Imposing our likes and dislikes on our children

Just over a month ago, I went to a friend’s child’s 2nd birthday party, and they asked me to bring some snacks for the kids. So I brought some veggies that Kaia likes: roasted bell peppers and sweet potatoes. The sweet potatoes were roasted in olive oil and tossed with cinnamon, nutmeg, and some allspice. When the birthday girl was eating the sweet potatoes eagerly, her mom asked how I had prepared them. I told her, and she seemed surprised that I used cinnamon. Later on, her husband (my friend) told me that because his wife doesn’t like cinnamon that their child had never been exposed to it. I was a little bit shocked that she hadn’t offered it since cinnamon is pretty ubiquitous in the U.S.; plus, her kid was already 2 years old now! Anyone who has read any baby solids feeding guide (and no, not just baby-led weaning or Solid Starts) will see that cinnamon is one of the most common and popular recommendations to introduce babies to (not hot) spices and build a varied palate.

I suppose I shouldn’t be that surprised, though: we’re all humans at the end of the day with our own preferences for things. It’s only natural that we’d try, consciously or subconsciously, to pass them to our kids. I have hated ketchup since even before I could speak, so up until last week, Kaia had never had any exposure to ketchup. But, I will say that given ketchup does have extra sugar (that’s what gets kids hooked on it…) and salt, there was no real reason to give it to her and even more reason to withhold it from her. While I was at my work offsite, Chris had to make his customary visit to In N Out while in California, so he went to Fisherman’s Wharf to get his fix. While he did that, he let Kaia have some fries and suggested she dip them in some ketchup. He even took a video of it to prove it to me. On the one hand, I was proud that she was finally getting into dips and “dipping” since she seems to have some aversion to sauces and mushy things like avocado and egg. On the other hand, I was completely grossed out that she actually seemed fond of that American monstrosity that we call ketchup.

If Kaia likes to dip an occasional fry into ketchup, I guess I will have to just suck it up and turn my eyes (and my nose, ugh) the other way. But, if she even attempts to squeeze ketchup onto her white rice or add it to steak…. then we will have a very serious problem on our hands that will need to be addressed as soon as possible.

Team offsite, bonding at dinner, and discussing poop amongst other parents of littles

Today was day one of two of our strategic team offsite. The last time I had a team offsite was two years ago, also in San Francisco, but with our wider customer success team. This offsite was a much smaller, tighter-knit group, more cross-functional… and a bit more “all business.” As much as I like this current team, it’s clear we don’t have the same “magic” and camaraderie as our wider customer success team did. One of our sales leaders knows an owner of an Italian restaurant called Pazzia SF, so he was not only able to get a good rate for our large group, but also a private dining space complete with its own large bar, fireplace, and comfy couches.

The sad thing we found out when we arrived at the restaurant was that they actually got robbed earlier this morning. A few guys had thrown massive rocks into their front floor-to-ceiling windows and stolen a bunch of their restaurant supplies and furniture. The owner almost wanted to shut the place down for the day to recuperate, but he said he couldn’t do that to our large group. So, it ended up being business as usual, luckily for us. The meal was delicious, with perfectly mixed cocktails, good wine, and delicious pizza, pastas, proteins, and salads. The family-sized serving of tiramisu was satisfying, but ever since that incredible and ethereal tiramisu we had during our last dinner in Buenos Aires, the one at Pazzia really couldn’t hold a candle to it.

I had a lot of fun conversations at dinner with my colleagues. It reminds me of all the laughter-filled and stimulating conversation and banter I used to have while working full time in an office. It also made me think about how luxurious it felt to have conversations with other adults and not have to worry about my toddler eating, running around, or breaking things. Chris and Kaia were having dinner at the hotel lounge at the time of my team dinner. While catching up with a team member, who asked me how Kaia was doing, I quickly looked at my phone after it buzzed to see that Chris had sent me two photos: one of a wide-smiling Kaia, standing by her little potty with a big lump of poop in it, and a second photo of just the little potty with her huge, adult-sized poop. That’s what happens when you are backed up, I suppose, even as a tiny human.

I responded, “Things are going well! We’re potty training now, and Chris just sent me a photo of Kaia with a big poop in her potty. Pretty sure you don’t want to see that.”

