Two new things that happen when you're two

Do you know what a coucou is? We didn't either, but in Alaska, after spending some time with his Colombian nanny, Finn started to call his pacifier coucou. Spanish for pacifier is chupeta which somehow got translated to coucou in Finnspeak.

Anyway, several mornings ago, Finn was playing on the floor in our room where there is a perfect coucou-sized hole in the wood floor (my guess is the previous owners had it put in to run cables or something from the basement). What do you do when you're two and 1) have a coucou in your hand; and 2) there is a hole in the floor?

Uh, oh. Oh, no! Says Finn. My coucou in dat hole!

The nanny spent the better part of a dramatic afternoon trying to fish it out with all sorts of different tools in Finn's presence to no avail. The next 24 hours were a bit rough everytime he wanted it, but once I reminded him where it was, he settled. And now he doesn't ask for it anymore. Husband Nick has a similar story shared by his parents where he spit his out in the ocean and watched the waves take it, shrugged and that was that. Easy peasy.

Next big milestone we were trying to reach? Potty training.

We did elimination communication with Finn from a really early age and that combined with cloth diapers created a baby that was only soiling a few diapers a day, mostly at night. At six months he was more potty trained than he was at 23 months. How does that happen that your infant it more potty trained than when he is a toddler? Lazy parents I thought, until I spoke to some friends who were more diligent than we were and had the same results with their tots.

This summer we tried and tried to make potty training fun (and it should have been easy considering how much time the boy spent naked and outdoors), complete with all the latest potties and books and songs. But alas, it became a bigger fight than we could handle. And then Poppie was born and we forgivably both said to hell with potty training, at some point he will get uncomfortable enough or want to be big and do it himself.

Which is exactly what happened.

Finn typically removes all lower clothing and diapers the minute he gets home from school and refuses to be clad unless we bribe him with going outside. But then he started to tell me he had to go to the bathroom and that led (within a week or so) to just going by himself and not making a big deal of it.

When he wakes up, he takes his lower jammies and diaper off, throws the diaper in the garbage (good boy!) and comes and says good morning. And them he goes to the potty when ever he needs it. Simple as that.

So, Daddy, if you are reading this, your son is almost potty trained and we have gotten rid of his dummy for good. How's that for progress in the past two weeks?

xoxo