Two Blue Shoes
Al asked me yesterday morning, "have you written in your blog that Austen picks his shoes out now?", which made me smile. Al has never really understood the desire (or need) to blog, though for the most part he's very supportive of mine. Over the past 12-18 months, however, he's started to see this site as an important record, if not of my growth and development, at least of Austen's.
Which brings me to the shoes. I think I mentioned that Austen seemed to understand the concept of "two", having once pointed out two buses to me with "two!" instead of his usual "ba!" I often say to him, "one shoe, two shoes. Two blue shoes," so now he knows to answer the question, "how many shoes are you holding?" with "two" (when he's holding both of them, of course). He also knows that the New Balance sneakers are blue, whereas the Pumas are black. Personally, I prefer the Pumas, but ever since we managed to find another pair of the NBs on sale, he's wanted to wear those almost every day.
Austen started picking out his shoes last month. He'd bring me his fish sandals when he wanted to wear those, and sneakers (and socks!) when he wanted something with a little more oomph. The NBs are definitely his favorite shoes now, though; if we try to hide them so we can impose a little variety, he searches for them and then screams "oh YEAH!" like a tiny little Kool-Aid man when he spots them. At that point, it's the NBs or nothing.
Speaking of the blue NBs, Austen accidentally peed on them last night. We'd undressed him in preparation for bath time, and he was sitting on the stepstool in front of the sink, holding the shoes, when he started to pee. We said, "oh no no no, honey, don't pee on your shoes!" and rescued them from him. He seemed to take this (correctly) as an indication that he should stop peeing, period, so he did.
Al remarked when I was finished wiping down the shoes that Austen still looked like he needed to pee, so we stood him on the stepstool in front of the toilet and told him to have at it. He seemed intimidated, however, so I just plopped him into the tub, kissed Al goodbye (he had a hockey game), and started bathtime.
Austen was poking his p____ a bit, so I said, "do you have to pee, sweetie?" Austen: "Yeah." Me: "It's OK, you can pee in the tub." At which point he bent his knees a bit, stared down at his p____, and visibly concentrated until he produced a stream. I said, "yay, you're peeing!," and he smiled at me briefly before returning his attention to his p____. It may sound like nothing, but I'm pretty proud of him. I think this is the first time he's ever peed on command (and obviously stopped on command as well, a few minutes earlier), which means he's learning that he can control when he goes. I imagine that potty training will be a two steps forward, one step (or perhaps three steps) back affair, but at least we've taken our first step.