An ABC weekend: Accidental, Backwards, Chatty

Well, that was an eventful weekend. Not quite as easy as ABC, but still …

A is for Accidental: Toilet training

As of Saturday morning, we have started Isaac on toilet training boot camp. Fellow parents will know exactly what that entails, and to spare the graphic details for anyone who has never had toddler-aged children, let’s just say that we have had to deal with our share of ‘accidents’ over the past couple of days (although far fewer than we feared), we are very glad we have wooden floors downstairs, and this is one occasion where I am more than happy to have an under-developed sense of smell!

Anyhow, Zac is now making the transition from nappies to ‘big boy pants’, with all the inherent slings and arrows that entails. He has actually been very good – every day you can see he is much more aware and conscious of what is going on and what he consequently needs to do, so not only are there fewer accidents with every passing day, but he is becoming more active in requesting the toilet/potty, rather than reacting to being asked.

He is back at nursery today (Tuesday), so fingers crossed that he doesn’t revert to square one and we end up having to start all over again on Friday. But at least the early signs are encouraging.

B is for Backwards: This baby is reversing!

Toby crawling — How did I get stuck under here?

We were just getting ready to head out to some friends’ in Henley for a barbecue on Sunday when we came in to discover Toby was no longer in the middle of the living room floor where we had left him – as the picture to the right shows.

Now we didn’t see the event occur, but Zac crawled backwards for several weeks before he learned how to go forwards. I don’t need Sherlock Holmes’ deductive powers to figure out that Toby appears to be going down the same route. We don’t think he’s actually crawling yet – at the moment it’s more likely to be a combination of rolling, pushing and sliding – but it seems that it is only a matter of time before he is fully mobile.

Our lives are about to get just a teensy bit more complicated!

C is for Chatty: Mister Chatterbox

On Saturday evening, we ventured out with both boys to Pizza Hut. (It says something about how rarely we get out these days that both Heather and I considered this to be an exciting culinary prospect.)

All things considered, it went very well. No ‘accidents’ from Zac, and Toby seemed to quite enjoy the experience too. Although I should probably apologise to whoever had the table after us, as they would have been greeted by a one metre diameter fallout zone of half-chewed, ground-in breadsticks around where Toby’s high-chair had been. Oops.

(Note to self: Take Zac to busy car parks more often. He could quite happily stood there pointing out Minis and convertibles – his new favourite word – for hours on end. Sorted.)

Anyhow, on the drive home Zac parroted everything Heather or I said to him with startling accuracy. (Kids really are like sponges at his age, aren’t they?) But even more impressive were the following three exchanges we had with him before putting him to bed. Firstly, as we were getting out of the car:

Heather: Thank you for a lovely dinner.

Isaac (after a moment’s thought): Thank you for a nice dinner.

And then, as I was sitting with him winding him down with his TV programmes:

Me: Daddy, you’re brilliant.

Isaac (giggling): No, Daddy, you are excellent. Isaac is brilliant.

And finally, as he was resisting Heather’s attempts to whisk him upstairs for his bath, we had the following hold-over from our recent long weekend in France: