Keep It Kasual

*Nov. 27th, 2013*

The trip to Montreal taught me a few things. That Alex needed a toddler bed, Kris wanted to take a family trip in February and that I needed better storage in both homes. This was the time of year to get storage solutions, being that Black Friday was in 2 days, so Alex and I did an outing to a few places to gather ideas.

The first place we hit was Kohl's. Boy was I glad I hit there. They had all sorts of ideas and, possibly best of all, bedding for Alex in a theme I already knew he loved, Lego Star Wars. He was such his dad's son... "Alex, look." I said, pointing it out to him. It was a toddler set which would be perfect for his big boy bed at home.

He got so excited. "Big Boy Mama! Sta Was!" It was so cute how he said it still, without the r's. He made big puppy dog eyes at me and then grabby hands when I pick it up and put it in the cart.

That gave me an idea. His room was very babyish still, if he was moving to a big boy bed, his room could change too. "Alex, would you like to have a new big boy room to go with your big boy bed?" Clutching the bedding set tightly he nodded as fast as his little head could go. "Do you want it to be a Lego Star Wars room?" More nodding, even more grandiose and excited than the last set.

I then took him with me to Ikea and got a new storage system for his closet. He needed to be able to dress himself once we had the clothes picked out, or at least start to _try_ and dress himself. I'd been wanting to redo his closet for a while now. He didn't need a large dresser if he had storage baskets and hangers to put his things on and in. I made sure to get a shoe rack too for the shoes he wasn't wearing to go outside in. Then I found the best possible book storage system, it was matching baskets to the closet. I snagged a couple. We could cut down the supports to the right height for him to put his books into.

Now, I was thinking about the rest of the house and what kind of storage I wanted. I determined that something we could close the mess off with in the public areas was a good idea. We could go with things we didn't have to hide in our own closets. That reminded me, I grabbed a couple laundry baskets on wheels. Alex liked to help me with the laundry and these would help him do that.

By now he was hungry and getting tired so we went home. Kris had put the railing on his bed yesterday which had made him very happy. We had a quick lunch and then he told me night night and went upstairs. I followed him a few minutes later, just to make sure he was in his room. I found him struggling to put a blanket on himself and keep all of his friends in bed with him. "Here sweetheart, let me help." I tucked him in for his nap and kissed everyone. "You have a good rest. Mama is going to see if she can find good things to make your new room with. When you get up, we can put Caillou on for you." I wasn't a huge fan of Caillou, but Alex learned something new from him every time he watched him.

I went down to my office and began planning Alex's new room. I found all sorts of things I would love to use online but I had to try and keep it from getting too overwhelming so I just pinned them to my Pinterest Board instead. As I was looking I found that Disney made a chalkboard paint that you could tint to a color, this made me happy. I could redo the playroom and give him the chalkboard space I'd been wanting to, onto the board it went.

About an hour after I tucked him in, Alex came into my office holding his flashlight friend. "Caillou mama?" He asked in a small voice.

"Of course Ma Loutre, didn't I say you could watch him when you got up?" I saved what I was looking at and went to turn on the 1 30 minute show he got to watch per day. I turned on PBS and found that Caillou was just starting. He settled onto the couch to watch the program while I went to think about dinner plans. I knew there was a game tonight, but since we had gone to two games recently we weren't going tonight.

As I got things ready for us to all have a staged dinner, I heard a sniffle at my knee. I looked over and saw Alex standing there, looking upset. He noticed me watching him and took a big sniff. He looked so upset. Finally in a small voice he spoke. "I no big boy Mama."

I stopped what I was doing, washed my hands and pulled him in close to me. "What do you mean honey?" I didn't understand how he could say that. He was in a big boy bed, that was being a big boy.

In a knowledgeable tone he spoke. "Babies poop in pants, big boy in potty." He said it with a completely straight and sad face which concerned me until I remembered what he had been watching.

Following a hunch, I checked. "Alex, did Caillou learn to go potty today?" He looked down at the floor and nodded, exuding sadness. This changed what I needed to be doing for sure. "Do you want to go potty in the potty and not your pants?"

