Life as we know it

Well it has been over two months since my last confession post and this is down to a huge surprise our little family had in February. It has taken this long to come around to the idea and I am finally able to write about it. Due to tiredness and constant nausea I have not been able to read any blogs or emails or even open a laptop, the most I have been online is briefly on my phone. By now I am sure you have guessed it. Yes I am pregnant.....again. I have to admit it took a while to get over the shock of it! Now that I have, I am really looking forward to a new baby in the house.

Which also means I have sooo much to do before the new arrival which is due in October by the way. My list seems to be getting longer by the day. Toilet training Diddles was No.1. I had been waiting for the nausea to subside before embarking upon the potty training boot camp I had planned for the Easter break. To have to change three sets of nappies in October is an unbearable thought.

Someone up there must have been looking out for me because the Friday that Diddles finished school for his Easter break I got a call from his teacher letting me know she thought he was ready to say goodbye to pull-ups. Luckily enough my morning sickness had subsided that very week and I had a little more energy to give it a good shot.
Needless to say I have spent the past week and a half walking around with dettol and a mop permanently attached to my arms and asking 5 gazillion times a day " Do you need to go toilet?". I had plenty of reinforcements for him at the ready, Ipod  touch (First toilet, then Ipod was the deal), favourite books, DVD cases (he loves to examine). Diddles has a lot of sensory processing issues so I had also started him on his sensory diet as part of his occupational therapy which consists of Therapy brushing, joint compressions and the therapy ball etc etc. I found once he was regulated, calmer and not pacing back and forth or jumping all day he can concentrate for a lot longer. I have to say after four days of almost pulling my hair out he got the gist. At first I set the stopwatch on my phone to every 30 minutes, I brought him EVERY 30 minutes from the time he woke up until he was going to bed for the first 2/3 days whether he need to go or not. He worked it into his daily routine. There has been no sight nor sound of a pull-up near him, even at night. No accidents at night so far. He is going all by his very self now.
 There have been one or two accidents during the day but nothing too disheartening. I had people always saying to use reward charts and stickers and cheerios in the toilet to sink etc. All great ideas but they don't work for everyone, Diddles could not have cared less about getting a sticker on a chart, I think if you go with your gut instinct you are more likely to have success.  It is such a relief, I can not tell you how many times I have tried this over the past 3 years and failed miserably, The only things different this time are he is older and the OT sessions have helped so much with his concentration and I suppose the fact that I understand Autism much more than I did before. I never thought I would be so happy to have my 5 year old toilet trained!!