My Laughter

Isaac is our funny, witty, gleeful little package of unlimited energy.  You know how 6 or 7-month old babies will just grin at you with such delight and get all squirmy they're so happy?  It's like Isaac is stuck in that mode.  He exudes happiness from his pores.  Even when he's sick.  Five minutes after `coming down' with the stomach flu, he was playing hide and seek - in the dryer.

He wants to do everything like a "boy boy" (big boy), he loves to point out "trappers" (tractors), and he loves everything.  "I love those horsies, Mama!"  "I love both of those colors, Mama!"

His understanding of the world around him is delightful.  At swimming lessons as I was doling out pairs of goggles, it was, "I want my goggles on my three-head Mama."

He also understands a lot more about the coming baby than his siblings at this age ever did!  When I was expecting our third child, we didn't tell the older two until about 6 weeks before the birth and they never noticed anything!

Isaac frequently gestures toward my stomach and says casually, "There's a baby in there."  Tonight at dinner was one of those times.  Then I was eating a gingersnap, and he wondered, "When you eat that cookie, then it goes down into your tummy and then the baby eats the cookie?"

Well...sort of.

Shortly after that, "Mama, you could rip off your head and then the baby could come out of your neck."

So hap-pee!

You know how parenting has those giant swings between "I'm an expert on this topic" and "I've decided I know absolutely nothing about this"?

Potty training swings wildly between these two for me.  After we potty trained our oldest in 3 days just after he turned three, I knew it all.  Just follow the 3-day method - nothing to it.  I was so confident that I started our second-born when he was 19 months because I'd read an article that had me convinced that the whole idea of "readiness" was a myth and that girls and boys all have the necessary physical development at 21 months.  Being as that I had such advanced children, I reasoned that mine would probably be ready at 19 months, so we dove in.  2,000 pairs of underwear and 4 months later, he was trained during the day but had trouble at night for years.  It shook me.

Our third, I waited until a standardly accepted age, right around 2.  He took a couple of months, but it was just h-orrible!  I hated potty training, I decided.  I also decided that I had no right giving advice to anyone on this topic.  Beats me.  I don't get it.

I was dreading training the twins!  Love, love, love diapers.  They're great for my floors, great for my sanity, great for the general mood of the home.  I wasn't planning on training them until they were 3 - maybe.

Then I have this pressing deadline of the end of June.  I don't want 3 kids in diapers.  Mostly because of money.

So Isaac was apparently the most ready.  He knew which muscles he needed to use to go all forms of potty and could activate them when he sat down.

Monday we went hard-core to underwear.  I was determined there would be no turning back.

I am now convinced once again that I have the secret to easy, painless, potty-training.  By this, the third day, he is staying dry at naps, and taking himself to the bathroom whenever he has to go.  It has been a breeze!  I am such a potty-training expert!  Way to go me!  After training 3, I finally figured it all out.  Again.

Or our children are individually designed and wired differently.

It might be that.

So here we are at the end of the week, and I have a deep, immovable joy.  All because of successful potty training.

Sometimes the Lord is humorous with the grace He bestows.  He understands us mothers so perfectly.  Makes sense I guess, with Him being our Creator and all.