Monthly Archives: September 2011

September 28, 2011

Fight for Your Right to Potty

By Brad

Well Maddie’s been over a lot of milestones and hurdles in her 28 months of life. Crawling, walking, talking, eating with utensils, putting on her own shoes and even blowing her nose. But we still have the biggest milestone/hurdle to go.

THE POTTY.

She’s been on the potty many many times so far.
She doesn’t much like it—depends on her mood at the time.
We’ve tried coaxing with candy.
We read on it.
She plays with the toilet paper.

She’s even training at preschool and still nothing has happened yet.

We’ve even ran the faucet to trick her mind into going pee-pee.

But danggumit, she’s giving it some tries.
We applaud her anyway. [some positive reinforcement can’t hurt]

One thing I’ve learned though…You know that old trick of dipping someone’s hand in warm water while they sleep to make them pee themselves?

Doesn’t really work. Maybe they have to be asleep. I dunno.

It was worth a shot.

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September 13, 2011

V for Vagina

By Brad

I don’t know why I held off teaching my daughter the name of her naughty bits until now. I think mostly because for girls it’s not a concern early on. In other words, no extra appendage hanging between your legs. Young boys can pull and play and hold their penis especially come the time they start potty-training. My Maddie touched her crotch maybe 5 times in her life so far. Another reason I never mentioned it and I’m sure you’ll find this weird and silly but I was planning on not calling it a vagina. I could be very odd at times I will admit and part of that is my technical thinking [for lack of a better word]. I try hard to say INTER-resting instead of IN-tresting. It’s called being ironic not being sarcastic. A tomato is a FRUIT!! I blame my very precise grandmother for this who corrected me often and it must also be in my genes. It was always YES not YEAH. Like I said it’s annoying but who I am. I drive my family crazy with this habit of mine of over-correcting and being right as much as possible.

Anyway, I don’t like it when people refer to the exterior genitalia of females as a “vagina” because technically it’s not. The vagina is inside the woman. So I had this very crazy notion to teach my daughter the correct way to describe or refer to her crotch-area.

However, after discussing this with my wife and mother I decided to stop being such an ass and call it what everyone on planet Earth calls it. There’s no reason to make her an outcast early in life despite her being more correct than most people. No one likes a Smart-Alec.

Maddie started calling it her Va-China the first couple of times. I blame Ni Hao Kai Lan for that.

All I know is in a round-about way I will be worrying about that vagina or vulva or whatever for a long time; until she gets married at least.

1 Comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Child raising, Education, New Experiences

September 6, 2011

First School Day (Never Say Goodbye)

By Brad

As the title suggests, today was Maddie’s first day of school. Now she went to that toddler fun class last winter and spring but with me by her side. Today she out of the nest for the first time all by herself with all new people and kids as well as a whole new foreign place.

Before I rant on how it was more nerve-wracking for me and my wife and that she had a good day at her school I want to give a little advice first.

“Just Walk Away. Drop off the child and just walk away.”

I wish our folks had the foresight to tell us that. My wife and I even kinda knew this sage wisdom instinctively but we foolishly went against good nature and thought when we shouldn’t have thought. We said “good-bye and have a good day.” How could you not. She was already exploring her new environment not looking for us and we had to remind her that we weren’t staying. She cried. And cried intermittently for the first hour but for the remaining two hours she was fine. We tell our folks what we did and they tell us, “you never say goodbye.” Thanks for the heads-up.

But she survived and even liked it. Has been talking about it all day. She even seems cockier or more self-confident too. She keeps reminding us that her drawings are on the refrigerator. We are extremely proud and a little sad.

Time is flying so fast. She’s not even two and a half and already she’s in preschool. My wife has been in a daze all day and I think she’s a tad depressed that our baby is already making teachers laugh and bringing home stuff for the fridge. I’m just happy that she liked it and that we, as parents, survived the leaving her with strangers bit. I’m a bit pissed we made her cry by saying farewell but it wasn’t a disaster and turned out great in the end like most new things Maddie experiences.

1 Comment   |  tags: , | posted in Advice, Emotions, School