We were cuddling this morning, and Atticus was smiling, so I asked, "Are you happy?" He turned somber and said, "No, I want chocolate."

So, we have survived our first week of life without diapers (except during naps and nighttime)!

The first day at daycare was a little rough. Atticus was very nervous about going to school without his diapers. I worried that perhaps I'd rushed him too fast. He either held it or didn't drink anything because he got by without accidents or peeing in the potty. He waited until nap time when he had the comfort of his diaper. After a couple of days like that, I wondered if having his potty seat from home would help. While daycare does have small children's potties, they're still awfully wide for young toddlers. When I put him on them in the mornings when I dropped him off, he was holding on to the toilet dispenser so as not to fall in. :( So I asked him what he thought about bringing in the potty seat, and he seemed to wholeheartedly embrace that solution. I brought it in on Wednesday, and tada! he peed in the potty several times.

Then a very big milestone on Thursday: he not only pooped in the potty at school, he took the initiative to tell his teacher that he needed to poop!

A side note: one of the assistant teachers took me aside last week to tell me that Atticus is her favorite kid in the class. She said she's sad every day when she has to leave him because he's such a good kid and so much fun. She probably isn't supposed to openly admit to favorites, but I didn't mind so much. :)

Two nights ago as we read a book about migrating animals, Atticus put his foot onto the giant two-page photograph of Mali elephants and said, "I want to go in."

Just a few photos from the last week and a half I'd meant to upload before.

A few photos from the first day of our potty training weekend. So far, so good, I think. There were a number of accidents, but there were a number of successes too, and not a lot of resistance. And the accidents lessened over the course of the day. And luckily he's taken to to the potty seats I bought the last few days for our regular toilets. I was so not looking forward to having to clean out the little potties every time he went. This is way, way easier.

 

 our makeshift tee

We listened to this song four times in a row in the car on the way over to the botanical gardens, and then behold, Ryan Green did a cover of it. Dancing feet. :)

Some jumping fun from last weekend

What: Poop!
Where: In the potty!
When: this morning
Who: Atticus
:)

I won a bid on some new train stuff on ebay, and the package arrived today! I'm almost as into the trains as he is (well, maybe not quite, but not so far behind either), so it makes sense to invest in something we can enjoy together. I did most of the track construction while he strung the trains together and asked me again and again, "Ready? Ready?" We now have quite a bit of track to put together, so the answer was "Almost. Almost..."

To our surprise and delight, the little train station piece makes a choo choo noise as the train passes by it. Atticus loves it!



Aerial view of our track.

I'm making up for lost time with these copious notes on the life of Atticus. So food update: tonight he happily ate raw sugar snap peas. Unbelievable, I tell you. Before he would only eat the peas themselves after I'd popped them out, never their shells. What wonderful demon has swept in and possessed my child?

And why didn't anyone ever tell me about the potty dance? I guess that's my fault for not spending much time reading up on potty training. Tonight I did a potty dance after I used the toilet, and Atticus went wild and proceeded to pee in his potty five times in a row, dispensing it slowly like a dog, just so he could do the dance again and again, as well as repeatedly empty the potty and flush the contents down the toilet. I had decided earlier today to take the plunge and say goodbye to diapers (except during naps and night time) this weekend, but wasn't entirely confident it would work. But I feel quite good about it now. He's on board. And Chris, consider this my father's day gift to you while you're away: a potty-trained boy to come home to.

Atticus and I played some baseball this afternoon. He chose a bat and ball for me and another set for himself. Then we took turns hitting. (We kind of stole Risa's old hat, Lauri.)

Last night I made broccoli fritters, and Atticus proclaimed, "Cookies! Broccoli cookies!" and gobbled them up along with two runny-yolk eggs. In the past, he pretty much refused anything but a solid yolk. This morning he ate every bite of his breakfast, then helped me clean up without any prompting from me. And tonight he said of the zucchini on his plate, "Zucchini! I like zucchini!" He also ate kale that I didn't even like all that much because I understeamed it. And after trying a big bite of goat cheese he didn't think he liked much, he decided on his own (I told him he didn't have to eat anymore of it) to try it again. And guess what? He said he liked it, and he asked for more. I don't know what the heck prompted this transformation in my child, but I'm loving every minute of it.

And after having a very, very rough time last night transitioning back to his own bed after three nights of sleeping in mommy's bed (it started up again because of Chris being home only from about 10 or 11 at night Thursday to 4 or 5 in the morning. poor Chris), he went to bed easily tonight. I could tell he was struggling not to cry when I lay him down. But he succeeded. He's awesome. Not that he wasn't before, but now he's even more awesome. I'm very proud of him.

Of course, as soon as Chris left town (actually, Chris was working a convention for two days before he left town, so we haven't seen him since Wed. morning), Atticus cried all morning at daycare, so I had to pick him up at 10ish on Friday. He didn't seem ill, just a little clingy, so after playing trains at home and taking a nap, we went for gelato. He barely touched the blackberry sorbet he chose for himself and went for my pistachio instead.