It was like I had told him he was getting Christmas early, he beamed and couldn't nod fast enough. "Uh huh!" I couldn't help but smile and try not to laugh at his enthusiasm. I put away the veggies I had been working on and then took him to the couch.

"Tell you what, when Papa gets home, we will let him rest and go find an Alex sized potty. How does that sound?" I had been waiting for him to take a more active role in wanting to try and I was going to pounce on the idea. If I didn't, I might never get to go to the bathroom alone with him awake again. Ok so that was an exaggeration but not by much.

It didn't take long for Kris to get home. As soon as he was in the door, Alex was running to meet him. "Papa! I big boy!" Kris ruffled his hair and turned to greet the people coming up behind him, Vero and Estelle.

They came in with big smiles, as usual. "Afternoon. We were wondering w'at you would be doing this afternoon." Vero put Estelle down and she made a baby beeline for the basket of soft toys we had in the living room, man was she a good crawler.

Kris looked at us blankly, as if we had forgotten about the game tonight. Alex on the other hand grinned. "I be a big boy like Caillou!" He stated proudly.

Vero laughed musically. "So you're going to go potty in the big potty?" She'd seen the episode too obviously. "Je suis tellement fière de toi! (I am so proud of you!)" She hugged him tightly. She then looked at me. "When does he get to be a big boy?"

Kris was obviously confused and it showed, so I explained. "Caillou learned how to go potty today. Alex afterwards said he was a baby still because he was still in diapers. I think it's time to do a naked weekend." I knew he'd get that, we'd been looking at the best ways to potty train boys, this was the quickest.

"Ah," he said as he nodded sagely. "Come with me downstairs, I had a surprise for you then." We followed him to the basement guest room. He opened the door and we all went inside. Within I found that it had become a storage room for things Alex wasn't yet ready for. There was a potty step stool, a portable potty chair and stickers that were Lego Star Wars. The last made me giggle until he showed us the Sarlacc Pit Toilet Sticker. I had to lean against the wall when I saw that, I was laughing so hard.

Once I was able to breathe I looked around some more and found nearly everything I would need to transform Alex's room into the Lego Star Wars room he wanted. "Well Alex it looks like Papa found a lot of things for your new room." That's when I noticed it wasn't just his room, the bathroom would get the Star Wars treatment too. "I think we still need an Alex size potty for when you are learning, but we can put this on the potty that's in your bathroom so you can use it too." I touched the step stool potty chair.

Kris went into the closet and brought out something. "For you my son. So you can be a big boy." He handed Alex a package of Lego Star Wars undies. Alex's face lit up as he looked from the package to Kris and back. "And for when you go poop in the potty, Mama will have a special bag that will have special prizes in it." Kris handed me a Lego Star Wars backpack that was filled already.

"Kris, we should go so you can rest before the game. Alex wants to help redo his room and between everything here and a few items I don't see it will be a great room." Alex came over to me with his face grinning.

"Sta Was!" He said as proudly as he could. "Big Boy room, Sta Was!" Kris grinned and picked Alex up.

"How about Papa puts the Sarlacc Pit in your big potty so you can feed the Sarlacc your poop?" Alex clapped at this idea. Of course he clapped when Boba Fett gets fed to the Sarlacc too so I was not surprised. Kris picked up the sticker sheet and then Alex and proceeded upstairs.

Vero and I waited on the main level where she voiced her opinion. "You're really going to let him have a Star Wars room?"

"It's Lego Star Wars and why not? He loves watching the movies. Besides, if it helps him get potty trained, I'm all for it. You _do_ know what a naked weekend is right?" She shook her head negatively and I sighed. "It's where Alex goes mostly naked so he can learn to go potty. This is a good time to do it, he wants to and there won't be any major distractions."

"You're also doing it alone. How are you going to teach him to stand to pee?" There was a tone of exasperation in her voice.

