Here Piggy, Piggy

So last night I was hanging out with Adly in her bedroom before bedtime when she wandered into her closet and started saying "Piggy! Piggy!" over and over again. She said it enough times that I got up to find out just what kind of piggy she had found in the closet.

This is what I saw.

Naturally, I picked up the piggy to give it to Adly, thinking she just couldn't reach it and that was why she was so panicked about it. As soon as I did this though, her eyes grew as big as saucers as she stiffly backed away from the closet, myself, and the apparently scary piggy. She looked beyond terrified of the thing. So of course I did what any nurturing, loving parent would do. I tortured her with it.

For what ever reason, I thought it was hilarious that this random stuffed pig was terrifying my daughter. At first I thought it had to be a coincidence so I walked toward her again with the piggy. She backed up quickly, running into and falling over her training potty. Oops. But I couldn't stop it there. Nope. Because I'm a jerk like that.

I tested it out a few more times because I just couldn't believe she was actually scared of this random stuffed pig. Each time I held it out towards her, she'd whimper and back up even farther away saying, "mama!" I couldn't stop laughing.

I then put piggy on her dresser, looking into her crib and told her it would be there all night to haunt her dreams. She responded with a quivering whisper of "piiiggy?"

Hiiiii Adlyyyyyy....I see you!

I then picked her up to take her to the kitchen so her dad could get a load of the "scary" piggy and what it was doing to our daughter. As I brought her out laughing hysterically I was all like, "Look at this! Isn't it hilarious!?! Watch what she does when I put piggy near her!" To which my husband immediately told me I was the worst person ever. And then he ended my fun faster than anything else could have with these cutting words: "at least we know who will be on duty tonight when Adly wakes up from nightmares yelling, Piiiiiiiggy!"

Any talk of losing sleep is like my own personal nightmare, so I knew I had to immediately backtrack the emotional trauma I had already inflicted. So much for scaring the crap out of my child for fun. I spent the next twenty minutes of book reading time deflecting Adly's worried requests for piggy that had by now been hidden by Adam. From me there was a lot of "Piggy who?!" and "Ooooh, look at that! Wow! Let's read this!" all followed up immediately with a "Piggy??!?" from my scared child. Curses!

I put her down and crossed my fingers that the damage had been repaired and I wouldn't suffer any sleep loss over my little fun with piggy.

Thankfully, I can state today that no, my daughter didn't have nightmares after this hilariously traumatizing event. This afternoon, as I snapped these pictures to demonstrate on here how ridiculously not scary this piggy is, Adly followed me everywhere carefully watching Piggy's every move. By bedtime she was carefully kissing Piggy night-night, so apparently she is just fine emotionally...at least for now. 

Sweet dreams, little piggy!

Peculiar Parenting

As I've mentioned before, I like to read. Especially when it is something I'm interested in. But if I'm not interested in the book or the material...good luck to me.

Pregnancy books have enraptured my attention since I found out I was carrying a bundle of joy. Probably due in part to the fact that I had no preparation time for this adventure and well, I don't like to live life on the edge with...surprises per say.

But when it comes to babies and pregnancy there is so much information out there and I want to know it all. Never mind the fact that I can't remember half of it as soon as I read it. Of course, when you read a lot of things, you're bound to come across some information that you agree with and some that you don't. And every so often as I read, something very striking will pop out at me and it will stick in my mind.

That is where the topic of Peculiar Parenting came in. For one, I'm a nerd for alliteration. Second, I want to remember these ideas and share them as well. Who knows, someone may read it and say immediately, "I want to try THAT!" I can't even say that I wouldn't give any of these things a try. It's just that at first glance, it made me do a double take, shake my head and re-read it again. Sometimes even laugh out loud. What I am not aiming to do is offend anyone. So please, just laugh. It my sole purpose in life to laugh at anything and everything I can.

For the first installment, drumroll please.....

Potty Training From Birth!

Yes, thats right. Read it again. Potty training. From birth. Turns out there is a cult following for this practice in our county. In some parts of the world, babies are trained immediately how to go potty on the toilet from birth. There is even literature out there that will teach you how to practice these skills with your infant, if you're interested!

While this topic does intrigue me, I'll admit I have not done a lot of research on it. I don't plan to do it and well, if you read the disclaimer above, if it doesn't interest me, I have a hard time reading about it. What has made it stick in my mind is the image of holding a new baby over a toilet demanding it to pee. Just like my husband learned in load size?, babies don't often have the ability to wink at you and let you know just when they're going to do the deed. Nor can they potty on command- at least from what I know.

But according to what I've read, it really works! As one believer quoted, "Everyone thought I was crazy for trying to potty train my newborn. That was, until my 8 week old was potty trained. Now everyone is jealous!" I'm not sure I can say I'm jealous per say, but what a fun party trick! I'd love to see it just to witness such an act. Come over, look at my newborn! It pees and poops on the toilet already! Come watch it go-no need for diapers here!

So how is it that this can possibly work? The theory goes that we train our infants to become "lazy" from birth by just letting them go in a diaper. Advocates believe they are born with the instincts we have as adults, that they know when they gotta go. Beyond that, my very educational research of asking friends this same question has turned up answers such as maybe you use timing, maybe you use signals with your baby. Infant potty training is not for me. They're babies. However, if its something you might be interested in trying, or just learning more about so you have an interesting topic to talk about at your next gathering, check out this link:

http://www.bornpottytrained.com/get_started/

or this book,

http://ecsimplified.com/

Potty On!