Tommy's Birthday

Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of Tommy's birth. The family celebrated with cake, ice cream and gifts, in the traditional American way. To the right you can see Tommy having his first experience with cake. Actually, he probably has had a bit of cake already, handed to him by well-meaning relatives, but mostly TM has endeavored to keep sweets out of his hands. Instead he has been weaned on less sweet or downright sour stuff like plain yogurt, kefir and smashed veggies. Tommy also likes meat; steak and chicken being two of his favorites, but I digress.

The main point of this entry is a critical review of one of his birthday gifts, a potty chair, and a general update/review of the last 12 months of ECing with Tommy and Mommy.

In looking back over the past year, TM would have to say that ECing has been a great success. It has gone in phases and stages. Just when TM thinks she has Tommy all figured out, things change once again. For a while, Mommy was catching all the poopies. But then Tommy began to venture further away from Mommy and many signs were missed, so the poopy ended up in the diaper, or partly in the diaper with the rest in the toilet. But missing some poops, or even all of them, does not mean failure in EC. Infant potty training is about communicating. It's about listening to a child who is signaling a need to pee pee or poop and about helping the child to do the business in some place other than his clothing. It's about hygiene, helping a baby to stay clean and dry, free from odor and rashes.

As attempts at communication were fostered, more hand signs were added to Tommy's vocabulary. He now has signs for "potty", "milk," "eat" and "done". Right now TM is introducing more hand signs as Tommy seems to be grasping them very quickly. The best part about hand signs is that they allow Tommy to "speak" with clarity so Mommy doesn't have to work so hard to understand him.

As of last week, Tommy is a walker. Now he can move farther and faster than ever before and catching a pee or poop means that Mommy has to keep a sharp eye on him. His main signal that he has to go is just the simple act of searching out Mommy. If TM is in the bedroom and Tommy is in the living room, the sounds of Tommy crawling down the hallway should be assumed to be an announcement. Unfortunately, TM often forgets that this means something, instead just thinking about how cute he looks when they make eye contact. If Tommy doesn't get to Mommy before pottying in the diaper, he always goes to her immediately afterward for a change.

TM is hoping that Tommy, now that he can walk, will begin to take himself to the potty place, or at least move towards it, as a signal that he needs to eliminate. To make this easier on everybody, Mommy thought it would be best to have a potty place in the living room. As seen here, Tommy and his older siblings have a potty chair that they keep in the car. TM is reluctant to bring that potty into the house out of fear that it will be forgotten at home when it is needed in the car. So, in honor of the birthday boy, a new potty was purchased.



Here is Tommy sitting on his new potty chair making the sign for "all done". (Actually, it looks like he is making the sign for "I'll shoot you if don't get me off this potty" - Papa would be proud)

The potty was purchased at Target, because that is where the Bebe Jou potty was purchased and TM was hoping to score another one of those. Unfortunately, Target did not have those or any thing even closely resembling them. There were potties of every color, with every kind of useless gadget, including potties that flush and potties that play music. But every version suffered from the same flaw - they were all designed to look like toilets. You know the type, a wide bowl-type thing sitting on a narrow base.

Are the designers of potty seats retarded? I'm serious. The only reason that we can sit on a toilet with even the tiniest degree of safety is that a toilet is BOLTED to the floor! Who makes a chair that is narrower on the bottom than at the top? Have any of these useless designers ever seen a child attempt to sit on one of their creations? They tip and topple. If the child does manage to sit and do his business, in the act of standing up he tips the chair and now we have urine all over the place! Honestly, why do parents put up with this stuff?

Have you ever seen an old time potty chair? It is basically a wooden chair with a hole cut for a receptacle. Perfect. And safe. Too bad Tommy doesn't have access to one of those.

For the record, this potty is made by a company called, ironically, Safety 1st! Well, Safety 1st is going to be getting an email from Tommy's Mommy about the stupid design of this potty seat.

Target had one model of potty seat made by Baby Bjorn, but it wasn't the Little Potty. It looked more like a throne and cost twice as much as the fancy, 4 function one that TM purchased. Tommy's new chair can be used on the toilet seat and when not being used as a potty chair, doubles as a step-stool.

However, the new potty has one redeeming feature. The removable bowl/receptacle thingy inside of the potty works great as a potty bowl for an infant who is being pottied on the lap. Here is what it looks like:


As much as advertising this badly designed potty seat brings pain, the following link is offered so you can see all the amazing functions of this chair. *eyes rolling* It's such a piece of junk, even Target doesn't have it on their website.

Safety 1st Potty 'n Step Stool

So, happy 1st birthday, Tommy!