"I'm not. Why confuse him with standing and sitting right now? This weekend he will learn to sit on the potty and go both pee and poop. Then maybe, just maybe, he won't be always following me into the bathroom and I can pee by myself again." I made a mental note to give her a copy of the PDF we had been reading.

Kris and Alex came back downstairs. "One Sarlacc Pit installed. Alex showed me the bedding you got him and I saw his new closet stuff too." I felt guilty for a moment, until he put Alex on my lap and crowed proudly. "Alex you have the _best_ Mama in the world. I know you will help her while I am gone." Alex nodded solemnly. He took helping Mama seriously.

Soon enough though he was happily chatting away to Estelle in the back seat while we went to WalMart for paint. While we were there we found out that Disney had paint colors. I knew I wanted to give Alex one wall he could draw on. Fortunately they had tintable chalkboard paint. This meant that I could paint either an entire wall or just one section of a wall and he could draw on it safely with chalk.

I looked through the colors they had available for chalkboard paint treatment and decided that I was going to do the darker color I wanted to do the largest wall in, was the color I would do for the chalkboard paint. That meant that Nightvision would be the accent color and Piston Cup Blue would be the main color.

That was for after he was ready though, not now. We went into the infants section and started looking at the potty chairs. I had him sit on a few while clothed to see if he liked them. Of course he didn't, they were either too loud too colorful or too baby. Hearing the last I decided we would just get the paint and go to Toys R Us to find a good potty chair for him. That was the smartest thing I did. I found he loved the Baby Bjorn Potty Chair but not the Smart Potty. We got the blue one and home we went.

*Nov. 28th, 2013*

Today was American Thanksgiving. The team would be leaving for their road trip soon. I told Kris to go ahead and take the car as we hadn't yet gotten me one. "Are you sure?" He asked over his morning cup of coffee.

"Positive. I have everything I need for this weekend and if I need help Carole-Lynn said she'd bring her brood over, she's trained boys before." My thought was if I didn't have the car, I wouldn't be tempted to leave the house, thus making me stick out training Alex. Was I preparing for the worst, yes but I was praying against it.

Kris gathered his gear and made his goodbye rounds. He pulled Alex onto his lap and spoke to him seriously. "Mon fils, je veux que vous travaillez très dur alors que je suis parti. Écoutez bien à votre maman. (My son, I want you to work hard while I'm gone. Listen carefully to your mom.)" Alex nodded and crossed his heart, just like we had shown him that a serious promise took. Kris smiled and snuffled his ear and hair, that made Alex giggle. I stood in the kitchen waiting for my chance to take over and start our week home. "Je ne peux pas attendre pour revenir à la maison maintenant et voir ce qu'est un grand garçon que j'ai. Je vais appeler tous les soirs. Je t'aime Alex. (I can not wait to go home now and see what a big boy I have. I'll call every night. I love you Alex.)"

Alex snuggled into Kris' arms and wound his own around his papa. "T'aime Papa. (I love you Papa.)"

Kris stood up and brought Alex over to me. He kissed Alex sweetly and then me more passionately. "Promise me if you need help you will call someone." He said, holding my chin in his hand. I smiled and crossed my heart. He stole another kiss from me, handed me our son and walked out the door to the garage. We waved until we could no longer see him and then went back inside. It was time for our naked week to begin.

Once we had gotten our act together and gone upstairs it was time. "Alex, by the time Papa comes home you will be a big boy. Come on, let's get you going." Seeing that it was November and he was just learning I had decided that to make it fair for him, I also would be mostly naked this weekend. We went into my room and he watched as I took my pants and slippers off. I put them where they belonged and then we went into his room. When we got in there, he saw his potty sitting in the middle of the room. We moved past it to his bed. "Now, it is time for _you_ to start learning how to use your potty." I pulled his pants off and then his socks.

"Nakie?" I nodded. "No like nakie." I sighed, I knew this was going to be a problem.

Fortunately I had a solution. I took my shirt off. "There, now I'm naked too. Is it ok now?" He nodded. "Ok then." I picked up the kitchen timer and showed it to him. "Today we are going to stay in your room as much as possible and every 15 minutes we'll _try_ to use the potty." I set the timer and let it go. "Every time you go potty in the potty you will get 2 mini m&ms. If you go poop in the potty you will get 2 more. Then we will go feed the Sarlacc and wash our hands." Alex clapped.

