because charlene asked

I've been MIA.  More on that later.

For now, I'll leave you with this...

Hey Char!  Glad to see you visited my comments and thanks to your question I'm going to post about my all time favorite toddler toy:  The Imaginarium Train Station.  Yes, it's pricey at $150 (I bought it for $120 on sale, but before tax) and yes it can be an eyesore in our family room (what toy isn't?); but it's by far our most used toy.

I'd post pics of Sam at the table but I'm having trouble uploading pics to blogger today!

Anyway, what do I love about it?

• It's at the right level for toddlers.
• Both the table and train set that it comes with are great in my opinion.
• It makes noises as the train goes through tunnels and over bridges.
• It's a high quality set at the best price I've seen compared to similar sets.
• "Thomas the Tank" trains designed for the Thomas set of this size also fit on this set!
• It has 2 great drawers to store extra trains, another track set - whatever you wish!
• It's a great toy for multiple children to play with and offers less sharing disputes.

What do I not love about it?

• I do not recommend it for kids under 2.  When Sam was younger than 2 he just wanted to destroy the tracks.  Now that Sam is older he rarely takes the set apart (once every 2 months?)
• When Sam does take it apart, it is a pain to put the tracks back together in the right order - we almost always have to consult the directions.  At one point we had thought about screwing the tracks to the table but I wanted to have the option to replace with other sets, though I have yet to buy another set and doubt I ever will.
• The set comes with one battery operated engine.  Well, that "little engine that could" is the "little engine that couldn't".  It has such a hard time going up one of the hills.  We don't mind though, Sam is always talking about helping it up the hill.  And frankly usually we have that train without batteries anyway because they always run out.
• The drawer sometimes sticks on the table platform, making it a bit tricky to close all the way.

P.S.  Toys 'R Us is not paying me to recommend this train set.  LOL.  And for what it's worth, I'm not being paid by Amazon to recommend products I've mentioned in the past of theirs either.  Should a ton of people buy from amazon via my links I could eventually get a small kick-back but I don't expect that will happen.  It's not a goal of mine and the incentive is small, very small. ;)  The short of it is, I blog about products that I believe in.

the downside to potty training

I'm happy to say that Sam continues to do GREAT with potty training!  He's had just one accident in the last 5 days, and that was on Monday.  It will be a while before he's nap/night trained though.  He's a sound sleeper like his mama!  It has been nice to be diaper-free but there is a downside, and here it is:

1.  You spend A LOT of time in the bathroom.  On Monday, we must have spent half our day in that room.  We read in there, we talked in there, we sang in there, and I'll admit - we even ate in there.  GROSS.  Thankfully our bathroom quality time is decreasing.

2.  You get no sleep.  Sam has to use the potty 3-5 times before bed.  While I want to encourage potty breaks, he hasn't been getting to sleep until between 9 & 10:30 when normally his bedtime is 8.  And when Samuel is sleep-deprived he acts even more crazy than his already active self.  I'm exhausted trying to keep up with this lovable maniac.  Yesterday at the park a woman said to me with a sigh, "He's all boy isn't he?"  I knew what she really meant.  I said, "Yup, he's a lot of fun!"

3.  Your new namesake is now poop.  Let me explain, and sorry in advance for too much information.  When Sam poops more than one poop at a time, he names them before he flushes them.  As in, "Look!  A Daddy poopy, a Mommy poopy, a Sam poopy and a Sydney poopy!"  Lovely. 

4.  You talk about pee and poop a LOT as if it's as innocent as talking about the weather.  You assume it's normal conversation that others will enjoy, so you blog about it too.  I used to hate the word "poop" but now it's one of my most used words.  I decided not to substitute with words like "BM" or "#2" because everyone knows what you really mean:  poop. 

5.  A streaker is born.  Since we have occasionally taken the "naked approach" to potty training, Samuel has realized he loves being naked.  He loves it so much in fact that today he started taking off his clothes outside.  At the park.  In front of other children.  And their parents.  He got off his shorts and underwear and came running to me yelling, "I GOTTA GO POOP!"  So I pack Sydney up and we start heading for the porta-potty.  Mid-sprint to the porta-potty he decides he doesn't have to go, must have just had gas I guess.  So he starts running back to the park and insists on playing naked.  Who in the world would want to climb up a ladder, slide down slides & hang on monkey bars naked?  Sam, that's who.  It's all a blur but somehow I managed to get him back to the porta-potty (naked).  I tried to tell him that some people get arrested for this sort of behavior but I still only managed to get his underwear on prior to packing us up to go home after our potty break.

