Dentist

I'm not dentist-a-phobic but prior to moving back to the UK I hadn't been to the dentist since before Callum was born. I'm not afraid of them, not particularly bothered about drills and injections but hated the fact that after every appointment I was told that I needed a load more work done and needed to come back for several more appointments. By the time that work was finished it would be nearly time for the next check up and it would start all over again.

Well after a little bit of prodding I decided that it was time to find a new dentist, couldn't find an NHS one for me and Mark but found a private one that will treat the kids on the NHS. I went in, sat on the chair, let him poke and prod at my teeth a bit and then waited for the news about how dreadful my teeth are, and...it never came. He said they were in good condition, keep on eye on a couple of things and see you in 6 months, yipeee, I can't remember that last time that a dentist has said that to me.

That was 6 months ago, since then Mark has been and so have both the kids. He's courteous to everyone, treats the kids very gently but not patronisingly, informative but not pushy and best of all I just went for my checkup today and again got the "everything is fine, come back in 6 months" speech. I think I actually found a good one this time.

Tinkle, Tinkle

We've begun potty training Callum, again!

It has been attempted many times before but Callum has never gotten the concept, he showed no interest in the toilet or potty (even though he knows what they're for). He doesn't care if his wet, cold trousers are clinging to his legs or his nappy is round his ankles. He quite happily clapped and cheered when Kieran was potty training, has watched Mark & I on the toilet, has put his doll on the potty, has had a wee in the bath and told us that he's doing it - so knows where the wee comes from but just wasn't ready.

Well we had a visit from the continence nurse on the 19th who gave me a couple more ideas and as it was the half term holiday we decided to give it a go. The continence nurse wanted us to put him on the potty 3 times a day for 2 or 3 minutes, give him something to blow while on the toilet (like a balloon or bubbles) as it activates the same muscles that you need for going to the toilet, and to give lots of praise and resort to bribery if necessary.

So armed with our tools and the Tinkle Toonz potty we set to work....

Saturday - Wednesday

We did just what the nurse told us, Callum happily sat on the potty - no bribery needed, blew his bubbles, slobbered all over a balloon and got lots of claps but nothing in the potty.

Thursday

As he'd been so great at sitting on the potty and we didn't have any appointments I just decided to turn the heating up and take his nappy and trousers off and see what happens. Success!! it happened, a little bit of wee on the floor, a quick rush to sit on the potty and then the tinkle tinkle of the potty merrily letting the whole world know that my big boy had managed to wee in the potty. Loud cheers errupted, we showed it to daddy, we phoned up nanny to announce this momentous occassion and Callum had the biggest grin on his face that I've seen in a long time. The rest of the day was about 50/50 with accidents and getting to the potty.

Friday - Saturday

Continued much like Thursday, but as soon as we put any kind of clothes on him he went back to not caring in the slightest and not telling us that he was wet or that he needed the potty. He also got a bad tummy, so I spent rather a lot of the time scrubbing the carpet.

Sunday

Another breakthrough, after a day of cleaning up pooh and wee from various parts of the house, I felt defeated and put a nappy on his for a couple of hours. Then before bed I asked him to sit on the potty again and try and do a wee to make the music, he's NEVER EVER done a wee on demand, but this time YEAH he did it - not a huge amount but he did it!!! This is huge this means that we should be able to get him on a timed schedule and keep him dry during the day, we just need to work out the interval and take him regulary to the toilet. We'll still have the pooh to deal with as he doesn't have a set time but this is a major major breakthough.

Today

Again this morning I sat him on the potty and asked him to wee and he did. I was going to take him again as soon as he got to school (he had speech therapy this morning) but about 5 minutes from school he suddenly said wee wee, so there was nothing left when we did arrive at school. That was about 90 minutes after his last wee so I think we'll try every hour and see what happens.

Smart

Smart, originally uploaded by * Naomi *.

Getting back into Blogging

It's been a while since I was a regular at writing, but I'm going to try and get back into regular updates. Callum & Kieran are now both at full time school and I'm getting used to having a few hours to myself each day.

Kieran started school without a backwards glance and is absolutely loving it. I picked him up after his first day and he gave me a big hug and said "you came back!" , now he just says "it's SO nice to see you" and gives his brother a huge hug while all the other parents in the line go "aahhhh".

Kieran is going through a couple of annoying phases at the moment, the first is the joke phase - it goes like this...

Kieran: knock, knock
us: Who's there?
Kieran: orange
us: Orange who?
Kieran (laughing his head off as if we're about to hear the funniest thing EVER): oranges and bananas!!!!

He'll tell the same joke over and over and over and over again.

The other phases is the "what is it" phase. We were driving along and chatting after school and I happened to mention that we were going to go round the roundabout and then pick up Daddy...

Kieran: What's a roundabout?
Me: a big circle that you drive around
Kieran: What's a circle?
Me: it's a shape
Kieran: what's a shape?
Me: uhh, umm, uhh

think I'll have to start carrying a dictionary with me wherever we go