I then rolled up the rug we had in his room just in case. "We'll move the rug just in case there's an accident." I took it to the playroom, Alex toddling along behind me. Once back in his room, I closed both doors. "Ok, big boy. Let's get this room ready to become a Star Wars room." I had set the timer on the windowsill so I wouldn't lose it.

He had 7 accidents before he finally made it to the potty at all. Oh boy did we celebrate him making it. We even called Papa, who was just getting to his hotel. He was very proud of Alex. I pushed water all day for both of us. Sure I had to go more often too but I used it as a chance to teach Alex. We also worked our way through boxing up his clothes to clear his closet. We took the chair downstairs with us so have lunch.

It was after lunch that Alex seemed to get surprised. His voice wavered as he stood in his room and I was measuring his closet. "Mama?" I turned around and saw him standing still and looking scared. I noticed that he seemed to be trying to decide what to do.

I didn't think I could move that fast, but I did. I got him on his potty before the poop was done coming out. He was trembling a little bit as if he was scared I would be mad. I tenderly kissed his temple. "Such a good boy. I'm not mad ma loutre, not at all." That seemed to help him relax against me. "You made it to the potty, when you're done we'll clean up and then get your m&ms."

After that excitement, he drooped. I gave him another 30 minutes and then had him sit on his potty one last time before it was rest time. He certainly filled it that time. We fed the Sarlacc and cleaned the potty then washed our hands. Then we sat on his bed, well he did I was on the floor. "You want your rest don't you?" I asked.

"Seepy Mama, rest now?" He said listing over towards the side of the bed.

I nodded. "Yes. Let's put on some special underpants so you can rest." I got out the cloth training pants I had gotten and got him in them. "We're going to put a special pad on your bed." I let him feel the pad it was soft and quite honestly made for puppies, but he didn't need to know that. "This is just in case you don't feel you have to go potty while you are resting. I won't be upset if you do have an accident while resting. When you wake up, we'll start again with the timer." He got into his bed and yawned. I kissed his forehead, pulled down his black out shades and left the room.

A couple hours, and several loads of laundry I needed to do anyway, later Alex found me in the playroom making plans to make it better. We then started again with the timer but this time I added something. I put a few drops of food coloring, either red or blue as he wanted and let him see what happened the next time he went potty. That fascinated him. We had a few more accidents that afternoon but even through all the frustration we both felt with them, I didn't raise my voice or sound negative.

After dinner we did our usual routine of bath, getting ready for bed and a story. He wasn't thrilled to be in diapers overnight, not that I blamed him. We compromised by leaving his potty in his room and a deal that if he had to go potty during the night and woke up, he could and then he could come get me for help. He could live with that so he went to bed easier after that, though not without asking for the proverbial 'last glass of water' 3 times.

I called Kris again while I looked for something online, he had called to tell Alex goodnight earlier. He was out with the guys, I could tell because his phone went to voicemail. "Call me. Kiddo is in bed and I'm having a glass of wine." I was tired. After that glass and Kris not calling I dropped off to sleep.

*Nov. 29th, 2013*

Day Two of training started with Alex going potty without telling me at first. Not that he had an accident, just that he went and didn't tell me. When I found out, oh there was no hiding that I was proud of him. He did it all by himself and came into our room without a diaper on just like I said he could. Today I decided that I was going to start painting his room. Fortunately the paint I got was low VOC which meant as long as I vented well he could stay in the room with me. I started his timer today at 30 mins, thus giving me more time to actually paint.

First thing I did was move his bed. While we could work in there, he wouldn't be able to sleep in there. It took some doing but I moved it into our room so there were blackout shades for him still. I then carefully cut in the walls for the darkest color, Nightvision. I had found a growth chart, Star Wars of course, last night before going to bed and decided that we needed a special spot for that. If I had enough of the chalkboard paint left over I would make a spot for it near his bathroom door.

