Missed-out pictures from the first week of November
We are working on a heap of "Photoshoot" pics of Orry, which means that they are not done yet but will be soon. But as we wait, there are a few nice ones that we missed last time. How little Orry looks in the first week of November...
And, also, one of my favourites - just one of those happy mornings in our first two weeks. Good times.
Finn being silly after a bath
It doesn't add to the story of our family life, but Finn being silly is always worth a few pictures. Here are some of Finn in his usual jolly silliness that follows a bath...
... dancing before getting his clothes on...
... with a nappy for a hat (with very blue eyes, thanks to the flash)...
... as "a beautiful lady"
Potty training
The big thing missing out in the last blog or two, for obvoius reasons, was a story hanging from just before the birth - Finn's "potty training"; moving from nappies to going to the toilet.
Finn needed to get out of nappies because of (a) he's kind of old now, (b) the Big School he's about to go to doesn't accept children who can't go to the toilet on their own, (c) it's not something we wanted to deal with with when we had a baby as well.
So we went "cold turkey" at the end of October, simply not putting him in nappies one Saturday morning and going from there...
This meant not leaving the house for a weekend, a lot of wet trousers, a couple of very messy pants, and a long time sat on the toilet.
We think that Finn was Ready, so I don't think that we can take much credit for how it went, but it went very well indeed - only the first day was a lost cause, by the Sunday we thought that he was getting it, on Monday he wet himself in nursery once, and on Tuesday not at all, and but the next week accidents at nursery had effectively stopped.
Poos were a bit harder to sort out, as Finn was vaguer about them, so that took a little longer, but there were only a couple of accidents after that first week. (Unfortunately one of these was for Anna when she was looking after Finn during the birth).
Whenever a poo accident did occur, Finn got terribly upset, saying "sorry" and crying a lot. One such time it was very touching to see him going quiet and saying that he needed the toilet, before waddling sheepishly to the loo; when I looked in his pants and said "Oh, no," it was as if I'd confirmed his worst fears and he burst into tears and threw his arms around me in sorrow (and probably shame).
We didn't make making a mess a crime - we just made pooing in the loo a Big Deal. This meant a sweet for each wee in the loo, and a little ramekin (which we have lying around and which is perfect for things like this!) of sweets for a poo; and big hugs and congratulations, and walking him through to show off to whichever of us was not the toilet-helper. - All of which was very positive and enjoyable; it was nice to make him feel so happy about something.
One of the other very early bribes/treats was being able to watch Thomas the Tank Engine on the (very new) tablet as he waited for the toilet results...
The picture that I really like but which we will not show you is the one of his poo in the potty (which he only used once of twice, before preferring the loo). It is a bit weird to take a picture of a poo (with Finn in the background looking very pleased with himself), bit it is a very good way to show him that we thought he was ace for doing it, and to show that it was something worth showing off to Cori when she came home!
Other entertainments were required as well for the long haul poos. I particularly liked this game Cori fell into:
For Finn it was also all very new and exciting. We only narrowly avoided having Finn want to be on the toilet all the time - it was only the sweet/treat promise that made him stop, but also just that which often meant that he would sometimes try again very soon after!
One of the things that humoured (and annoyed us) came from the sore bum he got from sitting on the potty for hours. When we put talc on him, or the seat of the potty, since it added up to the same thing, but Finn interpreted this as putting talc in the potty, for him to wee on. He soon took up saying "No, no!" and stopping the pants-down process until we'd put the talc in the potty. Odd. We were glad when he decided that the big toilet was for him only - no talc in there.
The night-time nappies stopped only a fortnight or so after he stopped using them during the day. We realised that they were coming off him dry in the mornings and so it was easy to leave him in his "Big Boy Pants" (as they were called in the transition period) when he fell asleep on the way home or when we ran out of nappies. When they worked one day, we did it the next, and then never stopped.
We have had two wet beds since, but that is it. Both of those have been when we've failed to take him to the loo before bed (when something interrupts the process between going to the loo and going straight to bed).
By the time of our flight to America a couple of weeks before Christmas, it was very strange indeed to put him in pull-up nappies for the very long flight, just in case. But they weren't needed, and very sweaty on his hips, so we left him in normal pants on the very long sleeping flight home and he was completely fine. We felt very proud of him over that!
Final pics, of the Finn family photoshoot...
There's heaps more to say, but it will take days to scribe it out, so I'll publish this now, after the beautiful pictures Finn and I took with the flash during our own private photoshoot (with Finn taking a picture and then dashing round to see the result - a very good game!).
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