Our world of diapers has turned into lots of road-side squatting, random back-store toilets, and an almost contrast train to and from the bathroom at home. He's been making the transition to being potty trained since the summer when he became anti-diaper, but now aside from naps, nighttime and bus rides Sebastian has decided to be potty trained. We're proud, and happy not to deal with endless diapers and hot water washes. The only thing is that they don't make tighty whiteys for 25lbers, at least not that I've found. Oh how my baby looks less and less like a baby every day!

For a few days now Sebastain has been doing some serious work out on the deck. This work includes: a tin bucket of water, a stick, leaves and petunias. Someone's gotta do it. Aside from dismantling the (non)hanging basket and splashing the water, there has been a lot of sniffing the concoction, sniffing the bean plant and sniffing the flowers. But there have also been breaks to eat tomatoes off the vine and chew on tough bean stalks which were not left there to be eaten but to dry out for next year's seeds (ahem).
But this concoction business has lead to a lot of signing practice. This is the typical "conversation" we have out on the deck these days: patting his chest,  point to palm, finger to mouth which translates to... "help! more! water!" The "help" and "book" signs seem to be his favourite these days. We read so.many.books a day. I guess that makes sense if you know his parents...

 

   

Sebastian is starting to sign, which is exciting, although it doesn't seem like the dam has broken, so to speak. I remember when Olive learned to sign, seemingly all of a sudden, and as though she suddenly understood something wonderful about communication. I remember one day babysitting her and she just signed for food constantly. I think all we did that day was eat and eat and eat because it was a remarkable cause and effect for her. I think the fact that someone other than her parents understood and responded to sign language helped her understand the implication of a sign. But Sebastian is more of a pointer and yeller. I guess it's an effective form of communication on it's own; he usually gets what he's after pretty quickly despite our efforts to always show him the sign first. His "sign" for milk is to wiggle down in my arms as far as he can or just shove his hand down my shirt. His sign for "eat" or "more" is, like I said, just pointing and whining or yelling. It's funny teaching him to use the signs instead because although they are less annoying and somehow more impressive, they're likely less effective. I don't always catch his signs, but I do always hear him when he yells. Sometime I question whether or not it's worth it. I guess if he ever learns more sophisticated words like "cat" or "diaper" it will be worthwhile. Right now he signs "all done." It's an interesting first sign because in signing all done he's not asking for more, but just acknowledging the situation and shows us that he understands. Occasionally he seems to be signing for food. It's a tricky one to recognize because his fingers are often in his mouth. Today we stopped off at the Jean's, the food co-op out in the boonies, and he signed "eat" and pointed at the building. So I took him inside and bought him some strawberries. Lucky kid. 

It's been a momentous week or two. We've gone from a baby who throws fits when diapered to a baby who sits happily on his mini toilet seat and pees while simultaneously requesting a story (we got him accustomed to the toilet through books). He is successfully going to the bathroom in the toilet almost every time when he's diaperless. Sometimes he crawls to the bathroom himself when he needs to go. I thought it would take so long, and that it would be difficult for him. I worried for a while it was traumatic for him and was really wary of continuing because I know a transition like toilet training can make such an impact on and be emotionally taxing for children. But after less than a week of struggle he's adapted really well. I still diaper him occasionally throughout the day, when we leave the house and while he sleeps, and I probably always will until he's toilet trained.
Meanwhile, the little guy will be one year old in three days. I'm sure there will be plenty of photos to post a la grandparent's cameras (ours is still broken). We also seem to be stockpiling little videos as he walks more and more so I'll try not to let the blog become devoid of images.

Sebastian's not down with diapers these days. I can't blame him. It only took a few attempts at pinning him down on the change table with all my one-handed strength and wrestling with a carefully folded cloth diaper to realize I'd have to let him be most of the time. After a week or two of cleaning up endless puddles of baby pee Alex and I decided to embark on "elimination communication" more seriously. I check Diaper-free Baby out of the library, learned a few things, mustered all the patience I could and have since being trying to coax him onto the toilet. He's not down with the toilet, either. No, he's fascinated with it but, until I came home with a secondhand baby toilet seat yesterday, he refused to use it. Many times throughout the day I watch him open and close the toilet lid, try to flush the toilet, occasionally I've even caught him elbow deep in toilet water. It's almost involved as much cleaning up as just letting him pee all over the place. But that's okay. The other day he saw me spit my toothpaste into the toilet bowl because I was hurrying to hold him over the seat. Since then he's stood at the toilet about twenty times a day and pretended to spit into the water with a cheeky smile on his face. Sometimes I think he's mocking me....
But I know there's a lot of un-training to do. The theory is that along with everyone else babies have the instinct to hold their bladders until they have somewhere other than their pants to go. Hence newborns often peeing as soon as the diaper comes off. But that instinct is muted with diapers until the time comes to toilet train, and by then a kid has followed his instinct for a brief time, been taught to deny it, then asked to reconnect with it. With this in mind, EC makes sense to me. More than half the world doesn't diaper their babies. How could they? It takes so much time, water, energy. They simply know when their kids are going to pee and help them do it somewhere appropriate.
So we're giving it a shot. I like to honour Sebastian's signs that he's ready for changes. With sleep, he led the way. He seems to know when he's ready to leave a phase behind, but needs a lot of help getting to the next stage. I'm happy to do that for him. Obviously the point here is not to potty train him yet, I wouldn't expect that from a one year old, but to respect that he doesn't want a diaper on and find ways to make that a more comfortable reality for us all. I'm not approaching it with full-fledged vigilance because I don't want Sebastian or I to stress out about it. So far I think we're making a little progress.

them are fightin' words

If I consider moments of tension or friction in relationships I've had and have, I would say many come from the problems that arise from passive aggressive and just plain aggressive behaviour. When Caitlin and I were backpacking for months together, there were so many moment of her feeling hurt and me feeling frustrated. One night we got drunk and talked about it. Our conclusion was that she was nice and I was honest. Then we ventured a little further and admitted how we really felt about each other: she was weak and I was mean. It was kind of a lighthearted conversation and I think we were better off for having it, and I think we both felt right about being categorized how we were. I have never found value in the notion of nice and she was wary of honesty. In general, I find I have a lot of conflict with people I would call passive aggressive. I don't understand how a person can act out of impure intentions (although I'm sure I do it often in moments lacking self-awareness). But that is to say, my intention in life is always to be honest about how I'm feeling and to communicate how I feel to people when there is obvious conflict. Most people don't want to communicate, I find. I think it makes people uncomfortable. But personally I don't find life much worth living if I'm not being honest.
A huge challenge for me day to day is communicating in a positive way. I don't like to be aggressive and I don't like to be around aggressive people all that much. I like to be flexible and accommodate other people but I have little patience for that if the people I'm trying to accommodate don't communicate their needs to me in some form. There have been many times in my life when I have failed to be a mature, grounded communicator and I think because of that I often come off as a bitch. Working on that is life work; it takes time to undo habits, to let go, to be flexible. Mostly I think it's about listening to yourself. I find any time we say things that come off as bitchy it's because we haven't said what we meant to say, that we haven't listened to the deepest truth in the issue. Often I think it's not about the conflict at hand but more about conflict with ourselves that only we can change ourselves.
I guess I've been thinking about this a lot today in particular because Alex and I are preparing to spend three weeks with his parents and we feel there is some tension between them and us, between their opinions and our boundaries. It's important to us to have a great last visit with them before we move away because we want them to feel like a good part of our and Sebastian's lives, and we want to feel that we can trust them during future visits. I also feel that although the tension is truly and equally between us -- Alex and I --- and them, that it comes across as a tension between me and them because Alex has a tendency to be passive, and to me his passivity is synonymous with passive aggressiveness. We've been talking about how to communicate with them, which is a challenge. It's not only a challenge to find ways to communicate with them positively and effectively without coming across as frustrated, and to ensure that we've been heard, but it's also a challenge to simply communicate with each other on this issue. It comes down to the age old issue in our relationship that he is passive and I am aggressive, and I'm really ready to put those categories aside for the sake of our marriage and the sake of us as parents. Particularly as parents. In my mind, it won't be long at all before we need to be a team for the sake of our children understanding boundaries etc...
I think of every single friend I have, there is only one who doesn't have an imbalance of passivity or aggressiveness, and that is Aja. When I met her I was astounded with her ability to face an issue head-on, putting aside her personal irrationality, putting down ineffective but oh so tempting language and blame. Whenever I've watched her in a conflict or had one with her, she's always been true to the situation and not to her ego, and for that I am forever grateful that she is my friend. This week I want to try to learn from Aja.