Sweater o' Doom and Potty training progress
I'm closing in on finishing the second sleeve on the Sweater o' Doom, which means the time for the finishing of the dreaded Neckband of Much Woe is drawing ever more nigh. I was looking at how much yarn I had left last night and trying to figure out if it will last through the neckband and the sewing of all the pieces together and feeling very, very dubious about it. I also figured out that I've knit the second sleeve slightly looser and screwed up the gauge so that the sleeve is a little wider and probably about an inch longer. I debated ripping about fifteen rows back to see if I could even it out and save myself the extra yarn, but then I figured if I rip the damned thing out, end up dropping stitches and have to recover them in the process, plus redo some of it and I STILL end up not having enough yarn, I would be very angry. I've decided I'll live with the flaws and order up an extra skein of yarn, different dye lot be damned, in case there isn't enough. I just want to get it done so that maybe I can wear it before spring has really sprung around these parts, not to mention so that I can get back to working on the cross-stitch baby quilt I've been working on off and on for about fifteen or so years now, especially since Ree is going to probably going into a toddler bed sometime before summer's over.
And that's the other big news...Ree is using the potty about three times a day now and has managed to do both kinds of business in it. She's starting to take more interest in actually putting her pants on, so I think she is very firmly on the road to being toilet-trained. She had a couple accidents in her crib at naptime the last couple days because she insists on taking her diaper off once it's wet or dirty. I guess if she's not walking around and playing, she's forced to pay attention to it and won't tolerate it.
Anyway, after yesterday's accident, I told her that if she's in the crib, she needs to leave the diaper on, or else yell that she needs to use to potty so that she doesn't have an accident. Lo and behold, in the midst of the harp lesson I was teaching this afternoon, I heard, "Mommy! Mommy! I need to use the potty!" through the monitor. I let my student warm up on his own with the harp and went in her room. Sure enough, she'd taken the diaper off, and it was still dry. I took her to the bathroom and she did her business and was happy to go back to her crib and finally take a nap.
Before, she was only taking her diaper off if she was wearing a zip-up sleeper or a shirt and diaper. But this time I engineered it so that if she was going to take her diaper off, she would have to pull her pants off, figuring either it would stop her from doing it, or it would give her practice with pulling her pants down and off, something she's been balking at doing. But yesterday in the bathroom she started taking a keen interest for the first time in really trying to put a pair of pants on...before she would make a half-arsed attempt and immediately get frustrated and yell for me to put her pants on for her.
You know, before I had a child, I used to laugh, as most child-free people do, at the whole obsession parents have with their kids' toileting from birth through toddlerhood. Now I know exactly why people do it. Aside from, of course, the obvious cleanliness and diaper rash issues, excretion is the most basic way to assess whether your kid is "working," especially when they're a newborn and you have no idea what the hell is going on inside them. When you're spending all this time worrying about whether they're continuing to breathe any time you're not watching them, the excretory function is a pretty reliable gauge that other major vital functions are working, and it's weirdly reassuring. Now that my newborn has become a toddler who will be 22 months old later this week, her excretory functions and how she reacts to them are reassuring signs of her continuing physical and neurological development. Life is funny, and it can be scary...but as long as you're intact enough physically and mentally to be able to use the bathroom, that's half the battle right there.
And that's the other big news...Ree is using the potty about three times a day now and has managed to do both kinds of business in it. She's starting to take more interest in actually putting her pants on, so I think she is very firmly on the road to being toilet-trained. She had a couple accidents in her crib at naptime the last couple days because she insists on taking her diaper off once it's wet or dirty. I guess if she's not walking around and playing, she's forced to pay attention to it and won't tolerate it.
Anyway, after yesterday's accident, I told her that if she's in the crib, she needs to leave the diaper on, or else yell that she needs to use to potty so that she doesn't have an accident. Lo and behold, in the midst of the harp lesson I was teaching this afternoon, I heard, "Mommy! Mommy! I need to use the potty!" through the monitor. I let my student warm up on his own with the harp and went in her room. Sure enough, she'd taken the diaper off, and it was still dry. I took her to the bathroom and she did her business and was happy to go back to her crib and finally take a nap.
Before, she was only taking her diaper off if she was wearing a zip-up sleeper or a shirt and diaper. But this time I engineered it so that if she was going to take her diaper off, she would have to pull her pants off, figuring either it would stop her from doing it, or it would give her practice with pulling her pants down and off, something she's been balking at doing. But yesterday in the bathroom she started taking a keen interest for the first time in really trying to put a pair of pants on...before she would make a half-arsed attempt and immediately get frustrated and yell for me to put her pants on for her.
You know, before I had a child, I used to laugh, as most child-free people do, at the whole obsession parents have with their kids' toileting from birth through toddlerhood. Now I know exactly why people do it. Aside from, of course, the obvious cleanliness and diaper rash issues, excretion is the most basic way to assess whether your kid is "working," especially when they're a newborn and you have no idea what the hell is going on inside them. When you're spending all this time worrying about whether they're continuing to breathe any time you're not watching them, the excretory function is a pretty reliable gauge that other major vital functions are working, and it's weirdly reassuring. Now that my newborn has become a toddler who will be 22 months old later this week, her excretory functions and how she reacts to them are reassuring signs of her continuing physical and neurological development. Life is funny, and it can be scary...but as long as you're intact enough physically and mentally to be able to use the bathroom, that's half the battle right there.