I have had potty training Jaydon on my ‘to-do’ list since last fall. Everything I had read about doing it said to start the training when you have a few days at home to focus on it. Well with both Steve and I working that left the weekends and we never had one that wasn’t full of plans.
One of Jaydons first words was ‘bye-bye’ and he used it from age 1 to tell us he wanted some privacy to take care of his business. It never failed to put a smile on our face when Jaydon would crawl (and later walk) to the corner to get his privacy and if anyone came around to check on him he’d promptly tell them ‘bye-bye’ (and get upset if you didn’t leave). Later, he would actually tell us he was going to go ‘poop in the corner’ so we knew he was ready for the transition but we weren’t - I also was not excited about having another reason to visit the public restrooms in Doha...
With me not working, it being summer time and Tylor around all of a sudden we found our weekends to have cleared up. So one Friday morning we asked Jaydon if he wanted to run around with no diaper and get potty trained. He was all about the new game and happily played along for the first 2 days. He loved running around the house naked and never had an accident.
On Sunday we sent him off to day-care, he did fine but our normally regular pooper decided not to poop that day at his normal time and instead waited for Dad to get home that evening (he could no longer go in private so decided daddy was ok to have around). Throughout the week this escalated to the point that Jaydon decided to just stop pooping all together. Our happy easy going, pooping 1-2 x/day toddler turned into a frantic, grumpy 4 day constipated mess. When he needed to go he’d run around the house screaming and crying “change diaper!” but wouldn’t let any of us come near him. By the end of the week I had given up and decided to throw in the towel. We told Jaydon he could wear his diaper and went back to having him in one all time but this didn’t work either because now Jaydon knew he wasn’t supposed to be using his diaper. Also during all this he started waking up 2-3 times a night to go ‘pee-pee’. So our well rested, sleep 11 hours straight every night toddler, was waking up almost as much as his 1 month old brother.
At one point Steve looked at me and asked “what have we done?” Since I’m actually writing this 1 month after the fact I can assure you that we worked through it and Jaydon has had very few accidents and has only peed in his bed once during nap time. He uses a diaper at night and sleeps through most of the time (we prefer wet morning diapers rather than waking up all night). Every so often he asks for a diaper and we agree but he never actually uses it, just needs it as a kind of security blanket.
When Jaydon does poop in the potty I always make a big deal of it and tell him how proud I am. Well this has escalated into Jaydon asking me if I’m proud of him for doing all kinds of things (taking off his shoes, eating his dinner, etc). Also the other day Jaydon joined his Daddy in the bathroom and told Steve how proud he was for using the potty. Steve’s self confidence has really improved now that his 2.5 yr old is telling him how proud he is of his Daddy.
Steve’s Dad had made the trip to Doha to meet his newest grandson. Tylor slept the whole lunch and Jaydon gave his Grandpa a full tour of the Chili’s kid’s playroom. 
A few milestones we’ve accomplished in this month: Tylor has (mostly) figured out night and day so when he wakes up at night it’s only to eat and not to play. 
He is now latching with no pain for me and only gets his milk directly from me. This is also a big deal for me since Jaydon and I were never able to get him to latch properly. I finally gave up and pumped 100% of Jaydon’s milk which he later had through a bottle so it’s a big relief that Tylor didn’t also take this path. 
Jaydon has become an excellent big brother and is already looking out for his brother. If he catches anyone calling him Ty-WER instead of Ty-Lor he promptly corrects you on the proper pronunciation. 
The other noteable thing is I now fit back in my regular clothes - yea!
She had done most of the Doha tourist things on previous trips and the weather was too hot (though Tylor loves the heat and naps outside every morning while there's shade on our patio) to go out to the souks so instead Steve decided to give her a tour of his job site located an hour from Doha just outside Ras Laffan. 
She borrowed my steel toed boots and spent the morning getting the full experience of the Doha heat and taking a tour of the various props on Steve’s job site. 
For those who aren’t familiar, Steve is the Technical Manager for the construction of a Fire Safety College they are building in Qatar. 
It’s essentially a training school for fire fighters where they can practice putting out fires in difficult locations/situations. 
He has a full size airplane, helicopter and jet along with mock ups of ships, tanks and railcars and difficult residential set-ups like multi-floor apartment buildings. 
Grandma was very impressed but was happy to get back to the A/C and get more chances to tickles these cute little feet.
We were all getting a little grumpy from being cooped in the house too much. So decided it was time to let Tylor experience the Doha summer pastime of going to the mall. 
We also had a few errands to do, one of which was getting Tylor’s passport pictures taken. 
The other was finally getting a hair cut for Jaydon who was starting to look like a neglected big brother. While Tylor and went with Grandma and I to get pictures taken Steve took Jaydon to the same salon he usually goes too. 
I always take Jaydon to a kids hair cut place so he was all about doing it with Dad. 
Jaydon usually fusses and cries a bit during the haircut (especially during blow-dry time) but with Dad sitting next to him and grown men getting their haircut around him he was the bravest I’d ever seen and acted very grown up. 
It was pretty cute. After the errands we went to dinner at Friday’s. 
Tylor slept the whole time and Grandma loved the fact that TGIF was decorated with all the liquor signage even though the restaurant is dry. 
The next day Jaydon posed with his new haircut and Tylor sported the onszy his Great Grandfather Forte painted for Jaydon a few years ago. 
It’s of a parrot fish and Jaydon still is confused whether it’s a bird or a fish. I keep telling him it’s a fish with a beak but to him if it has a beak then it’s a bird…
He wasn’t the biggest fan of it but that was to be expected. At first he was wide eyed trying to figure out what this new sensation was but then he decided it was no fun at all. 
After a feeding and some clean clothes he was ready for more pictures. 
And enjoyed the last few flowers of the bouquets sent when he was born. 
And back to sleep again.
Melissa always finds the greatest children’s books to get us, all by Australian authors (where they’re from). My favorite is Animalia by Graeme Base which you can easily read over and over again and still find interesting. 
Another weekend, another birthday party – this time for Heidi who was turning 1. It was a pink party but we definitely did not have any baby boy pink outfits for Tylor so he had to go to his first social event out of theme. 
Turned out that Heidi’s mom accented the pink party with green so he was allowed to join the fun. 
He spent the whole party sleeping so Nikole (who’s due in early July) got a taste of what it’s like having newborns around. I think Tylor may have given her a false impression because as we left she asked if that’s all babies do – sleep? 
Heidi and Jaydon had a great time playing in the water and Jaydon was too wound up to get in a picture frame (it was also humid enough that the camera kept fogging up…)
