One Year Later

Today, just like in the brilliant story book, Once Upon A Potty, Zeben received a package in the mail. And in this package was something strange and new. It was neither a hat nor a frisbee nor a basketball hoop. It was a Baby Bjorn Toilet Trainer. Though its name might lead you to believe otherwise, this product does not actually toilet train your child. It's actually an insert that you put into the big toilet to make the hole a more appropriate size for a tiny bum. Zeben was not especially impressed at first. But once he got around to trying it out, he was quite pleased indeed.


After documenting this special milestone, as any proud mother would, I decided to look back through photos of Zeben's earlier potty days. Because while this was Zeben's first time trying out a toilet insert, he is not exactly a novice in the potty department.
Soon after Zeben was born, we began holding him over sinks and letting him pee there, rather than in a diaper. He also grew accustomed to using a little potty, and even preferred it to using diapers (wouldn't we all). I wasn't exactly a pro at elimination communication, as it's called, but I did feel like I learned how to communicate with Zeb about his elimination needs, and we were rather successful for a few months. However, once Zeben started crawling, he wanted nothing to do with sitting on the potty. By 8 months, he was back to using diapers full-time. It wasn't until recently that he began to show renewed interest in his elimination and he seemed willing to try the potty again. Anyway, I found this picture of Zeben's first time sitting unassisted on his Baby Bjorn Little Potty. He was exactly 4 months old.

And purely by coincidence (I swear!), he was wearing the same exact t-shirt then that he wore today when trying out the big toilet for the first time. How crazy is that? Clearly, in some ways, we're in the same place now as we were a year ago. Zeben, sitting on yellow Baby Bjorn potties wearing his red dragon shirt. But when I look at the picture of that chubby little baby, it is hard to believe it's the same Zeben. What a difference a year makes.