I will say that despite a fear of pooping in the potty, now being in week three of potty training, I’m quite proud of how far Kaia has come. Just over two weeks ago, she was running around in diapers and being cleaned up on a changing pad. Now, Kaia is self-initiating pee and had very few pee accidents. She tells us when she has to go, and when there’s not a suitable (haha, clean enough) potty for her to use, she very maturely holds the pee in and waits to go. When we had to put a diaper on her for our in-transit time on the plane, she said she didn’t even want to wear the diaper. Our sweet baby is growing and maturing so quickly, even with this one milestone activity (or process, really). Soon, diapers will be a distant memory for all of us, and she won’t even remember what it feels like to have her butt wiped by one of us.

Kaia’s last day at her current school

Today is Kaia Pookie’s last day at her current school. She’s spent 15.5 months at her current school, in three different classrooms. And since her 18-24-month class, the teachers have always told us what a little leader she is. They call her Ms. Kaia because she loves to mimic what the teachers say in terms of instructing kids on what to do, whether it’s for sitting down, being quiet, or going to the potty. She’s “the life of the party,” one of the teachers told me yesterday. “Everyone always knows Kaia because she makes sure that you know who she is!” Apparently, teachers from other classes all know her and look forward to seeing her and her big personality. It’s truly amazing to see how much she’s grown and flourished in her time at this school. She came in as an almost 17-month-old baby, and she’s leaving as a fast-growing and maturing 32-month-old toddler. She’s no longer wearing diapers at school anymore, walking around commando (just shorts, no underwear/diaper)!

For treats for the teachers and kids, we brought mini (dairy and non-dairy) ice cream cones. We also wrote her two teachers thank-you notes. We’ll likely be back for backup care in the future, but overall, we’ve had a good experience at this school and enjoyed the curriculum and structure. Daycare has been a good experience for us, and it’s something I share with all new parents who are hesitant to move their kids from being at home with a nanny/grandparent to school. There’s something magical that happens when kids are altogether. Peer pressure can be good and bad, but I try to see the good (like the nap instilling!!) and be happy about that.

When it takes six hours to go outside to the playground

Kaia spent most of today wanting to poop. Well, she would have pooped easily if we had just given her a diaper to wear, but we’ve been pretty strict about the “no diaper” situation since we officially started the Oh Crap! method last Saturday. She needs to learn to do all pee and poop in the potty. She’s been scared to poop on the potty, though, and we’ve been struggling to make her see that it’s a good thing. We’ve read her multiple potty and poop books. I’ve squished out slime from my hand and showed her that’s what poop is like when it comes out of her butt. I’ve asked her if she wants Peter Rabbit to poop on the potty. We’ve given her endless toys and things to play with while sitting on the potty. She just can’t wrap her head around it. She did poop in the potty a few times, with a large one on Friday night when Chris coaxed her; that was the real win after struggling literally all day long at school. It doesn’t matter if it’s her little potty, on her travel potty seat at home, on her travel potty seat outside at a public rest room. She is terrified of the feeling of letting her poop go.

So while I prepared nine different components of homemade bibimbap today, Chris basically chased her around the apartment, coaxing her to get on the potty and get her poop out. Because a little poop would always come out, there was endless wiping, endless little pellets, or what the Oh Crap! support group calls “Hershey kisses,” and endless sanitizing and cleaning of any surface where said Hershey kisses landed. My baby’s poor little bottom is getting the equivalent of a diaper rash. My Kaia has never had a real diaper rash before other than some tiny red dots after about four weeks at daycare in her first class. She has no idea what this uncomfortable, sore feeling is like. I was hoping we could take her to the playground in the morning, but we couldn’t let her go without pooping.

She finally pooped today, in her little potty, at around 4pm. So we had about an hour to go to the playground and let her run around before dinner. Somehow, that poop was not enough. More is still coming!! She still had some “skidmarks” on her butt that we had to clean, both on her and on her shorts. I wasn’t quite sure how I imagined potty training would go. But I did think that poop would be a struggle since most kids struggle with this. I just didn’t realize that the “accidents” I would mostly be cleaning up would be little pellets, smears, indicating that poop is slowly but surely inching its way out.

We’ve managed to survive just over a week of potty training now. The pee has been relatively good. But I think we really need her to a) get comfortable pooping on the potty, and b) be adaptable to different toilets and her travel potty seat. We’re traveling very soon with her, so this whole potty training timing is a bit nerve wracking.

