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The Next Step In Potty Training

April 15, 2011 by 3 Comments

Well, the patience has returned to our lives. Mostly due to the fact that we have seriously put the brakes on the furosity of the potty training. We quickly realized that Ezra was neither interested nor bribe-able when it came to spending some time on the toilet, and that we really needed to focus a lot on growing his interest in the event. Point of disclosure: Ezra has never been willing to take a bribe to do something….he will gladly turn down just about any offer that you can think of if he doesn’t want to do the underlying request. This is both positive (strong willed and knows what he wants) and negative (we can’t convince him to do anything he doesn’t want).

This idea of ‘building interest’ in a 2.5 year old is a difficult thing to do to say the least. Sure, you can manufacture excited expectation about all sorts of things for a short period of time; but to create that in something that will be more long term sustainable is proving to be an interesting assignment. We thought we were on to something when all of a sudden Ezra started going to the toilet, moving his steps in front of it, and pretending to pee (while keeping his pants up)…but that lasted a day. We thought that we had something when he would wear underwear and feel uncomfortable when he peed in them…but that lasted for a week (now he’s just good hanging out in wet clothes). We have, however, been able to get him to sit on the potty for pretty long periods of time – which is good.

His conversations about going to the bathroom have increased and his apparent interest is on the uptick. We aren’t anywhere near close to being able to drop the pedal to the floor and go for broke, but we are on the way. It’s like being in a car that has the potential to do 150mph, but it takes 2000 miles of doing 35mph before you are able to achieve that speed.

Filed Under: Ezra!

Signs Of Spring

April 11, 2011 by 2 Comments

Even though the weather isn’t entirely spring-like (it’s been a typical Colorado spring thus far: snow in the mountains, and front range weather bouncing back and forth between late winter and early summer), there are examples that spring might be just around the corner. And while this isn’t entirely good news for skiers like myself (because that means that summer isn’t too far away), it is good news for earthly things like trees. And as such, Liam’s tree is starting to bud…

Filed Under: Liam!, Photos Included

Just Below The Surface

April 8, 2011 by 3 Comments

I’m not sure that there is any way to ever get around the fact that it’s just always there. It doesn’t take much encouragement to get it to bubble over and become evident to all; and it doesn’t always have a timeline as to how long it wants to stay above everything else. What is it? It’s the sadness, the sickness, the stomach turning, the emptiness, the questions, the lost hopes, and the wanted expectations.

As Ahna and I both conclude our first full and complete weeks back to work, I think that we can both attest to the idea that even over the course of just a few days, being there has gotten a little easier – whatever that means. Easier isn’t the right word to describe it, but there really isn’t another word that works as well. As the days go by at work, it’s a lot like loosing that sense of newness when you get that long awaited thing: it just becomes the normal instead of something that you are trying to figure out. But it’s always just below the surface.

Recently I was at work and sat through a lecture on thoracic anatomy and physiology and found myself struggling as I thought about Liam. There wasn’t any direct correlation, but as we are both discovering, it really doesn’t take a direct connection. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t take a connection at all….it just happens.  We walk around kind of propped up by life, but weighed down by experience and ready to burst at the seams at any random time and place. Containing it is a necessary evil at times, but we have been able to find the ability to express in each other our feelings when we need to the most. But it’s always just below the surface.

Filed Under: Liam!, Life in General

34 Months!

April 5, 2011 by 5 Comments

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

Potty Training

April 3, 2011 by 11 Comments

Let the games begin. After a successful removal of the pacifier from all daily life (except sleeping), we decided to embark on attempting to get Ezra out of diapers. Now before I go any further, a bit of full disclosure has to happen: I hate, and I mean hate, poop. For each and every diaper that I have changed on Ezra and Liam, there is some sort of massive displeasure and gagging that occurs. Liam didn’t seem to care about my reaction too much, but Ezra laughed at me each and every time. With this background, you can imagine that venturing into a world where I would have to do more than just throw away a poopy diaper…and actually clean something has proven to be rather daunting. The full disclosure part of this posting closes as I say that due to what you have now learned, Ahna has taken the lead on this project.

