Captain Underpants

So, we've been working on potty training in our house since Lynne got out of school for the summer. As it turns out, we have to our advantage that Mark really likes underpants.  He gets really excited whenever he gets to pick a new pair.

The problem is that... well, Mark really likes underpants. He figured out pretty quickly that if he pees in his underpants, he gets to pick out a new pair.  And we're not talking about a little bit of pee.  We'd turn around to find him standing in a pee puddle 4 feet in diameter.

So we tried some other incentives/penalties: 

1.  If you tinkle in your underpants, you don't get to pick out new underpants until tomorrow and we'll wear a diaper for the rest of the day.  Mark's response:  It's OK, I got tired of using the potty today anyway.

2.  We'll give you an M&M every time you make a tinkle in the potty.  Mark's response, after the first 2 M&Ms:  No thank you, I don't want any more M&Ms.

Then Matt had a genius idea.  He tried:  Mark, if you make it all the way until bedtime with dry underpants, I will give you your very own baseball card.  We can make a special box for you, and you can put a card in there for every day you keep your underpants dry.

As it turns out, Mark likes baseball cards even more than he likes underpants.  It was like flipping a switch. 

So far, he's made it 6 days without any accidents.  He's been to the Children's Museum and Brookfield Zoo in his underpants,  both without incident (other than visiting the bathroom roughly 400 times).  He's made several long drives in the car without soaking the seat.  We haven't gotten rid of the diapers at bedtime yet, but so far he's telling us (with approximately 2 minutes warning) before he has a potty emergency.  Pretty good, we think.

Matt says this experience should teach us all how valuable baseball cards really are.  To that Lynne adds:  to little boys. 

Quotation Mark Mondays: Woodland Creatures

Mark:  Mommy, let's talk about the animals that live in the woods.  Do you know any of those animals?
Lynne:  Well, there are wolves, bears, lots of birds, rabbits, deer, squirrels, and chipmunks...
Mark:  Those animals are really smart.
Lynne:  Which ones?
Mark:  Chipmonths.  They know all their months.

Mark of Fridays Past: Bedtime Routine

We've gotten into a bedtime routine in which we read three books, tell Mark a story (usually one Matt makes up on the spot), and sing three songs.  He picks the songs, so it's usually the same three or four songs, over and over.  He also asks us to change the words to some of the songs to make them, in his mind, more suitable for bedtime.

For example, "How much is that doggie in the window?" must be sung three times, one verse for each of the dogs Mark knows best:  Jack, Cole, and Charlie.  Each verse should describe the color of the dog in question.  Sometimes for extra fun, he requires that we sing the whole song in Spanish.

In "Playmate," Mommy Elmo has the flu, not a dolly.  And they don't slide down a cellar door.  It's a slide.

Sometimes "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" would be better if we changed it to "Take Me Out to the Softball Game" and the words altered to fit a description of the Beacon-News Softball tournament that Mark attended a few weeks back.  It's important that instead of peanuts and crackerjacks they go to McDonald's afterward (like Mark did) and have french fries.

But the best is "Animal's Fair."  In case you don't know it, the real lyrics are as follows:
We went to the Animal's Fair
The birds and the beasts were there
The old baboon by the light of the moon
Was combing his auburn hair
The monkey, he got drunk
He sat on the elephant's trunk
The elephant sneezed
And fell to his knees
And that was the end of the monk, the monk.

And here's the version Mark insists that we sing at bedtime, after realizing that the original version is not so kind on the monkey:
We went to the Animal's Fair
The birds, the beats, the lions, and the elephants were there
The old baboon by the light of the moon
Was sitting in his own cage.
The monkey, he got drunk
He sat on the elephant's trunk, which was sticking out a little into his cage
The elephant sneezed
And fell to his knees
And no one got hurt because they were all in their own cages!

Quotation Mark Mondays: Waiting

In a booth at Connie's Pizza.

Waitress (to Mark): Are you ready for some pizza?
Mark: Not until I'm done pooping. I'm making a poop right now!

Mark of Fridays: Animal planet

During a recent trip to the Racine Zoo, Mark encountered a kissing monkey, three daddy-nibbling birds and a camel named Toby!

Quotation Mark Mondays: birdseed

Mark (to Matt): "You look like birdseed. You're not birdseed, you just look like birdseed."

Mark of Fridays: M A R K

A very nice man at Matt's work got him a puzzle made of letters. Of course, Mark was very excited.