knew our son would become so obsessed with a Belgian sculpture?) and so long as they emptied a wet washcloth into the potty, he could, um, match the action. Not yet reproduced at home, but go little man!

The Clapper

Potty training continues for Zachary, with some successes and a wish that we could summon absorbent towels from thin air. But we're all keeping at it. His favorite part remains "dry checks", where he gets rewarded for success with his choice of stamps from the fabulous mommy collection. Right now it seems that a purple apple or a red acorn are the favorites, though at one point he managed to grab the whole collection and had train stamps all over his leg before we noticed. Of course, much of the time still involves sitting on the toilet waiting for the big event to occur; it's variably spent reading stories, playing with toys, or singing songs. And last night, during a song that involved clapping, mommy started hearing clapping from another direction. She turned, and Owen was happily clapping along as well -- another big milestone! It's about a half step different from his sign for "more", but definitely has a nice satisfying clap sound to it. And speaking of which, we finally caught that sign on video:

Well done to both of our boys!

The Empty Pot

With a long school-free stretch in front of us (Zachary is off both for MLK Day Monday and a kindergarten in-service on Tuesday, plus no school on Wednesdays), we decided to make another attempt at potty training this weekend. Yesterday, after swimming, two of Zachary's teachers helped us put together a "potty party", where I, the teachers in turn, and mima spent much (most) of the day just hanging out in the petite downstairs bathroom. Z enjoyed most of the time spent there, getting tons of attention in addition to checking out a bunch of toys and activities presented just for the occasion. We also had various kids books on the subject at hand, including his favorite retro '70s (okay, 1980) book, which he hadn't read in months and was pleased to see again. Ironically his favorite book choice was a morality tale that has nothing to do with toilets -- but seems a wholly appropriate title for this blog post anyway. Because one thing Zachary demonstrated this weekend was a bladder of steel, with often hours going by between, um, "events". So hey, at least he's got decent control (if, as proven several times, poor aim). He went several times in the potty over the course of the day, but frequently kept his legs figuratively crossed well past the point of visible discomfort. This was the point where we'd ask him if he wanted more juice or milk, and he'd emphatically say yes and then guzzle it down -- so clearly that connection hasn't yet been made in his mind! Between potty trips, he got to wear some new Thomas-themed underwear that he was very excited about, and we'd check for dry underpants and give him a stamp for successes.

Today was a bit more difficult; we had an epic marathon of toilet sitting (the process had been that he stay on the potty until he went) for about four and a half hours, which ended in mutual frustration, a soaked bathroom, and a very sad mommy and Zachary. When Meh went to work (and with Owen frequently fussing), I regressed back to less toilet time and frequent underwear checks with him wearing underwear under a diaper -- most of which were similarly ending in wet underpants. But after an exhausting, underpant supply exhausting, and seemingly unproductive day, Zachary looked at me and said "want to sit on potty". He grabbed my hand, walked me over to it, and 10 minutes later he had a big success. And so what if half of it missed, it was still great to see him initiate this step. Of course, during bath time he proceeded to pee in the tub, so definitely still some work to do here. But despite the challenges and setbacks, it's still good to see him overall enjoying and talking about his time on the often empty pot.

Cold front

Poor Owen has just been getting bug after bug; he's once again congested and coughing, but still somehow stays happy despite it -- even when he's got a an extra drippy nose. He also does so well at trying to keep himself asleep once he's down at night, despite the tiny coughs we occasionally hear over the monitor. But he does eventually wake up, at which point he stubbornly stays awake until in bed with us, at which point we've occasionally had some fairly sleep-light nights. Sometimes he wakes up at 2 am, sometimes 4:30 (the luxury days), but we're all still waiting and hoping for the night that the tiny man sleeps through. Meanwhile, his big brother isn't always having a perfect time of it either; a few nights ago he was crying at 1 in the morning. I snuggled him and he went back to sleep - but again at 6 he was upset. When I got into his room, he was asking for blankie -- which I found halfway across the room and draped on his stuffed bear chair. That's quite an arm for a half asleep little man!

Of course, sleepless nights mean a need for extra nap time during the day, and Zachary has been known to curl up in the most random positions when you turn your back. He still occasionally conks out (or at least will veg out) in his cozy tent surrounded by plush toys. Owen of course still loves whatever Zachary is doing, meaning I've caught him climbing into the tent on several occasions. Someday we'll have to arrange for an everybody nap in the tent!

Owen will occasionally babble a bit, and I've been noticing some suspiciously consistent consonants - mah's around mommy, nah's when he's displeased, and buh's for the ball he and I occasionally kind-of-sort-of play catch with. It's a bit early yet, but I think this kid might talk at some point.

Keeping it clean

In addition to his ongoing love affair with food (his latest: tasty Indian food from one of our favorite restaurants), Owen continues to love bathtime, spending much of it taking a giant yellow mug and screeching into it, then drinking from it (mmm, tasty bath water) until he sputters out water. Silly tiny man. Zachary has taken to imitating Owen in the bath, putting various toys in his mouth and then saying '[don't] eat it!' While it's sometimes challenging keeping the two boys in their own personal space, they definitely both love their baffy time, playing with (or in Owen's case, chomping on) toys, reading floaty books, and of course splashing. But Owen's favorite part lately is getting lifted out of the tub in his soft brown towel, giving mommy a big hug, and then planting a giant wide-mouthed kiss on her face or shoulder and raspberrying to his heart's content.