Poop and pee on the brain constantly while potty training

Jamie Glowacki says in her book Oh Crap! Potty Training that you will know you are done potty training when you no longer constantly have poop and pee on your mind. I am not sure when that time will come, but I know that when it does, it will be quite a relief. We are now six days into this, and I feel exhausted. Every time I see updates in the school app for Kaia, I immediately want to know if she did a poop or pee in the potty or had an accident. When we are at home, I am consistently prompting her to pee. She has also been holding in poop since Tuesday, so I know the fear of pooping in the potty is looming quite large.

Because we wanted all potty training done together, daytime and night, I’ve been co-sleeping with Kaia since Saturday. This is to a) make it easier to gently wake her up and prompt her to get on the potty to pee, and b) to prevent her from coming to our bed in the middle of the night, which would inevitably result in us having to strip the bed due to pee on our sheets (toddlers cannot be faulted for peeing in their sleep; they are not conscious while asleep and so, it’s up to us to help teach them to train themselves to hold pee while asleep). The night time gauging / estimating when she will need to pee has been pretty terrible to begin with, as Jamie warns. I’ve checked her and prompted her maybe 30 minutes before or after she needed to pee the previous four nights. I always missed the window (so close!!!) and she had already peed on the hospital waterproof sheet. A few times, she got on the potty in the middle of the night, either because I prompted her or she did it herself, but no pee came. I wasn’t sure how much longer I could go with this co-sleeping and nighttime prompting. But finally on night 5, last night, I got the first pee timing right: she had fallen asleep just past 8pm. At around midnight, she stirred, and I saw an opening to ask if she wanted to pee. She said yes, and immediately hopped off the bed, sat on the potty, and did a nice, long pee. I was overjoyed when I saw the trickle! I quickly wiped her, cleaned up, and had her go back to sleep. Then, I did a little happy dance: I finally had a nighttime win on the FIFTH night – within WEEK ONE!

This morning, I took her to school. It is very clear that all this potty training has made sure pee and poop are top of mind for her, as well. Along the walk, she was eager to point out all the dog poop on the ground. “Look! There’s poop! Is it a doggie poop?” she’d ask. I confirmed that yes, it was dog poop, and that she should not step on it or touch it because it’s yucky. Then, she’d respond, “Ewww, that’s dog poop! Not Kaia’s poop!”

Potty training progress, Day 3

Today is Kaia’s third and final day stuck at home, naked, before going back to school tomorrow, when we’ll send her with clothes on (obviously), “commando” with no underwear, no diaper… and lots of extra sets of clothes in the event of an accident. This is what Day 3 looked like:

Day 3: 8/5:

Pee:

Potty: 10 (5 consecutively right before bed…. Chris said she was “playing” me to delay bedtime as long as possible)

Floor: 0

Poop:

Potty: 1

Floor: 3 (2 small, one big)

She’d been holding her poop in since Saturday. On Saturday, when she was sitting on the potty for a while, and we had assumed she was trying to pee, she actually let out a tiny poop. We found it, but she clearly had more to let go but was scared. It’s clear based on our progress while naked that she is happy to self initiate pees and loves peeing in the potty, but she is terrified of pooping in the potty. She let out two little poops on the floor throughout the first half of the morning. When she couldn’t hold it any longer, she let out a massive (ADULT SIZED) poop right on our floor by the dining table. It happened so fast right behind me that I literally was facing one way, turned for about five seconds, then turned back, and PLOP! There it was: the long-awaited, held-in-for-days, big, stinky long poop right behind me. And there was Kaia…. grossed out by her own poop, who had accidentally already STEPPED in the big poop and tracked it all over our floor and up her back. She kept moaning after she pooped it out: “Ewww! Poop! Poop! Yucky! Don’t touch! IT IS GREEN!” (It was mostly brown, but yes… it did have a tint of green, likely from all the gai lan and yu choy she’s been eating). I immediately grabbed her, put her in the bathtub for a half shower, chest down. I proceeded to pick up the poop with tissue (it was so big that it required TWO pickups!!), dump it in the toilet, and then flush. And finally, I sprayed almost half the dining/lounge area floor with my sanitizing spray and scrubbed it like there was no tomorrow. Kaia watched the entire process, fully fascinated. And we kept repeating over and over, “Poop goes in the potty. Poop goes only in the potty. Poop does NOT go on the floor/steps/mummy/daddy/etc.”

So now the next question is: how do I get my sweet Pookster to NOT be afraid of pooping in the potty?

