Follow Me On Twitter

If you want. Or don't. You're small potatoes considering that John Daly follows me. Yeah, THAT John Daly.

http://twitter.com/tjryanesq

Pottytraining Diaries - Week 22

We're not advancing one inch. He holds it all day, asks for a diaper, throws nuclear fits if they are refused, and even repels offers of increasingly expensive rewards. I'm ready to buy the kid a Mercedes if he'll just abandon his diaper in favor of the porcelain. It's become ridiculous, but in the back of my mind I keep thinking of all the repetitive advice I've received: He'll do it when he's ready. (By the way, that advice never goes over well with a Type-A people like Ashely and me.)

He goes #1 with ease and on his own volition. So we continue to wait, hoping that repeated encouragement and prodding will finally break through the concrete and steel barrier that stands between Jack and his graduation into society as a proper defecating member. I never thought that the longest running battle I'd have with my son would be the use of the toilet.

My Kids Will Be Eating This Soon.

The Spanky Cristo.

Believe it.

Blogging Is Easy When Someone Else Does It For You.

Click here for a picture of Jack.

(Yes, this is the pinnacle of lazy.)

Since Crying and a Digital Thermometer Are Just Too Much Work

http://www.engadget.com/2009/06/18/babyglow-temperature-sensing-clothing-because-youre-dumber-tha/

Today, I'm Proud to be Irish.

Found, Part Deux.

I always understood and accepted (mostly based on jokes told by New York residents and Saturday Night Live skits) that New Jersey's environment isn't really taken care of by its residents.

Without such intention, this blog pretty much proves it. But before you dismiss it, scroll through a few pages. The photography is pretty good, and the scenes the author captures are worth your time.

We Now Speak "Samhili," Too.

We speak fluent Jackanese. We now speak Samhili, too.

As a good little baby should, Sam has been making repetitive sounds for a month or so. But only this last week did he begin to associate them. Much to Ashley's delight, Sam did not follow Jack's lead and instead said "Ma-Ma" first (as opposed to "Da-Da"). Crawling in her direction, he'll babble on, "Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma-ma..."

Further (and quite unsurprisingly, considering the child's voracious appetite) his next word was associated with his main form of sustenance: Ba-Ba for "bottle."

Hopefully, "Da-Da" will be listed as one of his first five words.

In Other News,

So we can't bribe, threaten or cajole Jack to use the toilet for #2, but oh sure, your robotic vacuum cleaner will. Life is just laughing its rear off at us right now.

Pottytraining Diaries - Week 16

Peeing in the toilet is now generally accepted convention in our house.  #2, however, is not.  In fact, it's willfully avoided.  Nowadays, Jack wears underwear during the day, and a "pull-up" diaper at night.  He likes to drink water and/or milk before bed and he routinely urinates in the night so we've retreated to the use of a pull-up during the bedtime stretches.  Interestingly enough, he does not release #2's in his underwear, and recently has been waiting for bedtime to relieve himself.  

This week, however, Jack had an unexpected surprise: the need to "go" long before bedtime.  Ashley tells me that while she was tending to some laundry, Jack disappeared into his room and closed the door (nothing to be surprised by, he will take "personal time" for 10-20 minutes at times, playing peacefully in his room as he desires.)  This time, however, he remained in the room for almost 35 minutes before Ashley, sensing something was askew, knocked and asked what he was doing.  She could hear the noises of his handheld computer game, so she cracked the door.  He announced, "I have poop."  

Ashley was shocked and disappointed, thinking that he had fumbled and let fly in his underwear.  But upon closer inspection, she discovered he was wearing a pull-up.  Apparently, Jack had retreated into his room, removed his shorts and underwear, climbed up onto the top of his dresser (where the pull-ups are kept), donned the training pants, dropped the Cleveland Browns off at the Super Bowl, and never missed a beat.  

The one bright spot from all of this is that he's learning how to dress/undress himself.