Sunday, May 27, 2012: Ghost story

I have developed a sixth sense when it comes to knowing when Gavin has poo in his diaper. I don't have to even smell it or watch him do it. I've found that once he's done the deed, his manner of eye contact changes. Specifically, he tries to avoid it, though since he's not even three yet, he doesn't have a great poker face. All I need is just the most fleeting of glances to know what he's communicating. When I ask, "Gavin, is there poop in your diaper?" he often says no, but at the same time positions his body toward me and takes a shuffling step or two backwards, keeping his butt as far away from me as possible. I'm not accusing him, mind you. This is solely a fact finding mission. He is not in trouble, I am not upset. But I also know better than to take his word for it. So I ask some gentle follow up questions and suggestions like, "Are you sure? Because I think you might. Let's check and get you cleaned up so you can get back to what you were doing" and/or "because it's not healthy to keep poop in your pants."  And if you ask him what will happen if he leaves poop in his diaper he will say, "Hurt my anus." Because we've taught him to make other people uncomfortable. Sometimes he actually admits that, yes, he does have a full diaper, and then I say, "Let's get that diaper changed, then" and he is usually okay with this. Occasionally he will resist and I'll have to warn him that I will have to take away whatever toy he's playing with (because that's usually the issue, at least when we're at home) until he has clean pants. This usually works.

So, no, Gavin is not potty trained yet. And he no longer stands up to pee. He prefers to do it "like Mommy," which means sitting on the toilet without his Cars potty seat. This is impressive, but standing to pee is much more sanitary, and this new technique involves gripping the front of the toilet seat bowl and lid with his hands for stability. I shudder at the thought of him doing this in a public restroom. He is in size 6 diapers now, which is as big as they get for babies. I certainly hope we don't have to move on to Depends anytime soon. I suspect that when Gavin and I go to visit Lisa and Brenden in California Gavin will get inspired by Brenden's mad potty skillz. He's only six weeks older than Gavin, but he's been potty trained for over a year now. We shall see.

Stacy and Gavin are camping right now. Probably. They're at Grandpa Gary's and the plan was to sleep in a tent in the back yard. They borrowed my mom's tent and brought a sleeping bag and everything. I am not a camper. I mean, I went to the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival once and I consider it a testament to my very fortitude that I survived it. So I don't wish I was there, but I do wish I had a closed circuit camera or something so I could watch from afar (that sounds super creepy, but it is not). I hope they're having fun. Actually I hope that they're asleep since it's almost 11 p.m. But maybe they're up telling ghost stories around the campfire. Gavin is very into ghost stories right now. Every time we pass a cemetery he often says, "What kind of animals live in there?" The answer is ghosts, or fantasmas. More often now, he forgoes this inquiry and skips right to, "Tell me a ghost story." Stacy has, from what I can tell, a repertoire of three revolving fantasma stories. I have one:

Once upon a time there was a little girl named John (Gavin chose the name) who went to the cemetery with her mommies to put some flowers on the grandmother of one of her mommies. While the moms were busy with the flowers, John saw a duck waddle by and, wondering where a duck goes in a cemetery, decided to follow him. The duck walked all the way across the cemetery to the very edge and then flew away. When John looked around she realized that she couldn't see her mommies. It was starting to get dark and she was scared because she was lost. At this same time, John's mommies noticed that John was missing. They call her name but she couldn't hear them because she was too far away. John sat down on a grave stone, put her head in her hands and began to cry. Soon after she heard, "Wooooo!" John looked up and said, "Who's there?" But she didn't see anybody. She put her head back down and continued crying when, again, she heard, "Wooooo!" She looked up and she saw: a fantasma! "Why are you crying?" the ghost asked, in a ghostly voice. John said, "Because I can't find my mommies. And now a scary ghost is talking to me!" She began to cry harder. The ghost assured her he is friendly and that he can help her find her moms, but she said that she was not going to trust a scary ghost and told him to go away. The ghost's feelings were hurt because she was being awfully prejudicial, but he wanted to help her anyway. So he went to her moms who were still frantically calling her. "Wooooo!" the ghost said to get their attention. The moms were, much like John, freaked. "A ghost!" they yelled (apparently they talk in unison). "A ghost has taken our John!" The ghost shook his head. "No! I'm a friendly ghost!" he insisted. "But I know where John is and she is crying and scared and I can take you to her." The moms were not so sure it was a good idea to trust this ghost, but they didn't have any better ideas so they decided to follow him. He led them to John who was still crying on the same headstone. She looked up and saw them. "Mommies!" she cried, running toward them. "John!" they said, hugging her. "Thank you!" they said to the ghost. And then they all went home and ate cake.

