Where poop belongs

Tristan is very, very resistant to the idea of pooping in a toilet even still. I’m fairly sure we’re going to make it to age 4 pooping in pull-up diapers. (And sleeping in them, but I don’t expect that any time soon; he has less control over it.) However, this week is the beginning of “shitting takes place in the bathroom.” I won’t give him a pull-up to poop in unless he is in a bathroom. I’ve been parking Kirianna outside the bathroom, giving Tristan his iPad to entertain himself, and waiting it out.

Tristan is, unfortunately, NOT ready to be independent in the bathroom with the door closed for any amount of time. I’m sure that if he wanted to, he could handle it, but after what happened this week, he can freaking wait. We have a tube of hydrocortisone ointment for a persistent rash he has on his leg; it’s kept in the diaper/underwear bin for ease of use. He closed the door and I let him alone for about 3 minutes. During that time, he took out the tube of ointment, got up by the sink, squeezed that shit everywhere, and started flooding the floor. Guess who gets supervised for a while? He had some fun helping me clean that mess up.

Today was fairly easy with the poop-speriment. He finished up about 3 minutes after I installed him in the bathroom with his entertainment and parked outside to breastfeed his sister. Then he wanted to sit in it and continue playing his game instead of having me clean him up to return to the living room. Prior to today, he spent close to an hour each time before deciding to release his bowels into the diaper. So we have a change in behavior toward the goal!

Game playing

We’ve been abusing the power of the iPad (or P-Apple, as it is still often called around here) to manage having two kids. Tristan loves to play all versions of Angry Birds, but he’s just learning that you should complete the board and be assigned 1-3 stars for your score. He still mostly resets the game prematurely, though. He plays Uno fairly well for a 3 year old, since he understands his numbers and colors and how to follow directions regarding such. He irritates the shit out of me with a game called Touch Physics, which has you draw objects in order to affect the movement of some other object toward a star – he isn’t very fast with it, and I don’t know how to play it, so he gets frustrated and either I’m nursing his sister and can’t help, or hell, I’m no help anyway. He’s also been playing Pocket Tanks, which involves shooting shit and making it explode, to which he exclaims, “Oh no!” Oh yes, Misunderstood Pigs, which is a spoof on Angry Birds where you play from the pigs’ perspective; same “Oh no!” every time something in the game falls down.

The past two days, we’ve also been biking, since I can exercise again and he’s been getting decent on his balance bike. Yesterday, I had him out on a bike with flat tires because I completely forgot to check. James had mentioned that Tristan was not as fast on the bike as he used to be; we figured that he was just out of practice after a hiatus. Turns out it’s kind of hard to balance on a bike with flat tires! Today we went back out with his tires fixed and I actually had to sprint on my bike to keep up with him at times and make sure he didn’t run into traffic. I’ll take him out to actually go places instead of riding around the parking lot when he follows my directions or my path enough to stay out of cars’ way, or perhaps I can toss a bike rack on my car and drive the bikes somewhere. I’ve been waiting for almost 4 years to be able to bike with my kid, so yay!

Someone’s getting old

Tristan is adjusting very well to having a little sister. He doesn’t lose his shit when I hold her anymore, or even when I nurse her – although he is a complete punk about trying to steal my nursing pads. He gives Kirianna kisses, comments on her crying without seeming resentful, and can even sleep through it when she’s very fussy.

Two things that Tristan used to love are messing with him these days: the wind and music. He was formerly fascinated by wind and loved to watch trees, etc. swing and feel the wind in his hair. A while ago (when I got my new car) he started getting upset when the windows were open, and for that I do not blame him as the wind was far more tolerable with my old car. However, these past few months, he’s refused to play outside and has gotten very mad even when going from car to store if it was “too windy.” With regard to the music, when he was very little he would enjoy when we would sing to him; that hasn’t been the case for several months now unless it’s a kids’ song or a couple of other non-kids’ songs. These past couple of weeks he’s been asking for the music in the car to be turned off in most cases, but he does have some preferences. He’s learning to ask for a song called “The Cross” by a band called Within Temptation, and he has some tolerance for rock with a female lead singer.