The Oh Crap! potty training method, in progress with the Pookster

Late last year, I was the lucky recipient of the Oh Crap! Potty Training book by Jamie Glowacki via my local Buy-Nothing group (it was a random number generator win of at least 10 hopeful parents!). Multiple parents, mostly colleagues and friends, had told me that this book was the only book/resource I needed to potty train Kaia. Many online summaries and knock-off methods existed, but this book was an absolute must, the parents all insisted.

I didn’t finally open it to read until a few weeks ago, and I was pleasantly surprised that I actually enjoyed reading the book itself. It wasn’t a boring “manual” that felt like a chore to read. It breaks down potty training into theory, methods, and steps, along with data-backed advice for what to do any time certain challenges or regressions came up. There’s a lot of empathy expressed for the child in terms of their attachment to the diaper/nappy (I mean, from their perspective, a diaper is all they’ve ever known since minutes after birth, right? So cut them some slack!). The part that I really did not expect (I read no reviews prior to opening the book) was the author’s humor. The author swears a lot (a lot of people negatively review the book because of this – it’s a style of humor, so they can get over themselves). She makes a lot of jokes about parents over-parenting, over scheduling, micro managing their kids (if you are upset by this, you are probably guilty of one of these offenses and should, again, get over your snowflake self). She is happy to call out bad parenting practices (over indulgence, coddling, letting children not get potty trained until past kindergarten, etc.) and how they can be harmful for children’s overall development. She can be very blunt. And I love ALL of it. There were a number of times I’d read this book before bed and chuckle out loud to myself. So when a close friend told me that this book gets slammed by a lot of parents and has endless negative reviews, I wasn’t the least bit surprised: people take things way too personally, especially regarding children and child-rearing, that of course a book like this was going to offend a large handful of parents out there. What ever happened to… reading a how-to book (written by someone who has thousands of data points to reference, as in clients she has personally potty trained herself, plus parents she’s consulted with through 1:1 and through her potty training classes), taking a grain of salt when applying it to your own life and child, and moving on? One review said that her husband was “in tears” after reading the book because it kept referencing “mothers” and only had “cliff notes” at the end for fathers, and he felt very left out. Oh, cry me a fucking river. The entire world has been targeted to men for all these centuries and left out women, and not until very recently were women included in the conversation (or research!). So get over yourselves.

We finally started her classic Block 1, three-day method on Saturday. Kaia ran around the apartment naked and will be through Tuesday morning, when we send her to school (ideally with no diaper or pull-up, just in shorts/pants, which is what Jamie calls “commando”). Each time she shows signs of wanting to pee/poop, we prompt her (or push her) onto the potty, so she gets the message/socialization that pee/poop is supposed to go in the potty. Amazingly, she actually has been self-initiating a LOT. This is what the first two days of data looked like:

Day 1: 8/3

Pee:

Potty: 8.5

Poop:

Floor: 2.5

Potty: 1

Floor: 0

Day 2: 8/4:

Pee:

Potty: 2.5

Floor: 1.5

Poop:

Potty: 0

Floor: 0

We’re also trying to night train as well, which means we have to estimate when she will pee, lightly wake her up and suggest she get on the potty to pee. Unfortunately, it’s been two nights of wetting the bed and missing her actual pee windows. But the good news is she doesn’t fight getting on the potty and goes willingly in the middle of the night. And to protect the bed (and keep from excess laundry), Chris has placed her play mat on top of her bed as a barrier, PLUS the hospital waterproof cover we had when Kaia was born. Chris’s creativity is paying off with less laundry loads. And Kaia is on her way to becoming diaper-free. I didn’t expect to feel sad and emotional at the thought of her getting to the next stage of development and becoming diaper free, but here I am. I am getting a little teary eyed that my little baby is growing so quickly into a big girl who no longer needs diaper changes. She loves to scream “JIA YOU!” and “I DID IT!” after a successful pee in the potty, and after she dumps her pee from her little potty into the toilet.

“Sleep training”

I suppose as first time parents, we kind of didn’t do a proper sleep training with Kaia as in… we never taught her how to sleep on her own. We got her to sleep through the night when she was about 12 weeks old. But we never taught her that to sleep, she should do it without us constantly coddling her and being by her side. We should tuck her in at her bed after reading together, kiss her good night, and say “see you in the morning!” But, we didn’t do that.

