body awareness

So we have begun the jedi training with phase one, “body awareness”

Since akello has been wearing disposable diapers up to now, he has had no clue
as to why we lay him on his back every so often and trade out his diaper.
Even though we talk to him about it, he’s probably thinking, "what the hell, I know we are about to go on an outing and you want me to look presentable but these shorts look just like the others!”

Disposable diapers are so absorbant and good at what they do that akello has
no idea that he goes peepee or poopoo. And on top of this, we as parents don’t know how often he goes to the bathroom either. We have bought him some training pants (a recommendation from the Director of the Montessori training program she's attending) which are few and far between in the metroplex I must add. They don’t make them for his age because of the conspiracy that the disposable diapers manufacturers have with Gerber. the smallest pair is for 18 to 24 month olds, but I took them to our favorite coin laundry place and shrank them.



They barely fit him.



But they are going to work. Whats kinda nice is that they hang a little low on him
and leave a little gap so that you can see between his inner thigh and his
“business” so if he decides to make any deposits you can kind of see it. But
the whole idea of the body awareness works for us parents too. We monitor
him closely to see what kind of facial expressions, sounds or actions he makes when he goes to the restroom so that we can tell that he’s going to the bathroom at that
instant. So for the past few days we have come to learn that he makes a
certain little grunt when he poos and another one that’s slightly higher
pitched for pees. Sometimes he will stare off into space when he pees and
Theresa says that she has learned from school that he might go off in a
corner to poo. (even babies need privacy) so we are watching for these signs
and making a log of when he expels. That is all for now. we are “tracking”



we have found that he likes to poo at the coaster cube. he can stand up, play with the coaster, and poo in the corner. its kinda like reading a magazine for him.

This is hard work, its much harder to change his training pants than diapers
and you also do it more often (12 times a day). On top of that you have to do it immediately upon him doing it. We have bought a waterproof crib pad for him to sleep
under for nap times and night sleeping. Right now we are still using a
diaper for outings.

so with the training pants we needed t-shirts and not onesies. luckily Michelles latest shipment of hand me downs arrived just in time. Now AKELLo has some great new t-shirts to rock! like this one, (our fave) with a turtle on the sleeve.