Changes

In anticipation of Kolby’s new afternoon kindergarten schedule in the Fall, I somewhat reluctantly decided that he should stop taking naps now, so he would be prepared before he starts school. So, that has been a big change for me. Although Kolby could easily have continued taking naps he seems to be adjusting well, and has only fallen asleep on the couch during naptime a couple of times. We did have a chance to sit down and finish reading the first Boxcar Children book yesterday while his younger brothers were all napping, so that was nice. But it is also strange for me – I have always had this block of time in the middle of the day to myself, but I guess once he starts kindergarten I will have it back. Courtland has also switched to taking an afternoon nap usually at the same time as his brothers do (if I time his feedings correctly). This has been nice too.

And Camden has been doing extremely well with his pull-ups. He woke up dry a couple weeks ago, so even though I have been totally against trying to force kids to be potty trained too early (because of the long, drawn-out power struggle that resulted from doing this with Kolby), I thought that I’d just get a small pack of pull-ups and allow Camden to try using the toilet if he wanted to. He actually likes it a lot. He goes in by himself (if we go into the bathroom with him, he says, “No! Don’t watch me!” Then he goes and comes out and asks us to help him put his shorts back on. He is so excited to tell us when he is done, and then to get his “treats” – 1 raisin when he goes potty in the toilet and 2 raisins for going poopy in the toilet. And I absolutely love this “no stress” method of potty training. I started too early with Kolby, I guess, because even though he was perfectly capable of using the toilet and sometimes would do so for a short while without a problem, more often it would be a struggle because no matter how often I took him to the bathroom, he would still have accidents in between bathroom trips, which got me more and more frustrated. So, I swore I’d never do that again. I always said I’d wait and let the boys start when they were really ready to start, and even though I think Camden is pretty young to be potty training, I decided to let him try but not to worry about it if it didn’t work out. I figured he could do it, and if it doesn’t work after a while then we’ll just take a break and let him do it when he wants to again. But, in the meantime, we are changing fewer Camden diapers than we were before, so that is great.

And I also started letting Kolby play with some of the neighborhood kids this week. There were some boys riding their scooters down the street and I encouraged Kolby to introduce himself and invite them to come over and play. After asking their parents, they came and played and it went pretty well. I did feel rather uncomfortable when at one point when we had 4 neighborhood kids in the back yard, including a couple 4 and 5-year-olds, and they all of a sudden darted out of the yard to run and get some things at their houses – since I hadn’t officially met their parents, I didn’t know whether they were old enough to go on their own, but I couldn’t leave because some of my boys were napping. But, the kids went home, got the things they wanted, and came back. I figure that unless their parents make specific arrangements with me to watch the kids, they can just come and go as they please, because I don’t really know what else to do about it. But yesterday one of the boys came and asked if Kolby could go play, and I let him. I let him go by himself. It was to a house nearby, of a family who’s parents I had met, and I told him to stay out in the yard, but I was still a little nervous about letting him go on his own. He did fine, though, all except for the fact that he was really sad to leave when I went to pick him up. He’s such a responsible kid.