Tristan remains considerably interested in toilets. I wouldn’t call it obsessed, but he does judge particular locations by the quality of the toilets. He seems to be racist against toilets: he will use white ones but not “black” (actually metal, not black) ones. He’ll get over that in time, though. Auto-flushing toilets seem to be difficult for him to use but he will agree to do it after getting to press the flush button a few times.
He is still not especially interested in doing the bathroom routine independently, but at this point he is capable. He either likes the attention or gets so distracted by all of the shiny playthings (hello, sink and bathtub!) in a bathroom, so he will wait for a chaperone. That’s one of the things we need to work on. I reckon he could even wipe his own ass if he was patient enough, but I’m not pushing it because we have such a tentative hold on poop going into the potty. (He asked for a diaper today, but we’re past that phase and I’m not going back.) I am just beginning to use cloth training pants for naptime, but I realize that overnight training will require freedom of the bathroom and I know damn well that we’re not ready for that. We need a “Tristan is awake and needs help” warning alarm so he doesn’t flood the entire house when he takes a sneaky overnight bath.
He can put his clothing on if he focuses on where the labels belong. I’ve had him doing his own shirts for a while and his pants and undies if laid out in the proper direction, but lately I’ve been tossing them down and having him figure it out. He understands that the tag or label goes in the back, and that there is a “pocket” on the front of the underwear. He gets really frustrated trying to figure out how to turn clothing inside out, so it has to be all right side in.
He’s been certainly repeating the swear words we’ve been uttering, speaking of potty-related concepts. He’s spouted out “What the fuck!?”, “I need help with the asshole”, and “Mommy, say ‘fuck me.’ Admittedly, he has learned this while driving in the car with me, because I most definitely have some road rage going on (thankfully, just the verbal kind lately – and hey, I’m from New York!). I’ve been coaching him to use the term “WTF” and being very low key about the swear words – I want him to learn that some words are private and may be said freely at home, but that some other people may not want to hear them. I really don’t want him to get the impression that words have magical powers.