I mentioned this problem at my book club and one woman – the mother of two grown boys – said the bedwetting at her house got so bad when her kids were young that she would literally let the bed air dry during the day and then stick her son right back in those putrid-smelling sheets the next night. I haven’t gotten to that point yet. I am, however, now tossing a towel over the wet spot and then stuffing him back in bed in lieu of changing the sheets in the wee hours. The next day I continue my never-ending laundry dance.

My husband decided he would get my son up at 3 a.m. to go pee. (Taking a cue from you, Feefifoto.) The first night he tried the bed was already wet but my son hadn’t woken up yet. The second night – last night – I was awakened at 12:30 a.m. by my son sobbing about his wet PJs. What’s worse is that he woke up again at 7 a.m. with a second round of pee-soaked jammies! I’m telling you, he didn’t drink a drop after dinnertime. So what gives?

Oh hey, did you know the official, medical term for bedwetting is Enuresis. What a gross-sounding word.

I’ve tried luring Truman back to pull-ups with those weird paper boxer-style ones, but he says they’re uncomfortable. Plus, even looking at pull-ups makes my break out in tears. I did find this strange potty training gadget from Potty Training Concepts. It’s a Bed Wetting Alarm. The thing is, we don’t need an alarm. Most of the time he wakes up right after he pees. I know this because the sheets are still warm. (TMI) Just read the details though…do you want your son to go to bed with a 9-volt battery attached to his groin? Yeah, me either.

The company also offers other bedwetting solutions, like homeopathic meds. Um…no. Don’t think so. Maybe some of those overnight undies? Ruber pants? What do you think? Has anyone tried any of these things? Or any other bedwetting solutions? I’m desperate, folks. I’m not sure my washer can take much more of this constant, daily use.

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Bedwetting Part III: The soggy saga continues…

This is when my iPhone has proven to be its most valuable.

Let me backtrack. I bought an iPhone in July. Since I quit my “real job” a year ago and I now work out of the home, I had to justify (or, over analyze) the purchase. First, it seemed the planets were aligning in the month of July and sending me a message that now was the time. My contract on my current plan was coming due (with the company I had been with for a solid decade), my birthday was happening, and the new iPhone was being unveiled. I had a cheap flip phone/camera phone that served its purpose just fine. But I reasoned the iPhone purchase this way – it was a mobile phone, an iPod, a calendar, a GPS, a better working phone camera, and it just so happened to offer the added bonus of e-mail. Considering what I’d pay for the GPS and iPod alone, I was saving a fortune getting the iPhone. Right?

Shortly after I got my iPhone I realized its ability to totally captivate my son. First, there was the quick access to YouTube. And then I discovered the apps. Girlfriends, shopping around in the iPhone apps store is more fun than shoe shopping! Most of my apps are free. The most I’ve paid for any of them is $1.99.

I’m going to take the next few inches of space here to share with you some of Truman’s favorite apps. If you have any other app suggestions, please share. There’s plenty of room for me to add more apps on my phone!

