My Monkey

A wonderful package showed up in the mail the other day for Khai from my dear friend Christine - his newest hat (and current favorite)! Thanks SO very much Christine, you sent the most perfect hat for him and he's been wearing it ever since. I only wish you were nearby to give it to him yourself. Love you!

Train Show

Took Khai to the train show today at the Dulles Expo Center. Holy trains!!! The place was packed with train enthusiasts, young and old. There were two lines to get in the door and both went clear around the corner of the building. When we got inside we didn't know where to start first - there was SO much to see!! There was a Thomas train with two coach cars that kids could ride on a track around the place. The line for that was ridiculous....though we somehow managed to work our way to the front. Did we cut in line?? I think so. Not on purpose though!!! Although we realized we had when the man behind us gave us dirty looks and pushed past us - but by then we were at the very front of the line and there was no way we were turning around. Khai was pretty excited to get on the ride until the very last second...then he got scared. We gave it a few more tries but he would only go if I went with him (ride was too small for Mommy). So we got out of line and continued looking around at the gazillions of trains displayed. Khai was in heaven!! Especially when we stopped at the Thomas store, and of course he walked out with a new train....or two..or three.

WOoooOOo! He Did It!

Ok, so I know this is not really something he'd want me to write about for the whole world to read...but Khai pooped in the potty for the very first time. I'll try to limit my potty blogs so as to not disgust anyone.. but for anyone with a kid, you know this is HUGE. HUGE. HUGE. Remember the last time when he peed on the balance board and then finally used the potty and had this moment of emotional happiness mixed with tears? Same deal here tonight. Its pretty darn cool to see his emotions burst with this accomplishment.

Recently his teacher Ms. Ana said she'd work with him not wearing Pull-Ups during the day. I stocked his backpack up with extra pants, socks and underpants should he have an accident.. so far, I am pleased to report NO accidents! So when we got home tonight I left him in his underpants and before I knew it I saw him doing the little poop stance he does. I immediately grabbed him and set him on the toilet only to have him completely freak out on me. Crying that he couldn't do it. Scared. So here I am, sitting on the bathroom floor being the poo poo cheerleader, telling him he can do it, nothing to be scared of, singing Go Potty Go! and bloooop...he did it! Woooo! We both screamed with excitement and hugged eachother. I was so proud of my little man. I think I almost started crying. He kept saying Thank you, Goooo Khai Khai! and then demanded his treats.. lots of them to be exact. And he got them naturally. A couple Krabby Patties, a handful of gummy bears and Ma Moy gave him some animal crackers. And then I told him he's officially a big boy now. Sniff*

Pull-Up Heads

I promise we are not crazy. Not always. Just a little. But we like to have fun and i'm sure at some point in his life, Khai will look back at the pictures we took from our little Pull-Up hat fun and be totally embarrassed.. but I'm also pretty sure later on down the road he's going to see just how much I love him. Well, you know what I mean....

Poopy

This scenerio begins in the early morning with Khai wearing his Thomas big boy underwear - no Pull-Ups. Our goal today (as with the past number of days) is to go underwear only. So far, Khai still has yet to let me know when he needs to use the potty and if I don't take him to one every half hour to an hour, he'll pee himself... or poop. So far we've only had one, maybe two poop incidents and those were in the distant past when all this potty training initially started. This morning Khai and I pull out the Wii and decide we'll work out. Khai loves the running mode. We set everything up to go for a 10 minute run - approx 1.5 miles. I ask him moments before hand if he needs to use the potty. He says no. I step out of the room for a minute only to return to him standing on the balance board saying "The board is wet!!" and pee steady flowing down his leg and onto the board. So what do I do first? Rescue the board before $99 goes down the drain? Strip his wet clothes off? Pull up the play mat before the pee soaks the hardwood floor beneath? Somehow super mom manages to do it all in a handful of minutes and soon enough we are off on our jog after a little talk about not going in the underwear otherwise the Pull-Ups go back on.

Fast forward to a little later in the morning:
Battles ensue over potty usage. Temper tantrums, fits on the bathroom floor, "I don't have to pee!!" followed by instant peeing as soon as he sits on the potty, followed by him being so excited that he's done it that he's laughing and crying at the same time - kind of what you'd expect to see when someone wins the lottery or something. He gets a bunch of hugs, high fives, and treats and runs along as I'm shouting out after him "POTTY POWER!!!".

Fast forward to this afternoon:
"Do you have to poop?" "NO! I SAAAID NO!".
I asked him a few times this afternoon, and kept getting the same response, but I knew it was coming... and nobody likes to clean poop out. Then while i'm in the bedroomI smell it...he's pooped...in his big boy underwear. I come out to the living room where he's at and he's standing there with a smirk on his face.
"You pooped didn't you".
"Hee hee hee".
"Khai! Why did you poo poo in your underwear?"
"Because I didn't poo poo in the potty."
"Why didn't you poo poo in the potty?"
"Because I pooed in my underwear".
"But Thomas is sad now because you pooed on him, and poo poo is sad because he wanted to go into the potty to see his mommy and daddy...."
"But mama, the poo poo wanted to stay with his friends..not go see his mommy and daddy."

Khai wins.

Still Thomas

His love for Thomas the Tank Engine and all trains really, has nowhere near ended. I can't remember the day he started to like them, I can't imagine the day he'll be over them, I can't tell you how many of them he has accumulated thus far, and I'm pretty certain he'll manage to finagle a few more. Die cast ones, wooden ones, battery powered ones, plastic tracks, wooden tracks, more plastic tracks, train DVDs, CDs, books, plates, cups, stickers...it just keeps going.
Ask him about any one of them, he'll give you full detail. Its pretty impressive. And whatever you do, don't tell him something that is wrong about one of his trains.. he'll get very VERY upset and set you straight. Pronto! The only debate we have is that he insists Edward is Gordon. I won't let this battle go. Neither will he. Choo chooooo!

Khai Khai Potty Pants.

A while back, we started working on potty training. It was somewhat successful to start mainly I think because it involved Khai getting an M&M. Eventually the novelty wore out for him and we switched up to Pez. That wore out too. While at school, Khai will use the potty and at home its hit or miss. Most often he'll get so preoccupied with whatever he's playing with that he'll say he doesn't need to go, or he just won't tell me at all. Then there are times where he'll go on a potty streak, begging to use it. Overall, I haven't pushed the issue. I figure he'll let me know when he's really ready. But there are some days where I think he should be using the pot by now...especially when I see the other kids his age already out of diapers and pull-ups.

Today I presented him with a brand new pair of skull pirate undies after his bath. He was really excited to have them. Within about two minutes of having them on though, he started fussing. I thought he didn't want them on anymore.. he was pulling at them, howling, making faces. Turns out he wanted to use the potty and was trying to hold his pee in. He proudly used the big boy potty wore his big boy underwear the rest of the day with only one accident.

Below is his little song and dance afterwards: