Toilet Training a 6-Month-Old

I would’ve never imagined that a six-month-old could begin toilet training, until, on the advice of my mom, my wife and I started toilet training our baby who is was just over 5 months old at the time.  It works like this:

• Whenever you check the diaper, and it’s dry, you hold the baby over the toilet.  With any luck, he’ll go pee.
• If you check the baby’s diaper after a long nap or just any long period, it’s wet, but you suspect it’s been wet for a while, you hold him over the diaper to go pee.

Surprisingly, it was successful!  Even more surprisingly, we’ve had the following results:

• The baby has started waiting to go pee until he’s over the toilet! Not every time, of course, but about 4 times a day.
• Sometimes, he “tells” us by making a worried face, wining and waving his arms (again, this is only sometimes.)
• Two or three times now, he’s woken up to “tell” us he has to go pee; one night he started wining, so I warmed up the bottle, but he didn’t want it.  I checked his diaper, it was dry.  So took him to go pee, and he went back to sleep immediately.  All he wanted was to go pee.
• He almost always makes his bowel movements on the toilet (I’d say 90% of the time.)  He’ll “tell” us by making a scrunched up face, looking at my wife and grunting.  He always waits until we have him over the toilet.  Only once, when we were in a car and couldn’t get him to a toilet, he started crying and finally went in his diaper.

It seems that our baby at this age already understands that having a wet or dirty diaper is uncomfortable, and prefers to avoid it.  He knows how to communicate distinct needs to some extent.  I think it also helps that we praise him a lot for it; he always gets a proud smile on his face looking at us, clearly waiting for his praise.

Back to the Fields – Picking Garlic Scrapes

I've always wondered what it is like for families coming from other countries that do temporary field work on top of their regular jobs to help get ahead in their new home; many Mexican immigrants, among others, have experienced this.  Here in Ontario, many "Mexican Mennonites" who have arrived from Mexico over the past decade participate in this kind of activity, bringing their whole family out to the fields.
Two days ago, my wife and I decided to try it out for ourselves (we don't bring the kids along.)  The job we found, through our neighbours, was picking the tops off garlic plants; after I finish my day's work on the computer, we drive out and start the field work.
The hardest part about this job is bending over.  You half to walk along the rows of garlic, snapping off the tops.  The second hardest part is that the juice from the plant burns, especially if it gets between your nails.  Today, the only pain I feel is in my thumb nails; or perhaps it's just that the pain is so sharp that I don't feel the rest of it.
Both evenings we've been there, we go with neighbours, and see other families show up.  The kids run along the rows breaking off the tops almost as fast as I do; it's easier in a way since they don't have to bend over.  Apparently some families, eager to earn money, started taking their kids during the day, instead of sending them to school.  The farmer realized what was happening and started sending families away if they showed up with kids during school hours.  (The work is come-and-go as you please - you just have to ask him where to work when you show up, and report what you've done when you leave.)  I'm really happy that he made that decision.  It's good to see that at least one person values education over quick cash.  He pays decently as well.
This isn't the first time I've done work like this, but it's the first time seeing families work like this together. My parents always told me about it (they had to do it when they arrived from Mexico as kids.)  It's a new experience.  For me it's not quite the same since it's not out the same pure necessity that the other families have.  But at least I can see it, feel it, and do it, first hand.

Learning to Ride a Bike – A Father’s Day Gift

This Father’s Day was very special for me since I had the joy of helping my son to ride a bike for the first time.  A while back, I put up a post about the day my son first rode a tricycle, which was in Mexico (My son learns to pedal a trike!).  Now, this next step of learning to ride a two-wheeled bike was here in Canada.

My goal for the day was to have him try to ride the bike without training wheels at least once (with help of course.)  This was too ambitious, and my son simply didn’t want to.  But by the end of the day he was confidently riding the bike with training wheels, moving ahead at a good speed and using the back-pedal brakes.  I’m proud of him.