This all started out with some attempts at introducing the idea of going to use the toilet to Ezra. You see, for the nearly three years of his life, he has shown approximately zero interest in going to the bathroom anywhere specifically. As a matter of fact, he cares so little about it that he’ll just go wherever and whenever he needs to…so when he doesn’t have a diaper on, it doesn’t phase him one little bit (a good example a little later). So the concept of generating his interest in using the potty has been something that thus far has been the sticking point – we haven’t even gotten to all of the other normal sticking points to potty training (the sounds, the flush, sitting still, wiping, the responsibility, etc).

how the counter adornments have changed...

The one thing that Ezra does seem mostly interested in doing is wearing underwear. The simple summary of our methodology for the training is this (adopted from Peggy): skip pull-ups and go straight to underwear. Spend a few days doing nearly nothing but sitting on the potty every 15-20 minutes. By having underwear on, it will create the discomfort and they will at some point want to avoid being wet or otherwise. After three accidents in one day, go back to diapers and don’t make a big deal out of it. Sounds logical, caring, and something that we can handle. The only hiccup to the entire program is if/when the child doesn’t have any care to sit still or any interest to continue….enter Ezra. We know that we can push, but the last thing that we want to do is to create a negative vibe surrounding going to the bathroom.

Ahna began training Ezra late last week (10 days ago-ish) and it went fairly well for the first couple of days. Ezra would enjoy the Toy Story or Cars themed garments, and if he peed he would look up from playing and say ‘uh-oh’ before immediately returning to playing. Although there wasn’t any use of the potty, the two of them were able to work out a way that Ezra would wear underwear while they were home and sit on the potty for always increasing amounts of time. There was no revelation made, but there was steady progress. Until one day when Ezra realized that he was in fact 2.5 years old, and the testing began. Following a massive meltdown by both child (Ezra) and parent (me), we have made a few concessions: we will slow it down a little. We will try to hang out in underwear for a few hours each day or night and not push the issue too hard. We will work on gaining momentum in the ‘interest’ phase of this process. And finally, two of us will work on our patience a little bit (I’m not going to say who those two are, but Ahna is not one of them).

So it slowly continues. Some days are better than others, and some days we just don’t even try a little. In order to try to stay calm, I keep telling myself another piece of advice that Peggy passed along (after someone gave it to her many years ago): he’s not going to go to prom in diapers. Now if there was only a simple piece of advice that I could remember to get through dealing with the poop….

Filed Under: Ezra!, Photos Included

A Tree For Liam

March 29, 2011 by 2 Comments

This morning we had a tree planted in memory of Liam. It’s a ginnala maple tree that will grow to a pretty decent size over a long life, and it’s leaves will turn a red-ish color each fall. We planted it in the back yard…someplace that we would be able to see easily from the house and in a location that as the tree grows, so will our ability to benefit from what it has to offer (shade, beauty, etc). This is part one in a multi-part natural memorial including at least a garden at our house, a tree at the cemetery, and perhaps sometime elsewhere. Thank you to everyone that helped with this tree, especially to the good folks at Renovations Landscaping.

Filed Under: Liam!, Photos Included

Wristband Update

March 28, 2011 by 1 Comment

Wow…it’s almost been a week since the last post. There’s a blog detox of sort happening right now – or we’ve actually just been really busy and haven’t found the time to be able to share any of it with you till today.

The ‘biggest’ event of the past few days is the beginning of potty training for Ezra. It’s big enough that I think I’m going to write a special post all for itself.

While Ahna was neck deep in the potty training, I spent the later part of last week in Indianapolis at FDIC (a conference for firefighters) helping to run a stair climb. A group of five of us went out there and organized and ran the first 9/11 Memorial Stair Climb at the conference. It’s very similar to the one that I help with here, except for the two obvious differences: 1) it wasn’t on 9/11 and 2) it wasn’t in a building (it was instead held inside of Lucas Oil Stadium). It was very successful, and we have settled on doing another one at a conference in Baltimore at the end of July. These climbs will go a long way in helping us towards the goal of having 100 climbs happening on 9/11 for the 10th anniversary this year.

New topic: through a friend, we learned of an organization called The Rowan Tree Foundation. It’s a group that helps parents that have suffered through and with the loss of a child. Truth be told, it completely sucks to have to learn about organizations like this one….but here we are anyway. The Rowan Tree Foundation helps people across the country, but it’s actually headquartered here in Parker. We have been in touch with them and are only now beginning to find out about some of the resources that they bring to the table – which I think will be great to know about. Anyhow, the folks there had read the blog and offered up a wristband that they have for the foundation. It’s a perfect something to wear while we are searching for the perfect something to wear (ps – thanks for all of the suggestions…I think that we’re close to getting something).