• I mentioned the YouTube icon on the iPhone main screen. A quick search of Tom and Jerry (my son’s absolute favorite cartoons in the world) and my son is entertained for any hour-long road trip or long doctor’s office visit. Worried about it making too much noise? Just click on the earbuds and enjoy the peace and quiet (save for the occasional outburst of giggling).
• I’m moving on to the apps now. I love Trailers Lite. It is a listing of movie trailers. This is one of my husband’s favorite apps, but Truman also has enjoyed watching trailers for Marley and Me and The Tale of Despereaux.
• I have to give credit to my sister’s boyfriend’s 10-year-old son Julian for downloading a lot of the cool apps for kids. One of Truman’s favorites is iChalky. There’s not much point to this app other than watching this chalk drawing stick figure wiggle and roll around the screen as you move the phone. Julian showed me that you can place a picture of someone’s face on the chalky man and make him, as Julian put it, like a voodoo doll. Rather than using a photo of someone I knew, I opted to let Julian take a picture of the Diet Coke can and that became my chalky guy’s face. Truman calls the app “Coke Head.” Cracks me up.
•  Julian also downloaded Jared, which is another pointless app. It’s a yellow smiley face that sings in Italian – or at least it sounds Italian. Julian suggested I walk into a meeting and set the app to play and pretend I don’t know where the music is coming from. Since I quit my real job, I make every effort not to sit in meetings anymore. However, Jared makes Truman laugh really hard and that’s worth keeping the app on my phone.
• Julian gets credit for the Lightsaber app that Truman also loves. It makes that zzzzzz Star Wars lightsaber noise and when you whip the phone around like it’s a real lightsaber, it even sounds like you’re dueling with old Darth. It’s more fun if you have two iPhones with the app and have a lightsaber joust.
• Julian also put Jerk in a Box on my phone but it’s my fault for showing it to Truman. At your fingertips are several not-so-nice phrase buttons. By pushing one you can call someone a “Pizza Face” or “Loser” without moving your lips. Truman thinks this is the greatest app in the world. I’ve had to warn him, though, that if he uses any of those words he can no longer play the iPhone. So far so good.
• The bartender at the Fish Market the other day showed Truman the iBowl app, and Truman loved it so much I had to download it. It’s not unlike the Wii – you just push a button and swing the phone like you’re bowling. Your ball rolls down and hits pins. Too cool. 
• My husband (who got his iPhone last week) got Truman into Virtual Pool Lite. Like the name says, it’s a virtual pool game. It even sounds like a real pool game. 
• The Audi A4 driving experience is pretty cool, but Truman’s too young yet to get a handle on the steering, gas and brakes. Still, he loves anything that resembles a car or racing. I just like having it on my phone because it’s the closet thing I have to actually owning an Audi.

So those are my app picks for the 5-ish age range. Let me hear some of your favorites.

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Why my iPhone makes me a better mother

My son has always been somewhat of an active sleeper. Sometimes he laughs at night, sometimes he chatters away. Other nights he screams violently. These are the most difficult to handle, as you can image. We’ll find him flailing around in his bed as if being attacked by a thousand invisible spiders. I reach out to hold and comfort him but he sees me coming and starts kicking and throwing his fists and shouting, “No! No! Go away!” I often end up with scratches on my face and bruises on my arms. Just like the laughter, his screams stop suddenly and he drifts right back to sleep as if nothing had happened.

I soon learned these were night terrors. My girlfriend Cyndi was the first person to tell me about them. Her husband suffers from them – a rarity for an adult – and she tells vivid stories of how he leaps out of bed at night and tries to climb the wall or chase the ceiling fan. After minutes – which seem like hours – he’s back in bed asleep and in the morning he remembers nothing.

Though they are frightening to witness, night terrors are not serious and most kids grow out of them by the time they reach school age. If you suspect your child suffers from night terrors, discuss it with your doctor. There are some things you can do to prevent them, like waking your child during the night. I’m not so much a fan of waking a sleeping giant, but to each his own. Here’s another helpful resource I found online, the Healthy Place.

I haven’t met many people whose kids have night terrors. Let me know if any of you have experienced it and how you cope with them.

(Photo: Flickr, LovelyPetals)

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Night terrors…and boys that go HA! in the night

I found Robeez at Bippity Boppity Baby for $25.95 and free shipping (booties are 36.95 and free shipping). It’s a great price, you’ll pay that at a retail store, and probably not have such a selection.

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What do you put on your baby’s feet? Robeez!

My son would ask if there were any monsters in his room, and I’d always say, “Nope.” Which would be followed by that inevitable toddler question, “Why?”

Well, I kept looking for answers to that question. Sometimes, the monsters had gotten tired of waiting for him to come, and so they’d gone to a friend’s house to play. Sometimes, their monster mothers had called them home to eat supper. Sometimes, the monsters had been rude, so I kicked them out. Sometimes, they’d gotten in the way of my housework, so I vaccumed them up. Once or twice, they had fallen asleep waiting for the kid to come home, and so I’d sent them off to their monster houses to be tucked in.

He stopped being afraid of monsters right quick.