Saturday morning Atticus peed in his potty for the first time! Here's the extended story. Friday night he peed in the bath tub, and I told him that that's what I've been trying to get him to do in the potty. It seemed like something clicked for him at that moment. In the morning, he pointed to his diaper and said he had an ouwie. I went to change him and discovered he was dry, so I asked him if he wanted to try to use the potty. He did, so I put him on it and started to take off to do something in the kitchen, but almost immediately he called to me that he did it. He proudly helped me dispose of it in the toilet and flush. We marked the occasion with an Elmo sticker on his potty chart. Then he watched his Elmo potty time DVD.

We had breakfast at Cup Cafe, and I treated Atticus to a rare orange juice. We sat outside where we had a nice view of the railroad tracks, which were very busy lucky for him.

 We saw an Amtrack train in addition to all the cargo trains. Atticus wanted to get on it.  We ran into our friends Heather, Truman, and Ward, which I somehow neglected to photograph. We went back and forth across the bridge, up and down the elevator to the water sculptures, etc. After they took off, we did more of the same.

Then we shared a chocolate macaroon, and I had an idea that perhaps we should take off for Bisbee during his naptime and stay the night. It would be a tad cooler at least. And so we did. We booked a room at the Copper City Inn, which Chris and I stayed at before. We drove through rain on the way there. (I hope the monsoon is coming to Tucson too.)



Turns out it was Gay Pride weekend in Bisbee, so there was lots going on: vendors everywhere and an art car parade. Atticus was most interested in the old mining train in front of the mining museum. And it turns out he's a big fan of olive oil. Who knew? We sampled several olive oils, and he wasn't content just to dip bread in them; he wanted to drink them straight from the cup. We bought some basil (boring perhaps, but practical) olive oil to take home.

 Here's our room.

 Our balcony.

After such a long day, it was foolish of me to try to take him to the nicest restaurant in town to have a four-course dinner. He wasn't bad bad, but he was very fidgety, so by the time we got to the sorbet  (which he quite enjoyed as you can see), I asked the waitress just to wrap our entree so we could take it back to our room. We ate it on our balcony. It was still delicious, and he tried and liked all of it--fish, crab cakes, lobster ravioli, broccoli, and zucchini. Oh, and another thing I was surprised to find out he likes: olives. He's been quite happy to try new foods these last few days, including foods he previously rejected such as zucchini; and then he congratulates himself for eating it and liking it.

All of our photographs seem to involve food. Here's breakfast: blueberry yogurt muffin and carrot/apple/beet/ginger/celery juice, which he also loved. And to think the woman at the juice bar recommended a plain apple juice for him. Note: if I hadn't acknowledged it already, Atticus is very good at sharing. He loves to share food and drinks with me, and in fact insists upon it a lot of the time. We had to take turns drinking this juice. My favorite meals with him are when we have one big plate that we both eat from.

We went back to the mining train, and he did lots of climbing. Bisbee was not nearly as cool as I'd hoped though, and nothing was opening until 10 or 11, so we packed up and left and stopped at Tombstone.

 Atticus threw and kicked his basketball all over the place and watched the horses and buggies.

We took a tour of Tombstone on a buggy. The driver/tour guide's voice was projected so loudly inside the buggy, it was uncomfortable, but Atticus didn't mind as long as those horses kept moving.

Some more photos from our trip to San Diego for the marathon... (all from my phone, so pardon the less-than-perfect quality)

really, really big tires

It's been a while as usual. So here's a mix of photos and updates.

 

This was about a month ago--Atticus helping me make pizza for dinner.

 

He wanted to help trim the tree, but it's covered in thorns. So he climbed the ladder a few times, and he dragged thornless brush from the backyard out to the curb for the brush and bulky pickup.

Atticus got his first pair of scissors and loves them. We made this nifty cat puppet, which Atticus ripped apart and put together again several times before the materials were in such bad shape that the cat was finally dead for good (not quite nine lives, but close).

Here he is on the first morning of our trip to San Diego last weekend. We left Thursday evening at 4 and intended to drive all the way to SD, but Atticus was so devastated about the prospect of sleeping in the car (saddest face ever) that we decided that we wouldn't mind having a bed to sleep in too, so we stopped in Yuma. Thanks to the blackout curtains, Atticus and I slept about 11 hours straight. Best night of sleep I've had in a long time.

All in all, Atticus did pretty darn well on the drive to SD and back. It took longer than we anticipated, but he was a trooper. The ipad is a lifesaver, I have to admit. If all else failed, that almost always distracted him for a while. It also helped that we saw a ton of trains, and had a new, comfy car to ride in.

We went to Carlsbad on Friday to visit Mike and Lauri and family. Contrary to what Atticus's expression suggests, I think he had a pretty good time. He hit balls off their tee, built magnetic empires, and played with weird electronic cockroach-type things.

Dinner the night before the marathon--pasta, of course. Atticus had two wedding cookies before dinner because he was out of sorts and it was vacation, and I didn't want to fight.

 He enjoyed dinner.

Then passed out on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant. No, just fake sleeping. It's his version of planking. He has fake slept on many, many sidewalks.

Other tidbits:

• When Ava is not at school, Atticus says she's at work.
• Since we've returned from San Diego he's been asking to eat out all the time--I mean whining on the drive to school in the mornings about it, despite having a snack in hand and having had breakfast earlier.
• Last night he had a nightmare that someone was taking his chair. He cried out, "My chair. That's my chair."

I'm tired and blank now. I'll probably remember a bunch of stuff tomorrow that I wanted to post.