Father's Day

My wonderful husband definitely needs his own post for Father's Day. He works 12-hour days, 5-6 days a week, to support me and J. Then he comes home and spends evenings and weekends being a great hands-on daddy. He loves playing with J and helping him learn to walk.

 Anytime I need help, my husband is there. Diaper changes, feedings, bath time, spiders that I want killed, he will stop whatever he's doing the second I ask for help and come lend a hand. He is even patient with me when I make him spend a whole weekend trying to get a few good birthday pictures of a rambunctious 1-year-old.

My husband is always looking for ways to have fun with his son. J LOVES his daddy because he knows Daddy =  fun. Mommy is feedings and bath time and bed time and diaper time. But Daddy is fun time. J gets so excited when his daddy comes home. As soon as he hears the key turn in the lock, his face breaks out in a huge smile, and he barrels his way to the door to get a hug.

J at 13 Months

Everything about J at 13 months:

Weight: 20 lbs

Height: 28.25''

Teeth: 6

Walking: can walk about 2 feet or about 7 steps in a row

Words: Dad Dad, Mama, nuh nuh nuh (for "no no no"), still uses grunting for main verbal communication

Hands: claps and waves on command and on his own, no pointing yet

Favorite game: tag

Favorite book: The Very Quiet Cricket by Eric Carle

Favorite toy: his push walker

Favorite TV show: anything on Baby TV

Favorite activities: going to Gymboree, walking with his walker, "helping" with laundry (he loves to throw clothes around on the floor)

Favorite food: his breakfast- eggs and grapes

Favorite thing ever: phones and the vacuum cleaner

Alas, we do not have a good video of him walking yet. Here's the best I was able to get:

 I have a good video of him clapping:

I'm working on building up his educational books since now is the time babies really start to learn and say words. I bought him My Little Word Book that has about 200 words and accompanying pictures in English and español. I bought The Cat in the Hat that also has the words in English and español. One cool thing about living in California is the bilingual children's literature everywhere. I'm also making him a few "quiet books" for church out of felt. I want to make a book of shapes and a book of colors. 

It's really hard to read books with J, but I try. He either completely ignores me, tries to rip the book to shreds, or yanks it out of my hands and flips through it. He thinks the object of a book is to flip through as quickly as possible, slam it shut, and start over again. Or to eat it. He ate the cover to his cardboard book about shapes.

Baby Potty Training

This post is about my baby's *ahem* voiding, so...just warning you.

I had never heard of potty training infants until my Bradley Method classes. My teacher had heard of it and said she was going to try it with her next child. She lent me a book called Infant Potty Basics. Don't read it. The author says the same thing over and over and over just in a different way on every page. Here's a summary: it IS possible to potty train babies. Learn your baby's signals for peeing and pooping. Hold your baby over the potty when you notice a signal. You can use timing, intuition, or a physical signal from the baby (can include facial expressions, grunting, saying "potty," sign language, etc.). Most cultures in the world do this.

So my husband and I were a little intrigued. We waited until J was 8 weeks old to start. (I can just hear everyone now... this woman is crazy! Cloth diapers and wipes and potty training tiny infants?!) Being a Burke, I found a new, unused Baby Bjorn potty on Craigslist for $15 (new would cost about $40 with tax).

This is the potty we bought for J. It's really easy to clean. Just lift out the white part and dump the stuff in the toilet. Then wash in the sink with soap and water. It even has a little splash guard for boys.

My husband soon realized that J almost always peed in it after we took off his diaper. So that's what we decided to do- we would just get him really used to going in his potty so when he was ready to sign or verbally tell us he needed to go, we could put him on the potty. J got really familiar with his potty, and now he pees a lot in it and does almost every poop in it.

That's pretty much all we did until just a few weeks ago, when I occasionally tried a few diaperless days. After several pees on the floor AND a poop...not going diaperless for a while.  

J still can't give us any signals when he needs to go, so I'm still using timing and intuition for it. If you want to try it, it's not hard at all. It's pretty awesome if you have a boy. Before we started this, he would pee all over the place when we took off his diaper. (He even peed into his mouth once...Bad Mother of the Year Award, right here!) After we started, all the extra pee went into the potty. I can't even remember the last time he got extra pee on me/himself/the changing area.

So even though my husband and I aren't really doing infant potty training, it has still been a valuable tool. When he is ready to be trained, he will be used to his potty. I won't have to "introduce" him to it, read him books about, deal with him refusing it. He knows his potty. He likes his potty. I'm hoping it'll be a smooth transition when he's ready. Another great thing about doing the potty early is that it's a LOT easier to wipe up babies when they poop in the toilet versus a diaper. Plus when you're doing cloth diapers, it's awesome to not have to scrape/spray/swirl it out.