First of all – WILL THIS RAIN EVER
END????? It’s making my whole house (and state, and surrounding
states) tired and cranky! Blah!!

But on
to baby news.

DATELINE: Last Tuesday
I recently introduced Lex to self-feeding and he’s taken
to it with gusto. So much so, that he doesn’t really like us to
feed him anymore. At dinner last week Lex was grabbing for the
spoon and I finally gave up and put the bowl and spoon down on
his tray and let him at it. Needless to say, things got messy.
He did manage to get about 1/3 of it in his mouth, but the
other 2/3 ended up all over him and the highchair.

When he was about done eating I scooped him
out of the highchair and popped him right into the tub. He was
a happy boy – splashing and bouncing around. Then he stopped
suddely and started making a weird, concentrating face and it
occured to me, “Oh no, he’s pooping in the tub!!” Since this
has NEVER happened before, I had no idea what to do. I grabbed
him out of the tub and just held him in the air for a second,
then whooshed him over to the toilet. Picture me, squatting in
front of the toilet, holding a slippery wet baby precariously
dangling over the thing. I couldn’t even sit him down because
his little butt would have slid right through.

At this point Lex is happy as a clam – sitting
(sort of) on the toilet, looking out the window, jabbering
away, with mommy right in front of him. I kept saying, “Lex,
are you done or do you have more?” He knows the signs for “all
done” and “more” and did a great job of communicating his
needs. When he was all done he made the sign and then turned
and started reaching for the toilet paper!! (Yes, he has seen
us in the bathroom numerous times. When you’re alone with the
baby all day you do what you have to do.) So I do my best to
balance his wet body on my shoulder (butt still over the
toilet) while I get some toilet paper and wipe him. Then I
brought him to the changing table and slapped a diaper on that
thing! :)

The other big sign of readiness is that he knows
when he has a dirty diaper and works very hard to let Alan and
I know. He’ll walk back and forth between us (and back and
forth and back and forth) until we catch on and check his
diaper. We are trying to get him to do the “dirty diaper” sign
(pat hip), but so far he just rubs his belly and its hard to
tell if he’s signing or just rubbing his belly ’cause he likes
to rub his belly :)

So today, in the
miserable rain, we went out and bought Lex a bright yellow potty. He likes to sit
on it in the living room and read books. He’s such a cutie. He
also likes to pull the middle “pot” part out and flip it over.
I’m a little nervous that when he does actually do his business
he’ll yank the pot out and make quite a mess. Hopefully Alan
and I will be quicker than him. I’ll keep you posted
:)