If the ending seems a bit rushed, that's because it was. We'd pulled into the driveway and needed to get out of the car. Now, this story presents some problems for both me and Gavin. Actually, only one problem for Gavin. He wanted to know if the ghost also went home with John and her moms and also had cake. I told him that, yes, he went, too. And then Gavin wanted to know who's birthday was it. I said it was the ghost's. This seemed to placate him. I have several problems with the story. First off, WTF, mommies? Way to keep an eye on your kid. I know you're grieving and preoccupied with flowers, but come on! The same goes for John. I know she's a kid and following a duck across the cemetery probably makes perfect sense to her, but John should know better than to wander away from her mothers, especially if she's got a fear of ghosts. And then there's the whole talking to strangers thing. Or, in this case, strange ghosts. John doesn't fall for it, but her moms are pretty quick to go along. Granted, according to the story I extemporaneously made up in the car, they don't feel like they have any other choice. But the "trust me! I'm a nice guy!" thing worked really well for Ted Bundy, too. As for what a duck is doing in the cemetery, the first time Gavin pointed to a cemetery as we drove by and asked what kind of animals lived in there I didn't know what he was talking about or that there was a specific answer he was looking for. He and Stacy had obviously had this discussion at some point when I was not in the car. Gavin doesn't really make a distinction between my brain and Stacy's brain and just assumes we both have all the same explanations and stories. This is actually false and Gavin is quick to correct us when one of us, in this case me, says that maybe ducks lived there. And some squirrels. He eyed me skeptically as if I were a little dense and then said, "Maybe ghosts?" And thus the story of a wandering girl, her neglectful but very lucky mother, a ghost, and a duck was born.

May 21, 2012: How babies are made

Gavin and I had our first conversation about boners on Friday, an important moment in any mama's life. He was standing at the toilet, "waiting for the pee to come," and I was supervising and encouraging us both to "listen for the pee" (I find this to be very helpful as it makes Gavin focus on the task at hand. It is much easier to pee when you're not distracted, especially when the whole toilet thing is new to you). He was holding his penis when he looked at me and said, "I have a bone in my penis." And I thought to myself, "Huh. So this is happening." I'm pretty sure I responded with, "You do? What makes you say that?" Perhaps detecting my skepticism he asked, "I do have a bone in my penis?" And I explained that, no, he had veins in his penis that filled with blood and that made it feel like he had a bone in his penis. He seemed satisfied by this and shortly after that he peed, got a jelly bean, and moved on to other things. Which is good, because I'm going to have to brush up on WebMD before we take this conversation into territory that is even slightly more complicated.

The following conversation happened between Stacy and Gavin on Saturday morning (this was transcribed by Stacy. I was asleep and missed it all):

Mommy: When you're big, you'll have to drink skim milk, like me.
Gavin: When I'm big I'm gonna have kids.
M: You're going to be a papa?
G: Yeah.
M: You should wait until you have someone you love to do it with. Raising kids is hard.
G: With you.
M: When you're a papa, I'll be the grandma.
G: No, the mommy.
M: I'll be the mommy?
G: And I'll have two kids. A boy and a girl.
M: What will you call them?
G: John. And Harwey.
M: Harley?
G: No. Harwey. No! The girl name Juju.
M: And when you have kids, what will you do?
G: Play with them. And dress them.

I think Gavin would make a good papa. I mean, not right now. Right now he would definitely have the child taken away child protective services because he would likely leave him or her in the yard overnight like he did the battery pack to his power tool toys. Or let him or her sit in a soiled diaper while he watched Cars en español. Bottom line: you really can't trust an almost three-year-old with a baby. (Free parenting tips from Mama D!) I do think that Gavin would make a great older brother and it is sad that he will not have that experience. But having another child just because you want your first child to have a sibling doesn't really make sense. But my boy is a lucky boy and he has a really good life if I do say so myself. And I do.

Tuesday, May 15, 2012: A Stand Up Guy

For the record, March and April did happen. But they were a blur. Let's just continue on with our lives, okay?

Gavin is peeing standing up. And by that I mean he is peeing in the potty standing up. I'm sure he's peed standing up many times before while diaper clad (and a couple of times sans diaper but not in the potty. Once he was standing on our bed. Good times). I don't know why, but last week he declared that he wanted to pee standing up, like his friend Brenden (who, six weeks older than Gavin, has had this potty training thing down for a long time now). Then he did it. And then he did it again, and again, and several more times now. The second time he did it I put a square of toilet paper in the middle of the water for him to aim at, which he liked very much. He did that himself the third time. And the boy's aim is pretty good for the most part. I'm impressed. I have to admit, I knew the whole stand up to pee in the toilet thing would arrive eventually, and obviously Stacy and I can't demonstrate it, but it seemed at first that it is apparently an innate ability. The multitudes of jokes women tell about their husbands' bad aim had me a little concerned that maybe there was something more complicated then just hold your penis and aim your pee.

But I guess the holding your penis part takes some practice. Gavin had been a straight shooter until the other day when a combination of misdirected aim and a sliding step stool resulted in him falling into the toilet. I was not in the bathroom when this happened, I was out in the living room. Stacy was in there with him and I heard them talking in Spanish about going pee on the potty. And then I heard him peeing, which was quickly followed by Stacy saying, "Abajo, Gavin, abajo!" and then the sound of the step stool sliding across the floor, and then a splash, and then Gavin crying. I rushed in to see Gavin elbow deep in the toilet bowl. "It's okay," I told him. "You're all right. Let's get you dried off." I told him that this was something that happens to everybody and not to worry. He was still crying and very upset when I said, "Hey, you still get a jelly bean." Immediately his tears stopped and he said with actual perk, "A red one?" Jelly beans have been quite the potty training hit. Each time he pees on the potty he gets either a jelly bean or a chocolate chip, his choice. If he poops on the potty he gets two. But that has not happened yet. Every time I change his poop-filled diaper I ask him, "When are you going to poop on the potty?" His answers range from, "In one minute" to, "In 30 days." His concept of time isn't exactly, well, exact, but I would be perfectly happy with either time frame.

Thankfully Gavin's toilet bowl surfing accident didn't set him back in the potty training at all. He was back to peeing standing up later that day, sans step stool, which he didn't really need in the first place. He uses it when he sits on the potty to put his feet, but he's a tall guy (three feet and three inches according to his last doctor's appointment several weeks ago). Although seeing him standing there with his penis so close to the cold porcelain edge of the bowl makes me think of my mom's story about a little boy when accidentally slammed the lid on himself. 

Oh, and speaking of penises. Gavin is incredibly interested in the concept of his penis as a hose. He is obsessed with fire trucks and firefighters and the other day when he was standing at the potty to pee he said, "My penis is like a hose." I concurred that it, indeed, did have hose-like qualities. He then said he could put out fires with it. He then stretched his penis out as far as he could and said, "I can put out a real far fire." And I thought, "Woah. The size issue has already begun."

Gavin has read many books about firefighters, and he's to the point where he looks for realism in his fire literature. No longer is he satisfied merely looking at photos of firetrucks or cartoon drawings of firefighters sliding down poles. No. A book must have fire in it, photographed or illustrated. Otherwise he very clearly expresses his disappointment. And now he wants to see fire in real life. Last month we took him to see ZooZoo in Detroit (it was okay. Not as good as the video on their website would lead you to believe. But Gavin liked it. Oh, and in case you were wondering, children have terrible theater etiquette). On the way home we were driving down Woodward and we passed a building that looked pretty recently gutted by fire and I made some comment to Stacy about how sad it was that there were so many burned down buildings in Detroit. I was not talking to Gavin, but he heard me loud and clear. "I want to see burned down buildings," he said. I told him I'm sure we'll pass another one and as we drove on he requested post-fire wreckage about every five seconds. We ended up taking a detour through a neighborhood where we came upon a house so ravaged by fire that you could see the sky through what used to be the upper floor windows and you could see into both the basement and the backyard through the bottom windows. Gavin's first words were, "Where is the fire?" followed almost immediately with, "I want to get out." We explained to him that, no, we would not let him stomp around the wreckage in his light-up Rayo McQueen shoes, and that the house was no longer on fire because the firefighters put it out but the fire ruined the house. As we pulled away he wanted to see another house. Lo and behold there was another one right down the street. We stopped and looked at that one and despite his pleas to see more we went home. I fear we've now got a budding Detroit ruin porn aficionado in our midst and it's all our fault. Sorry, Detroit.