Well, in some ways, it’s kind of blown up in our faces, as bedtime nowadays can take 1.5-2 hours from end to end, without even factoring in the bedtime stories. And that is a true time suck when you have to do things like… work, clean the house, prepare and cook food, and all the usual tasks that need to get done in a day. And you know what this really, really takes away time from? Time to ourselves… to watch a show or movie, write on this blog (!), read articles and books, or enjoy my too-expensive candle in peace.

This last week, Chris insisted that we not lie down with her until she falls asleep. She needs to know that we’re serious, that this is bedtime, which means… she has to SLEEP. No playing, no stalling, nothing else. Go to sleep, or else. She especially is manipulative of me and pulls my hair, smushes my face, and everything in between. So we are trying “baby steps.” We sit in the chair at my desk (or at least, one of us does, usually Chris since she whines endlessly when it’s me for whatever reason), and then she eventually falls asleep on her bed. We’re doing well if we start reading at around 7:15-7:30, and she’s asleep by 8:30. If she isn’t asleep until 9… well, we need to try again the next day.

My baby isn’t a baby anymore, even if I keep calling her that. She’s over 2.5 years old now. And although she is very independent in some ways, she loves playing us and keeping us around when we probably shouldn’t be around, for our sanity, and for her own future sanity and growth.

Running hugs and kisses – Pookster’s latest favorite pastime

Every stage of babyhood and toddlerhood is amazing in itself when you are literally watching your child grow every day. I’ve been so fortunate that I had a long (by U.S. standards) maternity leave and have a flexible schedule that allows me a good amount of time with Pookster. Watching her little changes day to day has always fascinated me. And I love seeing the things that she really gets into that seems to change week to week.

While we were in our Santiago hotel, one thing I would do is open my arms wide from about 5-10 feet away from her, and she’d get excited, start giggling, and run at full speed into my arms. Usually, it would be quite an impact, so part of me might even fall back a little, and I’d yell out a little “oomph!” as she dug her face into my chest and neck. But that would just add to the effect and her excitement, as she’d want to do it again and again. If I don’t initiate it and Pookster wants to do it, she’d say, “I wanna hug.” And that would be a cue for me to back up, open my arms wide, and wait for her to run into me. She also has taken a liking to smushing her face into mine and even biting my lips. Pookster can get quite aggressive sometimes with the face smushing. I just hope I don’t get a black eye with all this affection.

Sometimes when we are doing little activities like this, I get a little sad, thinking that one day, she will not be this easily amused, want to hug or kiss me, or even want to be anywhere near me. She may want to spend all her time with her friends and little to no time at all with me. But it’s just a reminder to me to soak up all the cuddles now when I can and she allows me to; to continue trying my best to create a safe space for her to be herself, voice her thoughts and opinions, and let her be who she wants to be. Every now and then, I look back at older photos and videos of her, and as trite as it sounds, I just can’t believe how quickly she is growing; even just 3-4 months ago, she had chubbier cheeks that I loved to pinch and hold. And now we’re getting into the next “big kid” phase of potty training, which is another reminder to me that every day, as much as it makes me sad, my baby is less of a baby, and far more of a growing big kid.

And hopefully with these intentions, Pooks will still want to cuddle and kiss me, even when she’s 10, 20, 30, or 40-plus years old.

Potty training

We came back to daycare this week to find out that pretty much every single child across both 2s classrooms were in the process of potty training… except Kaia. Kaia is already over 31 months old. Depending on the source you read, the “sweet spot” for potty training is at around 27 months. We were lazy and not focused on it, so we never even thought about actually doing it back in March when we probably should have. And of course, Chris being Chris, he got annoyed to think that our child was behind in her cohort. “We need to start pushing!” he insisted. We tried to get Pookster to sit on the potty this week, and luckily, she did start sitting on it for a bit. Our teacher told us that she had been sitting on the potty at school for up to two minutes, just that nothing came out.

I finally opened the “Oh Crap!” potty training book this week to get into it, and it looks like we will probably need to start with the naked “watching” phase for at least a day to see if we can push her to pee or poop in the Baby Bjorn potty I got for her via my Buy-Nothing group. Diapers are annoying for all kinds of reasons (packing for a two-week trip with so many taking up so much space in the luggage was pretty grating), but they are especially annoying when you know your child is capable of potty training and is very verbal and smart. I hope we haven’t missed the ripe window to potty train and that she won’t be too stubborn about learning. Potty training is not innate; it’s all socialized. So, we will just need to push her to do it, just as I did with walking. Walking happened just a minute after I really pushed her. I don’t think potty training will happen as quickly, but we can only hope and be optimistic.