Potty Training Help Needed!

As I alluded to in my last post, K. has a problem. He absolutely refuses to have a BM in the toilet. He has done it 2-3 times in his life, but not recently. We have been working at this with him for the past 18 months. We have tried offering every reward and enforcing every punishment, including spanking and other things I don't believe in, that you can imagine. We have gone through months of ignoring it with the idea that he is seeking attention. We have tried pullups and underwear. He has been examined by the pediatrician, who didn't find anything physically wrong.

At this point, when he soils himself he is instructed to change and wipe himself as best he can, and then he takes a shower to clean off anything he missed. This was the suggestion of the child development clinic at the local hospital. We are not currently doing any discipline with him, as this was causing him to hold it.

He usually sneaks off to do the deed, and then informs us. He has told me that it comes out more easily if he is walking around. He has also asked me, "how do you push your poop out?" I can't figure out if he really doesn't know what to do or not.

Later this month he has an appointment with an encopresis clinic. Encopresis is involuntary soiling in children caused by holding it and/or constipation. Even if a child goes regularly, he can still have hard impacted stool in his colon.

I am feeling very frustrated for several reasons. K's 2 year old sister, who emulates him in every way possible, is beginning to potty train. She has been peeing in the potty, but when she poops, she hides, and the past few days she when she has a BM, she takes off her diaper and attempts to clean herself! This results in her smearing it all over herself! I had really hoped that they would both be potty trained by November when I am due to have a baby. At this rate, I will be changing 3 kids, one of them WAY too big for this! I had also hoped to send them both to preschool, which requires that they be potty trained.

Has anyone out there had an experience like this? People keep telling me to be patient and it will eventually "happen" but I am not seeing any signs of progress. He is just becoming more proficient at cleaning himself up. I'd appreciate any advice.

Four!

K. turned 4 on June 20. He is a bright, sweet happy little guy. He chose a spectacularly unhealthy birthday menu of: Reese's peanut butter cereal for breakfast, Lunchable for lunch, and hotdogs for dinner. Ugh. He survived the food, as did the rest of us. He got his first two wheeler for his birthday.

At the moment, K. has only one stumbling block in his life...

D's bday

His birthday was June 5, and he turned 15. As my oldest child, he really shows leadership with his siblings. He is usually helpful and rarely complains. He is a straight A student as well as a talented multi-sport athlete: football, basketball, and track. This means that he has practice and/or games afterschool year round, with the exception of a handful of days. He handles this with ease, actually making it seem easy. He is never late, and never forgets things.

He just completed driver's ed, and was eligible to get his permit. Unfortunately I recently misplaced his birth certificate, so we took a copy to get his permit. This wasn't acceptable, and they wouldn't let him get his permit. Instead of being rude, angry, or sullen,. at this turn of events, like many teens would be, he was patient and actually nice. I thought he would be angry with me for misplacing the original, but he was not. Luckily, I was able to find it and he has since obtained his permit.

If he sounds nearly perfect, it's because he is!

Back view

Back view, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

I can't find a "before" back view, but this is how it is now. Previously, there was a pool where there is now house and will be patio.

Side view

Side view, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

Here is a side view of the house now. The red brick fireplace exterior has been refaced with stone (behind left tree), as has all of the blue siding. In the far left of the photo you will see a 3 car garage. Everything left of the main entry has is a new addition.

Oaks side view

Oaks side view, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

Here is a "before" picture from the side of the house, which is where we usually enter. I am standing in the parking area taking the photo. There was no garage.

The door on the left will become the main entry in the next photo.

Front view

Front view, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

Here is the same view (sort of). There was an addition, which wasn't really visible in that other picture. As you can see we have totally rebuilt the front porch, replaced windows and cleaned and sealed the stone.

Oaks front view

Oaks front view, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

To try and give an idea of what our home renovation/addition process has been like, here is a "before" picture of the front of the old part of the house (built in 1862).

Ready for a date

Ready for a date, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

Here I am, ready to go out with Daryl to see Lyle Lovett and k.d. lang in concert. It was a great show!

20 weeks

20 weeks, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

Boots

Boots, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

Introducing Boots! See how identical they are? I can only tell them apart by looking at their faces closely--Blaze has a small white spot on his lip.

Blaze surfing the net

Blaze surfing the net, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

He really was playing with the keyboard, but of course I wasn't fast enough to catch it!

Introducing Blaze!