6.  You visit more porta-pottys during toilet training than you've seen in your entire life.  Every time we go somewhere Sam's first question is, "Do they have a bathroom?"  Good question for a potty training kid if you ask me.  But I don't think it has anything to do with him formulating a plan in case of a potty emergency.  Instead I believe he has this need to check out all potties.  It's like he has to show off his skills to every potty.  Christen every potty, if you will.  Lord help us at parks with multiple porta-pottys as he would like to inspect each one.  And I CRINGE.  I GAG.  I try to tell him they are all occupied but ONE, yet he tries to open each one.  When we finally manage to get into a porta-potty, he gives me the low down on if kids have gone poopy before him or not.  I'm hoping by purchasing the following for my car we may avoid future bad porta-potty experiences or worse yet an emergency with no potty in sight:

7.  New found independence.  Sounds great, right?  Well now Sam wants to clean up the little potty after a potty break.  But he doesn't just rinse it out.  He wants it to be filled and then he wants to play in it.  I tried to tell him that's "poopy water" but now he just tries to splash his hands in it while yelling "POOPY WATER!  POOPY WATER!" 

8.  A need for privacy.  Sure, everyone wants privacy while they go potty.  But Sam is now insisting on closing the door all the while I'm hearing noises in there I can't translate and picturing potty everywhere but the potty.  I'm slowly convincing him that a little help from Mom and Dad is necessary.

I feel the need to get to #10 but I'd just waste your time.  8 is enough to give you a picture into the life I've been living the last several days.  It must get easier... right?

potty traning for dummies

In case you were wondering, the dummy is me, not my 2.5 year old.  If there were a book on what NOT to do during potty training, I could clearly write it.  

Samuel has been interested in the potty for quite some time.  Everyone said it was too early, but he wanted to use the potty so I let him.  I never pushed him to go but he's been requesting to go every night before bed for a good year.  Eventually we did need to "encourage" this trend because if he would forget to go it suddenly became a stall tactic, requesting to go after already in bed.  Recently I've been wondering how I can get him to go on the potty during the day too because I really felt like the only thing holding him back was me (to be honest I was a bit overwhelmed at the thought of potty training).  So I bought a book I've heard good things about:  Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day: Proven Secrets of the Potty Pro

I scanned the book and got some good tips from it.  I also got good tips from The Potty Whisperer (thanks for the link Mom!).  Just as I was about to revisit the book and get myself a complete potty training plan for our "Potty Day", it seemed potty training was about to begin whether I was ready for it or not.  So much for planning.  

Lately Sam has been wanting to be naked boy so I decided to embrace this phase and use it as my opportunity to bring out the potty.  I told him he could stay naked in the house as long as he did his important job of using the potty (a good thing to say to Mr. Independent!).  I didn't really have high expectations and I didn't plan to push.  But guess what, being naked worked... but the timing couldn't have been worse.  I mean, this was July 3!  We had guests coming over on the 4th, plans for a couple boat rides and a trip to the local fair over the weekend!  

He did have 2 accidents on July 3 - one was during a time-out (which he's since learned that saying "I gotta go potty" gets him out of time-out *sigh*).  July 4 went well though I did throw diapers on him in the afternoon because I didn't want him to stress about any accidents with our friends over.  And Sam has been completely dry for the last 2 days (though he still needs diapers at night).  I'm so proud of my little guy because he really had to work hard for this PT success!  Our weekend included a trip to a porta-potty and an attempt at peeing off the boat (which was quite the sight, lol!) and STILL he remained dry!  All future boat & car trips will have a potty AND a diaper on board by the way.  Poor guy is a bit hesitant on this whole poop-on-the-potty part but with a blanket in hand (gross!) and a verbal "bye-bye" to the poopy all is good in Sam-land.  

The author of the book "Potty Train Your Child in Just One Day" recommends a party at the end of the day.  There was no time to plan a party for this unplanned training so instead I asked him who he wanted to call to tell about going on the potty.  Well, he asked to call the neighbors.  So we called them even though all their children and Grandchildren were over for dinner (again, great timing on my part).  They understood what a big deal this was and gave Sam tons of praise over speaker phone.  Neighbor Dale was pretty quick to hand the phone back to his wife after Sam yelled, "I WENT POOPY TOO, DALE!" but he was very sweet to him nonetheless.  We've called a couple Grandma's too and Sam is a proud boy.

While it certainly wasn't "potty training in a day", 3 days aint bad.  Thank goodness my little guy could overcome the bad timing and my terrible planning.  I'm sure we will have challenges ahead but it was a lot less overwhelming than I had anticipated.