Once I got that wall done I moved to the next one, by his window and worked on that one with the Piston Cup Blue. Today I had left the doors to his room open but Alex was content to stay in the room with me. He had a couple accidents, but they were because he was distracted by playing and wasn't paying attention. Every time I would stop what I was doing, clean him and it up and go back to painting. By 10 am he was making it to the potty without anything but the timer reminding him. I felt like a great mom. I was bonding with him over this and redoing his room.

Lunch was a challenge, Carole-Lynn and Lola came over, surprising us. I answered the door in my bathrobe which made her look at me funny until they were inside and I explained. Suddenly she got it. "Oh, he didn't want to be the only one naked. Such a nice thing for you to do for him."

Lola was looking at Alex's potty, red food coloring in it and all. When Carole-Lynn saw it she looked confused, until I asked her what red and yellow make. After lunch I took them both up to Alex's room to show off the 2 walls I had gotten done so far, not to mention the toilet stickers. Carole covered a snicker until Alex announced that he had to "feed the Sarwac". She watched as I put him on the potty and without an issue he went poop. "All done mama!" He chirped sweetly.

They left just before it was time for his rest, Carole-Lynn had whispered to me that I was doing a great job and to keep it up. As with yesterday's rest we put absorbent pants on and had the piddle pad on his bed. He rested while I went and finished up painting his room. I was lucky enough to get through the other 2 walls and the second coat of the chalkboard paint before he came toddling in.

I had hooked up the step stool type potty chair in his bathroom and had him use it once to show him that it was also Alex size now. I was glad it came with 2 steps so he could climb it without help. While I rolled on the rest of the second coat, I had him practice getting on and off the new chair a few times. This paid off at about 3 pm when I heard him climb the chair and then going potty in the big potty. I put down the roller and went in to check on him. "Mama I feeded the Sarwac!" I was so proud of him I let him pick a prize from the backpack. This time he chose the Playskool Star Wars play figurine of Obi-Wan.

By his bedtime on that day he had not had an accident in hours. He was happy to be able to sleep in the same room as mommy and drifted off into dreamland with minimal fuss. I was now on the couch downstairs having a glass of wine and putting labels together for the closet we would put up tomorrow, yep I had even painted inside the closet. Had to, I was getting rid of the doors. The labels were going to go on the baskets so even Alex knew where everything went, they were pictures. I had even made labels for the 6 drawer unit I was going to turn into his 'what am I wearing today' rack.

*Nov. 30th, 20113*

Day Three of our naked weekend started like Day Two had so I decided that today was a good day to expand the rooms we were in. I told Alex he could be in the playroom or his room, even putting the potty chair in the playroom. It would be up to him to go potty today and he could use either the chair or the big potty in his bathroom. I, meanwhile, got started laying out and starting setup of his closet. I got the back grid up and was starting to put his basket racks in when I heard him going potty in the bathroom.

By the end of the day he wasn't even telling me when he had to go, he just went. We worked our way from 2 rooms to the whole top floor and then slowly added in the main level. When we went downstairs his potty went with us and stayed downstairs. I left the basement as the only area without a potty to discourage him from going down there without an adult. We had repacked his closet with his clothes and organized his toys. Things were coming along nicely. I had him tell me where each basket was supposed to be when it came to the labels I made.

He went to bed that night again in our room but in his new Star Wars sheets. We would be moving his bed back into his room the next day. I couldn't tell you how proud I was of him. Starting tomorrow we would start taking short trips out of the house for more training.

*Dec. 4th, 2013*

Kris was home! I knew because I heard Alex telling him all about how we were nakie and he learned how to be a big boy. I should have known by that his side was messed up but hearing him was always better. We had some regression as it got closer to him coming home, but we got through it.

I came into the kitchen and found Alex watching Kris do something. Kris saw me and moved to where I could join them. "You're such a big boy Alexander. Why don't we give Mama the day off and you and I will be big boys together?" That's how I got a well deserved massage and pilates session as a 'I wish I could have helped' gift.