Proud Mama

DSCN0019, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

Our kittens are now 3 months old. They were born in March, 2 days after their earliest possible "due date." I spent a lot of time reading up on cats giving birth, and felt I was as ready as possible. Although most cats are totally independent, and some even go hide, there are others who need assistance, don't know what to do, and make mistakes. I spent several sleepless nights (I read that they are more likely to give birth at night since in the wild, this would be safest.) worrying that she was in the basement, birthing kittens in different spots and leaving them to die, or worse yet, giving birth in the litterbox and then being unwilling/unable to clean them off so they would smother in litter. (I read that this can happen with the clumping litter, if the cat mistakes her urge to push for an urge to have a BM.)

Keep in mind that this was occurring midway through the period when I believed my own pregnancy was not viable, so my mind was rather addled. I was still excited, but as I told my husband, "It was more exciting when we were both pregnant."

She became EXTREMELY friendly and affectionate during this time, and we all doted on her.

At one point during her pregnancy she developed a skin disorder and I took her to the vet, who said it was allergies and confirmed that she was definitely pregnant. She also informed me that it was not too late to "take care of it" by spaying her and aborting the kittens. She even offered me a surgery appointment the next morning. Although I knew that Daryl was not in favor of her having kittens, I could not bring myself to do this. When she got to 2 weeks from her due date, I informed the kids. She was noticeably pregnant by this time, but they just thought she was getting fat. Daryl didn't find out for another week, since he was out of town. By that point she looked as though she had a bowling ball strapped to her middle, but he still didn't notice!

One morning she began having contractions. Instead of hiding, she was sitting in L's lap (he was home sick from school). I removed her and took her to the box I'd prepared in my bathroom. She was anxious, meowing frequently, but as long as I stayed by her side and kept petting her she was ok. I left the room for 2-3 minutes, and when I returned she had had a kitten, left it in the box, and was at the door meowing for me. I quickly picked it up, wiped it off, and called her over. She came back and did sniff at it a little and gave it a couple of tentative licks. Then, with a single growl, she gave birth to a second kitten. She began licking that one vigorously, and I kept pushing the first one under her nose. Eventually she licked them both off, although I did have to keep coaxing her to take care of the first one. She laid down, and the second kitten began nursing immediately. The first one kept rooting around, but never successfully latched on, despite my attempts to help him. She never chewed off their umbilical cords, so I cut them, since the kittens were dragging the placentas around with them.

After several hours passed and the first kitten still hadn't successfully nursed, I called the vet, who said that I should get some kitten formula and attempt to feed him, since by now his blood sugar levels would be falling dangerously low. i went out to get it, and by the time I returned, he had figured it out. I was relieved, since I wasn't really thrilled at the idea of hand feeding a kitten around the clock for weeks.

Cazzy was laying there contentedly and the kittens were nursing. Although two kittens is a small litter, that is not unusual for a first litter, particularly born to a young and small cat. I had read that kittens are usually born about 30 minutes apart (hers were 5!) and occasionally up to several hours apart, but that if the mother seemed relaxed then that was a sign it was over. She was now sleeping, and I went out to run errands. While I was gone, she had several more kittens. They were born approximately 6 hours after their littermates!

L. went in to check on her, and saw a new kitten. He called for my friend, who was babysitting. When she walked in, she saw that there were actually 2 new kittens. One looked obviously dead. She picked up the other one and wiped it off, trying to get it breathing. While she was doing that, Cazzy gave birth to another. The two that were born when no one was in the room died, but the last one lived. My friend said that it appeared that Cazzy hadn't removed all of the sac from their faces, that it was covering their mouths and may have suffocated them. Interestingly, this time she did chew through their umbilical cords.

The two that died were solid dark grey, and the 3 that lived look JUST like Cazzy, black tuxedo cats with white paws and chests. The female had a white bow tie marking over her mouth, and her 2 brothers did not. I had wondered what they would look like, and had a dream that she had 5 kittens that looked just like her, but never really believed that she would have that many kittens, or that they would look just like her.

Despite her uncertainty about what to do during the birth process, Cazzy proved to be an excellent mother. She took great care of them.

I had 3 people potentially interested in having a kitten, but only one actually did. She took the girl, and we still have the 2 boys. They are in the wild and rambunctious stage of kittenhood right now, and it's good that they have one another to wrestle with.

Cazzy has been spayed, but remains an interested and attentive mother. They still occasionally attempt to latch on, and she lets them, although she has no milk. She enjoys licking them, and sometimes holds them down to bathe them!

I lost my pictures of tiny kittens when the computer crashed, but I'll post current pictures soon.

18 weeks

DSCN0024, originally uploaded by PaulaK.

Here I am at 18 weeks. I have an ultrasound next week, and am praying hard that everything is OK. I feel the baby move quite a bit now, and that is comforting.

Time Consuming

Our home renovation continues, and the intensity has picked up, becoming about a 20 hour a week job for me, which is why I don't post often. My computer crashed and the data on the hard drive was irretrievable, so I lost a lot of photos. As soon as I can get some house photos from Daryl's computer I will post them.

