Diaper Graduation

He did it, folks. No accidents today. A trip to the ball pit to celebrate, followed by McDonald's for chicken nuggets.

And just like that, the baby is gone.

Potty Camp, Day 3!!!

Due to a minor setback (Zion's tummy sickness), we are extending our 3-day training to 4 days, risking the scorn of the die-hards. So, tomorrow afternoon we will be headed to the ball pit to celebrate our success, rather than today. I will say, however, all things considered, Zion is doing great. He did not have one pee-pee accident today, and only one poop accident. By this evening, he was telling us when he needed to go (rather than us simply putting him on the toilet ever hour). He isn't as interested in the chart or the rewards as Bright was, but then Bright has always been 100% on board with anything organized and clearly laid out. Zion is much more go with the flow (no pun intended), but even still, he will be potty trained in 4 days. Pretty darn good.

The highlights of the day were:

The rough start (Zion still feeling sick and spending his post-breakfast hour on a pallet by the heater, looking rather pitiful).


Bright making a "valentine" for Zion to cheer him up (which worked).


Playing baseball in the courtyard with our neighbors before dinner.


Zion wearing jeans for the first time without diapers (and barely keeping them up).

Potty Camp, Day 2 (and coming out both ends)

Day 2 was interesting. Along with cleaning up Zion's puddles of pee (which only happened twice at the beginning of the day, so we were pleased), we were cleaning up his partially digested macaroni and cheese. That's right, our little potty pupil got sick in the middle of his big weekend. Throw-up everywhere. More laundry, more mess, and much more pathetic pictures. Here is a picture of him sitting on the toilet after his warm bath, covered with a hand towel that is secured in front with a hair clip (it is VERY cold in our unheated bathrooms).

As you can see, Daniel is very stressed about it all.

Potty Camp, Day 1

It's that time again at the Rupp house. Not only for candy corn and herb stuffing. Not only for footed pajamas and Bing Crosby. Not only for hand-print turkeys taped to the window panes. Around our house, it is also potty training time.

This go-round, the man of the hour is Zion. We are repeating our potty-train-in-3-days method that I learned a few years back from my dear friend, Laura Pinkstaff. It worked for Bright.

Today was day one. Our calendar was cleared, the reward chart ready, the stickers, the prizes wrapped, the potty seat accounted for, the rugs rolled up, the tiny undies washed and folded for use. The first thing Zion did was drop a big load in his Wall-E undies. Poor Wall-E. But we did manage to get him to the toilet for a final offering into the porcelain. "YAY!!!" we shouted as he chose his first sticker.


The rest of the morning he sucked down cup after cup of Ovaltine, Carnation Instant Breakfast, hot cocoa, and apple juice, and managed to pee all over the floor five times. We were getting a little nervous, thinking maybe it wasn't going to work this time. But then, all at once, he got it. The afternoon was filled with hoots and hollers and stickers and prizes and more sweet beverages, pizza for dinner, and leftover chocolate pie for everyone to celebrate the day. We are well on our way to a two-big-boy household.

I really enjoyed spending the day focused on our dear middle child. Since this method requires that we not leave his side for three days, I got to spend lots of time just watching him play. His beautiful face, his spider-silk hair, his ivory skin. I watched his dimples pop in and out as he whispered softly to his trains.


Potty training is, for me, a rite of passage into childhood. As I watched Zion today, I was flooded with memories of our first weeks with him. The nurses handing me my 4.5 lb baby, who looked half like Daniel and half like a bird that had fallen from the nest. His soft-spot stretched from his hairline above his forehead to the crown of his head. I remember nursing him around the clock until he was 10 months old, trying to fatten him up. I remember realizing that he was going to be a cuddler, and being so thrilled to have a baby that would nestle into my neck and literally purr like a kitten. For all the picky eating habits and sleepless nights, he has been a pure joy of a baby, delighting us with his antics and making us roar with laughter. I will desperately miss Zion the baby. I will cry when he reaches the end of his potty chart. But I am ready, too, to see who Zion the boy will be.

Rub-a-dub-dub

Daniel takes a daily bath. The glitch is, here, at our new apartment, the gas water heater does not light on it's own. The switch must be flipped by hand, after crawling under the dryer vent hose behind the washer and dryer on our tiny four-season-type patio room, and even then it will only work if the water is running somewhere in the house. The other glitch is, the water heater will only stay lit for roughly 15 minutes, sometimes less. That is not enough time to fill Daniel's daily bath. If we stay on top of it, we can hear the flame puff out and run back to flip the switch on before the water running into his bath goes cold. But if we are busy doing things, as is often the case in our home these days, the water begins to run cold before we know it. In that case, the only thing to do is hold the spigot over the toilet until the water heats back up. Daniel can be found in this position almost daily. Since he is just sitting there, I sometimes give him one of the kids. Here is a picture of the above described scenario.

Lao San

In this language, the third child is called Lao San. "San," pronounced, "Sahn," means three. Everywhere we go, we hear people exclaiming, with awe and delight, "SANGE," pronounced, "sahn-guh." The "ge" is added to make it a measurement.

In this country, there is a policy in place to keep families from having more than one child. Most families hope their one child will be a son. Our three children, so close in age (not to mention their foreign looks), and the fact that they are all boys, makes us something to wonder at as we scoot by in our oversized motorbike-for-five. Everywhere we go, we are bathed in a constant stream of exclamations of "Sange!" We smile and wave, like we are in a parade, and Daniel says, warmly, "Here come the Sanges!"

Our Lao San, named Yong Gan (which means "brave"), is for us the extra log thrown on the fire. His pudgy little presence in our family brings a boost of light and warmth to our home. The boys make their hourly visits to his blanket on the floor, pressing a kiss against his cheek or giving him their finger to wrap his hand around. Brave is as easy a baby as there ever was. The other day, he silently allowed Bright to pick him up and drag him half by his neck across the room, up the landing, and into the office where I was.

Often, when I am holding him close, or nursing him in the predawn hours, I feel a sort of pang in my chest that I can only describe as love. I remember when Bright was our only child and I wondered how I could ever love another as much as I loved him. Some people say that there is a space in a mother's heart set aside for each child. I think I have a separate whole heart for all them.

Married with children

A picture says a thousand words