Filed Under: Liam!, Life in General, Photos Included, Video Included

A 2 Month Review

March 23, 2011 by 1 Comment

At some point during our hospital stay, I started to keep track of the things that were happening in the world as an outside time stamp on the duration of our stay…it turns out to be another way of looking at the time that Liam was with us. I wrote it in an amateur attempt to emulate the Harper’s Weekly Review that they do each Tuesday, so here we go:

A new country joined the world when people in southern Sudan voted to separate from the north. Citizens in five countries spread out on two continents started revolutions – Tunisia, Bahrain, Iraq, Yemen, and Egypt – and the Green Bay Packers won the Super Bowl.

Christmas and New Year’s were celebrated, as was Jamie’s 40th birthday. People remembered the 25th anniversary of the Challenger disaster; and President Obama said “This is our generation’s Sputnik moment” during the State Of The Union speech.

A suicide bomber attacked the Moscow airport and killed 34 people. In Arizona, a failed attempt at assassinating Representative Gabrielle Giffords did end up with six others dead – including a 9 year old girl. The US Congress first voted down the 9/11 Responders Bill, then following much public displeasure, reversed course and passed the bill. Politicians in Wisconsin tried to pass anti-union measures.

Wikipedia turned 10 and Facebook turned 7 while world food prices hit record highs. It snowed a bunch and turned bitter cold in the Denver area, and Oren and Ahna entered the world of smart phones and digital readers. A computer beat a human at Jeopardy. Wikileaks exposed thousands of classified documents, and Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was finally repealed. We celebrated Valentine’s Day and there were 93,052 visits to the blog.

Filed Under: Ezra!, Liam!, Life in General

Shloshim

March 22, 2011 by 6 Comments

In the traditional Jewish style of mourning, Shloshim is the 30-day post burial mourning period. Following those traditional rules of religious observation (which we don’t in this case), a person in mourning is restricted from doing and participating in a lot of different things (like work, cooking, exercise, etc). Following the completion of the 30 days, you are again allowed to ‘reenter’ life and all of the normal things that you would have been doing.

This morning we held a small service with the Rabbi at Liam’s grave side to mark the 30 day point. There were a few readings, and a prayer or two; but the idea of the ending of a period of mourning just doesn’t really seem applicable. It’s impossible to put emotions into a neatly wrapped calendar that starts and ends on a lunar cycle. Some of these anniversary or time markers are real and some are constructed – but they all are emotionally heavy and complete with sadness.

Both of us have re-engaged work and projects that were in progress when Liam was born. We have started to move Ezra along the path of growing from a  toddler to a boy (working on loosing the pacifier and starting potty training). But we also still occasionally run into someone that knew we were expecting, but doesn’t know what happened. And each time that this happens, raw feelings are immediately brought back to the surface. Two steps forward forward, one step back. One step forward, two steps back.

So, here’s to day number 31 and whatever it might bring with it.

Filed Under: Liam!, Life in General

One Month Emptier

March 18, 2011 by 4 Comments

Ezra and I were spending some time this afternoon looking at the book of photos of Liam, and as we reached the end of the book, Ezra said “I want to go to the hospital to see Liam.” All I could reply was “me too pal, me too.”

It’s been a month since Liam died and it feels like each day we miss him more and more. At this moment, the idea that time will heel feels as distant as the far reaches of the known universe. We know from previous experience, that time doesn’t really heel…it just allows you to focus more and more on the life that you are living, not the one that you are missing.

It’s so hard to not immediately go back to the Friday morning in the hospital one month ago. In every aspect of the emotional thought pattern, it feels like it was yesterday. Words and conversation with the doctors from that morning haunt us all the time; and there isn’t an hour that goes by that we don’t wonder what life would have been like if Liam were still with us.

After dinner this evening, we went over to his grave site and spent a little time where we left flowers. It was really windy and the temperature felt very cold so we only stayed for a short while before coming back home. I wish that there was some cool, philosophical proverb that would fit this situation perfectly, but there isn’t. Instead we write what we told Liam this evening:

We miss you and we love you.

Filed Under: Liam!, Photos Included
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