Anniversary

Yesterday my dear husband and I celebrated 20 years of wedded bliss. I am so happy! It really doesn't seem like it's been that long.

Mother's Day Funny

I received this as a forwarded email, but I thought it was hilarious so I'm sharing:


So, we had this great 10 year old cat named Jack who just recently died.
Jack was a great cat and the kids would carry him around and sit on him and
nothing ever bothered him. He used to hang out and nap all day long on this
mat in our bathroom.

Well, we have 3 kids and at the time of this story they were 4 years old, 3
years old and 1 year old. The middle one is Eli. Eli really loves chapstick.

LOVES IT. He kept asking to use my chapstick and then losing it. So finally
one day I showed him where in the bathroom I keep my chapstick and how he
could use it whenever he wanted to but he needed to put it right back in the
drawer when he was done.

Last year on Mother's Day, we were having the typical rush around
and try to get ready for Church with everyone crying and carrying on.
My two boys are fighting over the toy in the cereal box. I am
trying to nurse my little one at the same time I am putting on my make-up.
Everything is a mess and everyone has long forgotten that this is a
wonderful day to honor me and the amazing job that is motherhood. We
finally have the older one and the baby loaded in the car and I am looking
for Eli.

I have searched everywhere and I finally round the corner to go into the
bathroom. And there was Eli. He was applying my chapstick very carefully to
Jack's . . . rear end.

Eli looked right into my eyes and said "chapped."

Now if you have a cat, you know that he is right--their little butts
do look pretty chapped. And, frankly, Jack didn't seem to mind.
And the only question to really ask at that point was whether it was the
FIRST time Eli had done that to the cat's behind or the hundredth?

And THAT is my favorite Mother's Day moment ever
because it reminds us that no matter how hard we try to civilize these
glorious little creatures, there will always be that day when you realize
they've been using your chapstick on the cat's butt.

Good News

I saw the dr. again yesterday. She found the baby's heartbeat easily, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I also passed the 1 hour glucose tolerance test! For now, at least. They want me to take it again at 18 weeks, but I may argue that.

Update

I had another ultrasound one week later, and I saw the baby again. He/she had grown appropriately and the heartrate was excellent. Three days later I had a tiny bit of spotting, so I went in again, and again saw a healthy baby and heartbeat.

Since then I have had my first prenatal appointment at 9.5 weeks. My dr. wasn't able to hear the heartbeat but said that she is unconcerned because the earliest she ever hears it is usually 10 weeks, sometimes later. I am now almost 11 weeks. I have another appointment next Tuesday, when I will be 11.5 weeks, and we should definitely be able to hear it then. Surprisingly, this has not worried me much. I wish we'd heard it, but I FEEL really pregnant (nausea, fatigue) and I can tell that my uterus is growing.

If you are praying for me, please keep praying! I will update after my appointment next week.

Sorry I haven't updated much, but every time I tried to login to Blogger, I got an error message. Finally I figured out (I think) that there is some sort of incompatibility problem with the Safari browser and Blogger, so I switched to Firefox.

Miracles Do Happen!

I have some catching up to do. The bleeding I mentioned in my previous post was only spotting, and didn't last long. I went for another u/s the following Monday. We saw the sac, which had grown to about 19mm, but it was still empty. There was a blurry spot that looked like it might have been a yolk sac, but the ultrasound technician didn't think it was. She showed the films to the dr. who said that I should come back in a week for another ultrasound. He still didn't feel confident saying that the pregnancy wasn't viable. I was told to prepare for the worst, but not entirely give up hope. Later that day I spoke to the nurse practicioner who told me that the doctor said that there definitely was a yolk sac.

On Friday of that week, I called the dr.'s office, attempting to schedule a "procedure" for when my husband would be at home, since he had some upcoming business travel planned. I requested that they see me for a repeat ultrasound that day, instead of waiting until Monday, so that the doctor could explain my various options to me and I could make a decision. They agreed. I cried all the way there, expecting the worst, and feeling really slapped in the face by my loss.

When the dr., who I hadn't met before, but had agreed to see me instead of eating lunch, began the ultrasound, she said, "So you didn't see anything on Monday?" I said no, and began craning my neck to see the screen. As she turned it toward me, she said, "well, I see something now." I saw it, too--a baby with a heartbeat. I began to sob. Once I calmed down, we looked again, and she turned up the volume so I could hear the heartbeat. The heartrate was 128-134 and the baby's size was right for dates. Afterwards, she hugged me, as did the nurse I'd had so many phone conversations with over the past 2 weeks. I go this Friday Apr. 6 for one more ultrasound to confirm that the baby is growing, and then I will go to my regular doctor.