But my friend’s son was more persistent in his monster spotting. So the other night, they stopped by the local Marvelous Market to purchase a rather strategically placed (thanks, Seth!) can of Monster Repellant, which they purchased (parents, get yourself a can of compressed air, used to clean computer components). Once home, they sprayed the Monster Repellant around the room, and then vacuumed up every last bit of monster residue and threw it away. The little guy hasn’t found a monster since.

And a local market just made a very loyal customer out of me.

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Monster B Gone

There are adorable, customized baby shirts and onesies, and Barefoot Books, too.

Did you wear  your baby? I had to… I had what Dr. Sears lovingly refers to as a ‘high needs baby’. AKA, Oh. My. God. He wouldn’t be put down, had to be in my arms. Colic-y. Woke up fifteen bazillion times a night. I was a wreck for the first year of his life.

It was worth it though. Now, I’ve got a smart, funny, sweet, well-attached little guy who is my endless delight and pain in the ass (why why why why why why). I don’t think either of us would have survived those first 12 months without a sling, though. I could throw him on my back or in a hip carry and do things like cook dinner or vacuum the living room.

If you’re pregnant and considering modes of transportation, I can’t recommend a sling highly enough. I got rid of our stroller for anything but a long stroll through the city. For going places and getting things done, I just popped the kid in his Maya Wrap and we were off. It’s a lifesaver for older kids, too. Once the boy learned to walk, I didn’t have to worry about him in crowded malls or on busy streets. I just put him in the sling.

I’m about to loan mine to a friend of mine. I hope he appreciates them!

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a great place to shop for baby

Saturday night I tried to casually get him into underwear, but he was having none of it. His big blue eyes went all round and shiny, his lower lip pouted out, and he gave me his patented Sniff Sniff little snortle of child dismay. “What, you still want to wear nappies?” I asked. He nodded, slow and solemn. “OK, babe, No problem.” I pulled the last of the Pull-Ups from the closet. “But this is our last nappy, and I’m not going to buy any more. You don’t need them. Do you think you’ll be able to sleep tomorrow night without a nappy?” He smiled and happily climbed into the Dragon Tales-covered kid pants.

Last night, he put on his soccer-ball festooned undies without fuss, and woke up dry this morning. Now it’s my turn to sniff sniff. He’s growing up. Which means, I’m growing old.

Seriously. If you’re having trouble with the potty training thing, just back off. No healthy-kidney’ed kid of 16 is wearing diapers to prom, I can guarantee you that. Our journey to potty training began before the guy’s second birthday, when we moved to a house with all tile floors and an outdoor courtyard with indestructible grass. When the weather was nice, you would find us there in the sunshine, a long teeshirt on the little guy and nothing else. Accidents in the house were easily mopped up, and there was a potty for him in all our bathrooms. That’s all I did, really. He was interested and he learned. We still fight our battles about actually going to the bathroom when he feels a need instead of waiting til it’s too late, but the knowledge that I will make him wear his wet clothes until I can deal with clean ones does tend to scoot him into the bathroom faster than anything else. That, and Target Practice, which my dad thinks is terrific, and has taken it on himself to instigate as often as possible. Rumor has it that Cheerios actually sells a product for just this purpose, but a few regular old Cheerios in the toilet bowl is just as good, really. Another fun thing we did was put blue food coloring into the toilet so he could turn it green. That’s something you can do with girls, too.

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No more nappies. No Pampers, Huggies, cloth diapers or pull-ups, either!

StoryNory Podcast
Boomerang Magazine from Audible

I actually purchased the subscription to Audible a year ago for my own business needs and ended up buying one history book for myself and 11 children’s books for my kids (and 12 months of a subscription to Boomerang).  We bought things like SuperFudge, The House at Pooh Corner, George’s Marvelous Medicine and Anne of Green Gables.  It works really well with iTunes and has its own software if you don’t like iTunes.

And then these are some I just found while searching through my favorite podcast directories:

My Baby Monsters

Kids Podcast Directory (25!)

Do you have favorites?

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Kids Podcasts

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Eradicate rudeness.

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Make it novel