You may have read the blog entry about Tommy's birthday here. If so, you know he received a new potty chair as a gift. The goal being to keep the old potty chair in the car and have a new potty chair to keep inside the house on a permanent basis.

If you read TM's review of the potty chair, you will know that she wasn't too impressed with it. As a matter of fact, she returned it to Target over the weekend for a full refund. Returning it was simple. Target didn't seem to mind at all.

In the end, it just wasn't usable. It will be replaced with this model
as soon as anyone in the household makes an order from Amazon. After it has been thoroughly tested you will find a review right here. Stayed tuned.

Birth Story of Tommy Gunnar

This blog is dedicated to a single subject. It was planned like that as a way of reaching out to other parents who are interested in EC, to let them have a glimpse into the life of one family who does it. TM didn't want those other parents, most of whom are complete strangers, to be forced to search for the EC bits amongst the volumes of posts about Tommy's siblings, her trip to the grocery store, her unhappiness with the weather, etc.

However, TM knows that sometimes parents who share views in one area of parenting may share views in other areas. This is likely the case with EC and natural child birth. Actually, natural child birth is something about which TM is very passionate, unlike EC, about which she is merely highly interested.

For the reason stated in the first paragraph, TM has chosen not to post the birth story of Tommy Gunnar here on this blog. You can find a link here, to TM's daughter's account of the event. Or you can navigate directly to the daughter's blog to read it.

You can also see the birth on the net by going here.

Now, for the purpose of this post. TM has another blog where she posts her thoughts that no one would care to read, but she's saving them for a book to be published after her death. Anyway, she has posted over there her own description of the labor and birth of Tommy. Some people like to read birth stories, and if you are one of those people, feel free to read it. But before you go there, be warned that it contains some brief references to intimate relations between TM and Tommy's Papa. They are tasteful and not overly graphic, but they are there.

Also, if stories about home birth, and particularly unassisted home birth, and particularly unassisted home water birth cause you to become violent and foam at the mouth because you believe the ONLY proper place for birth is on dry land in a hospital, then do YOURSELF a favor and don't read Tommy's birth story.

The warning has been sufficient, do NOT come back here and comment on how you were ambushed by the private moments mentioned in the birth story, ok?

The Unassisted Home Water Birth of Tommy Gunnar

Video Review: "Potty Whispering" by Laurie Boucke

In this post it was noted that Infant Potty Training: A Gentle and Primeval Method Adapted to Modern Living authoress Laurie Boucke had produced a DVD titled Potty Whispering: The Gentle Art of Infant Potty Training. Because TM is a big fan of The Dog Whisperer , Cesar Millan, and has read, enjoyed and gleaned much from Infant Potty Training, she assumed that this new DVD would be a good thing. (to borrow a term from Martha Stewart) She was not disappointed.

Tommy's Mommy shall attempt to describe the video to her readers in a manner that will accomplish two goals. The first is that her readers will gain a general understanding of the format and content of the video. The second goal is for this review to actually aid the reader in making an educated decision about whether purchasing this video is a wise and useful choice for a parent learning to communicate with her infant about elimination.

By the way, TM is not above making a shameless plug here about her activities as an Amazon Associate. If one her readers should elect to purchase the DVD from Amazon and uses the above link to navigate to Amazon, TM would get paid a commission from Amazon. Something like 10% . So far, TM has yet to make one cent from being an Amazon Associate, but she remains hopeful.

One of the first things noticed upon opening the DVD case is that it contains not one but actually two disks. The first disk contains the documentary. The second disk contains additional footage that was apparently shot in producing the documentary, but which had to be edited to usable bits and bites. This disk contains complete interviews with ECing families, doctors, psychologists, etc.

In analyzing the format of Potty Whispering, TM was at first tempted to think that it was horribly organized. Or perhaps not organized at all. But further reflection reminded her that she had very similar opinions about Laurie Boucke's book, Infant Potty Training. What follows is an attempt to get into the mind of Laurie Boucke and explain why the material in both her book and documentary video are indeed organized, even if TM would not have chosen the particular style of organization in sharing this material.

The problem for TM (or maybe it's a strength for TM and a problem for Mrs. Boucke) is that TM is a very logical and linear organizer. Her brain is sort of like a file cabinet where things are filed alphabetically, by category or in ordinal rank (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.) In Infant Potty Training and Potty Whispering, the content is sorted by category and the exact same content sometimes appears more than once, under different headings. Boucke does this for the benefit of people who don't want to read an entire book, but rather, want to quickly get information on a particular issue. If TM had written the book, she would have started at the beginning with "What is EC", and then moved on to "Why do it" and then "How to get started" and so on. But Boucke is not trying to give us her own personal story or even a "how to" manual necessarily. Instead she offers a compilation of research, resources and the personal experiences of others who have successfully used infant potty training in a variety of cultures and circumstances.

Here is an example of how TM would sort a big pile of fruit compared to how Boucke might do it. (It's just for fun... don't take this too seriously)

If faced with a huge basket of fruit and the command to "sort it", TM would just line it up from smallest to largest. The order would be completely objective. There would be no question about how each fruit would line up in relation to the other fruit. Boucke, on the other hand, would first arrange the fruit according to color. Then she would rearrange it into groups of fruits with edible seeds and fruits without edible seeds. Then into tree fruits, bush fruits and ground fruits. Then into those that have to be peeled and those that don't. In her world, the same fruit goes in several different piles, depending upon what you are looking for in a fruit. That is how she organized her book and video. Does that make sense?

So, now that format has been covered, the content comes into the spotlight, and here is where Boucke shines. Her expertise on this subject is probably unmatched by anyone else in the world. Not because she might be the most successful mother who ever practiced EC, but because she has done the most work to collect all the known data on the subject and to make it available to the average parent. Through interviews with researchers and her own narration she covers all the anthropological information, including data on how EC is practiced in non-western and primitive cultures. There is a discussion on the history of EC in western culture and how it is different from coercive forms of "early toilet training" as practiced earlier in the last century in the U.S. And, of course, there are the interviews with parents and videos of the cutest babies going pee pee and poo poo on cue.

There are modern experts like doctors and therapists explaining why EC is not the least bit harmful to babies and how the notion that children can't control their sphincters until 18 months or later has never been tested or verified and is a bunch of bunk. As a matter of fact, every day that "fact" is disproved by babies all over the planet, including right here in North America.

The second disk contains some interesting video and interviews. Particularly delightful is the story of Annabelle, a 14 month old girl that is toilet trained. The only thing her mother does is help her pull her panties up and down. The girl signs and verbalizes when she needs to pee or poo, she walks down the hall to the bathroom, does her business... everything. Another family testimony on disk two shows twin 18 month old girls who have two potties in several different rooms in their house so they never have to wait for access.

For those who have read Infant Potty Training, you will be glad to see a couple of the stars from that book, siblings by the names of Sarah and Beau. Not only is there video from when they were babies, but recent interviews with them, many years after they graduated from potty training. It is amusing to watch Sarah, watching herself for the first time as a baby on a TV interview show. She also comments on whether she would choose to practice EC with her own children someday.

There is footage of Boucke doing interviews on television. While TM hates to be critical of someone who has done so much to make the marvelous option of EC knowable to her, it is difficult not to notice that she tends to look quite frumpy on video. Her hair is stringy and unkempt looking. Nearly every woman seeing this will be silently thinking, "Wow. If I knew I was going to be on TV, I would at least comb my hair." This is no joke. It distracts from the beautiful message. Her voice is also boring and monotone. Perhaps she should have hired one of those British guys that narrate PBS nature documentaries. Don't you always come away after watching one of those feeling like a real smarty pants? I think it's the accent.

Another thing you should know is that much of video and photography is old. It was probably filmed with home video quality VHS cam-corders, without the benefit of proper lighting or studio sound. The narrator points this out at the beginning and is unapologetic about it. There is no need to apologize. Obviously she wasn't working with a Hollywood film studio budget and she's been at it for over a decade, maybe as long as two. The work needed to be made in spite of the lack of high quality production. Parents can't wait for someone rich to start from scratch using the latest technologies and a crew of hundreds to fan out all over the world to capture this story.

In spite of these limitations, the scope is far reaching. Experts from Europe, the U.S. and the far east have appearances in the film. The quality of the information presented doesn't suffer in the least for its lack of fancy, splashy presentation.

So, is this a valuable asset to the video library of an EC parent? Absolutely. If you need data to help you make a decision about EC or to defend your choice with well-meaning but nay-saying family and friends, you will find it here. Does your husband want to find out more about EC, but he doesn't have the time or inclination to read a stack of books? Let him watch this video.

TM's favorite thing about Potty Whispering is that nothing conveys the simplicity of EC like a few clips of babies being pottied by their parents. Much like an episode of the Dog Whisperer, where Cesar Millan changes the behavior of what was considered to be an incorrigible dog in about 8 seconds, Potty Whispering undoes years of incorrect thought about the awareness that an infant has about his elimination needs. He DOES know when he has to pee. He CAN communicate with his parents about it. He CAN hold it until he gets to the potty place. He CAN pee and poop on cue.

An EC Uh-oh

The other day TM took Tommy to go pee pee on the toilet in the master bath. On their way out of the bathroom, TM noticed that her bed needed to be made, so she set Tommy on the floor in order to tend to the job. Tommy quickly crawled away to the living room to investigate the activities of his older siblings.

TM made the bed and then plopped down in front of the computer to check email. Unfortunately, she forgot that Tommy was bare-bottomed.

A few minutes later, Tommy came crawling down the hall. Much to TM's horror, she saw that he had poop on his feet. And his legs. And his hands. He was grinning from ear to ear.

This is the stuff of EC nightmares. More than once TM has been asked, "What? You just let your baby poop and pee all over the house?" To which she would always respond, "Of course not!" Hmmmph.

While it is true that one of TM's goals is that her babies won't be wearing their wastes, it is also a goal that they put them in an appropriate receptacle - not just drop them wherever they might fall! In this case, they fell on the carpet, and Tommy crawled through. Then he decided to pull himself up to the piano and play a few notes. Yuck!

Has it been mentioned that the carpet in Tommy's household is a nice poopy brown color? Now TM had to get on her hands and knees and retrace Tommy's path, trying to see poop that was camouflaged in the rug. Mostly she had to follow her nose.

As embarrassing as that is to share, be assured that this is the first time this has happened to TM, and Tommy is her 3rd ECing baby.

Thankfully, there are no pictures to go with this post.

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!