Linnaeus 2.5

Maybe he'll get the hang of it in another year or four?

I like to try to keep the tone positive on The Sprog, but I have to admit, this past month has been a challenging one with illnesses, injuries & hitting (or trying to hit) some major milestones.

First off, Sprout injured the inside of his cheek when he stumbled & fell into the handle of his rocking moose. Though he bled a lot when it happened, it healed very quickly without bothering him much. He kept on eating mandarin oranges & other acidic foods despite the big bite inside his cheek. Though there was nothing I could have done to prevent it, I still felt like parent of the year going out with a two-year-old sporting a bruise beside his mouth. Sigh.

Next up, Sprout got sick with a cold. My immune system valiantly fought it, but then I think I ended up with Norovirus--it was fairly brief, though really awful while it lasted. While my immune system was dealing with that, I managed to pick up Sprout's cold. Yay, Merry Christmas to me!

Also around this time, I decided that Sprout is ready to wean. A few nights he went to bed without nursing--I offered as the usual part of our nighttime routine & he declined. So I started reconciling myself with him being fully weaned. I actually thought he was finished with breastfeeding by Christmas Day--with two days & no noms--then he got upset when going to bed. Can't blame him--he'd fallen asleep in my lap at the dinner table & we woke him up with a diaper change & getting pjs on. Getting quite worked up, he asked for noms which calmed him down quickly & got him back to sleep.

Since then he's been nursing about once every day or two, generally in the mornings if at all. I'm not out & out refusing him, but I am not offering. I think once he gets to the point where it's only every two days, there won't be any milk left so he'll probably just stop altogether.

Sometime before Christmas I thought it would be a good idea to start toilet training in January. I collected underpants & potties & read a few articles on it to try to prepare myself. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what method would work best for Sprout.

Probably should have waited on this one...

We also decided to take the front off Sprout's crib, theoretically to make it easier for him to get out of bed at night if he had to pee. Sadly, I think this was kind of a mistake, as the last two nights have been a struggle to get him to stay in. He just won't stay in there until he's totally exhausted. & it's too early to expect him to get up to pee anyway, I've realized. Sigh.

Another feature of the past month has been an incredible lot of whining. Sprout seems to think that saying nearly everything with a super whiny tone is the way to go & by mid-afternoon most days, I am very close to going crazy. The whining is likely connected with the fact that he's not napping anymore. His sleep schedule has been all over the place too, shifting later & later again. Since I've been sick (I'm on virus #3 at the moment, I think) I just sleep as long as I can in the morning. Sprout also sleeps in most days, but then doesn't want to go to bed less than twelve hours after waking which means midnight, at the moment. Argh.

So, yeah, not a banner month, other than the brief fun bits of Christmas. We're two days into toilet training: day one seemed great, day two was a nightmare of puddles & cleaning. I'm worried he's not ready for it, but I don't want to give up yet. I'm also dreading being trapped in my house for the forseeable future because I'm afraid he'll pee all over the floor of any other place we go. I feel like if I use diapers when we go out, it'll undo the training. I wish I could just hire someone to do this for me, honestly. I'm going to be chanting in my sleep, "Do you need to pee? Do you want to sit on the potty?"