Life Without Diaper

23 January 2010 marks the last day when I put on the last diaper for Elaina. After throwing away dry diaper each morning for the last few weeks, we have decided to take the plunge and put Elaina in her undies even for the night as well once she finishes the last opened packet of pull-up pants. It was a milestone for the little girl and parents alike.

I used to hear about tormenting experiences of other parents when it comes to toilet-training the kids for night. The day training is one thing but the night training is worse. At least during the day, the mind is lucid and in the eventuality of an “accident”, the only washing involved is the butt, the underpants and the floor. During the night, the mind is only half-awake and the thought of a wet bed full of pee is not very entertaining. Plus I dreaded to relive those nightmarish days of waking up regularly at night to do night-feeding, except that this is night-peeing.

I have in fact prepared myself quietly that I am willing to continue to put the kids in diapers at night for a while until we run out of sizes to buy before I think of toilet training them at night. Waking up Elaina in the middle of the night was the last thing I wanted to do because she is able to sleep through till the morning and I didn’t want to break that. At least for Matty he is still likely to wake up once or twice each night which will be a good opportunity to train him.

But thank goodness, the kids have been very kind to their mother. Despite it was tough potty-training both for the day (Matty took 1 year when it is usually 3 to 4 months on an average, and Elaina throwing tantrums each time she is put on the throne), this mummy didn’t have to do anything with the night training. It just came so naturally for the both of them. As soon as they were fully trained for the day, within a week they will get out of bed each morning with a dry diaper.

The other thing that thrills me is that all these came just before we are due for our next holiday. For our last trip, we had one hand-carry luggage with nothing but diapers and even then it wasn’t enough to last through our 10-day trip. We ended up having to buy another pack for Elaina. This time we have one less load to worry about!

All About Punishment

It wasn’t too long ago when a few of my forum buddies were on the topic of their kids telling lies and how they tried to overcome that problem. I was quietly congratulating myself for not having to deal with such ugly situations because Matty had never been caught lying (ok… at that point in time it never occurred to me that he could have been lucky) and Elaina is still at the age of sprouting nonsense and telling make-believe stuff which sounded real (she calls herself “Baby Giraffe” and me “Mummy Giraffe” and gets upset if you call her a big girl) which makes it really hard to tell if there was any ill-intent on her part, let alone brand her a liar.

Of course now, I can’t quite say the same because Matty was caught lying to us twice in a row over one weekend.

First was when he lied that he was playing with the toy shopping basket and Elaina tried to siphon it off from his hands when it was really the other way round. Of course the little sister protested likewise. It was only after we threatened to ask the maid who was the only witness, and that the person caught lying will be in huge trouble did Matty decide to bite the bullet and come clean about his deed. He was punished by sitting on the sofa for 10 minutes and not allowed any toys or TV. The very next day he insisted that the maid told him to get the iphone to keep himself entertained and even suggested to his father to double-check with the maid to prove his innocence. Obviously and needless to say he ended up being punished by not being allowed anywhere near the iphone for 5 days. That was as good as banishing him to hell.

Since then, Matty hasn’t told a single lie (or maybe he is lucky that he didn't get caught?) but each time when Elaina acts up Matty’s first response would be to deny the little one the iphone for 5 weeks. Looks like the iphone is not just a family entertainer it is a good tool when it comes to instilling punishment. The thought of taking the phone away from the kids is enough to make them shudder and think twice about committing “crimes” LOL.

The House is Infested...

... with bugs!  Just went I thought that we are finally seeing the lights at the end of the tunnel with Matty all recovered and I am the only one left fighting the last battle, Elaina's nose started to drip with a cough setting in on Monday.  Shortly after that, Papa and Matty got the bug on Wednesday.  Poor Matty was off all forms of drug for only a week and now he is back to the routine of pumping medication.  I cannot even recall when was the last time I didn't need to touch or feel a bottle of cough or flu syrup.

I am feeling irritable most of these days.  The medication is making me groggy and the bugs are draining my energy fast.  Exasperated, tired and sick of this situation with the flu bug sparing nobody in this family.

Dying Young

I suspect that one of Elaina's front teeth is in the process of dying. It is starting to grey and seems to be shrinking. The possible cause could be due to the bad fall she had a few weeks back that spilt her lip. I recall Lye Cheng telling me her girl had the same problem last year after she fell down in school.

The good thing is that it will not affect her permanent tooth that will push out in the near future but in the meantime she will need to live with the ugly tooth *sobs*. Now I can only pray hard that she will not start to yell pain. When that happens I will have to haul her to the dentist for a root canal procedure. It will be too traumatic an experience for someone this young.

Weaning off Bottles

Matty starts Kindy 1 tomorrow and to him it is a big thing. Something like turning 21 or getting married sort of big. I suppose this must have been the result of his teachers preparing him and the rest in the Nursery class of the change since they won't be having the same set of teachers this year.

Being egoistic as usual, it is a great deal to be more "grown up" and he has been talking about big boys going to Kindy 1 for the past few weeks... including drinking milk from a cup. We quickly jumped on the chance to make the switch on 1 January since he was so into doing big boys stuff in Year 2010. Elaina upon seeing that decided that she wanted to join in the fun.

And so that is the story of how we weaned the kids off milk bottles. If only everything was this easy.