I put up new photos below, and one new MPEG video. I can't wait until Julian is older and we can go on Easter egg hunts. Fun!

So he pooed and peed in his potty TWO more times today. I am really amazed. We would have caught every single poo today, except that I ignored my intuition. We went for a long walk with Bugs this afternoon, during which Julian slept in his sling. When we got back and he woke up I felt *sure* that I should take him potty, but Dan wanted to say hi and play and I had to start dinner, so I didn't take him to the bathroom. After Dan had him for just a few minutes, he pooped in his diaper several times. Ooops, sorry baby! I totally dropped the ball in that case, knew he had to go and I didn't respond. Well still, not bad for our first day at it.

Tried to give him a bottle of pumped milk again tonight to no avail. Arrgh, this is torture. We need to get him to take a bottle from time to time in case I am gone and he gets hungry. He was taking the bottle just fine at around 4 weeks, but then we didn't give him a bottle for about a week and a half and he decided in the meantime that Breast is not only Best, it's the only thing he wants. He screamed nonstop when Dan offered it to him, he screamed nonstop when I offered it to him, my friend Lisa got him to take only about an ounce last Friday (after *much* protesting, but it was better than nothing!), and tonight Dan tried again, but he just screamed like he was totally pissed off that we could be so stupid as to offer him this ridiculous horrible PLASTIC thing when he was hungry and wanted a real nipple!

After about ten minutes of attempted bottle-giving the screaming got to be too painful, he was so mad he was choking and purple. I breastfed him and then tried to sneak the bottle nipple into his mouth on the sly. No dice, man. He got this completely offended look, then started screaming in anger again. DAMN that bottle! I HATE IT! GET IT AWAY FROM ME!

So great success on the potty front, but the bottle-giving is not going so well. Oh well...you win some, you lose some. I go back to work when he is 5 months old...maybe he can handle a sippy cup by then? That's what the lactation consultant suggested.

And yet another new breakthrough today...yes, it was one of those very eventful baby days.
He hasn't been very interested in his Gymini until yesterday, when Dan played with him using some of the toys in it. Then today I laid him down and had the toy giraffe talk to him. He was fascinated by it, but didn't reach out or anything. He hasn't been batting toys or reaching out very much yet, that's not supposed to happen until Month 3, I guess. Well, I took his hand and batted the giraffe with it and he got the idea. Within about 10 minutes he was batting the giraffe like a punching bag, just got totally into it. So we'll do another "Baby Workout" in the Gymini tomorrow.

Every day there are more ways for us to interact and more toys we can play with. As he gets older he is so much more fun!

Newsflash! Chocolate During Pregnancy Has Good Impact on Baby! And it's a good thing too, because with the amount of chocolate that I ate when I was pregnant, I should have given birth to a chocolate Easter bunny instead of a baby.

"Six months after the infants were born the mothers who had eaten chocolate reported more reactions such as smiling and laughter in their offspring." Well, that could explain how I got a baby who started smiling at me right after he was born, and started laughing at only a few weeks old. People ask me all the time if he has started smiling yet...yet? He has been smiling since Day One! He's an old pro now.

A while back that I posted about how I would like to try Infant Potty Training (also known as Elimination Communication) with Julian after he was born.

I didn't really start doing it until now (he was 8 weeks old on Friday) because I was busy doing other things and kind of overwhelmed, plus I nurse him on demand and it seems like he is constantly pooing and peeing. But I revisited the book that I got (Infant Potty Training by Laurie Boucke) and decided to start in. Two months is actually a good age to start, not too late, although some moms start right after birth.

Well, I wasn't expecting too much, because I understand that it is a slow gentle process, and I don't really have any goals in mind other than to have better communication with my baby and spare him from having to sit in his own waste as much as possible.

I started off this morning...I woke up and he woke up next to me at the same time. I immediately gave him a kiss and took off his diaper. As I was holding him over the potty (I got a Baby Bjorn Little Potty that I can sit him on while he leans back against my stomach, it's great!) he pooped. I was so surprised I forgot to make the cue sound!

Then I said, "Sssssss" and he peed in the potty! He seemed happy about it!

I told him, "You peed!" and told him what a good baby he was, then wiped him off with a little toilet paper and put a clean FuzziBunz diaper on him. So psyched!

I am starting off slow, not taking him to pee every half hour or anything, but just taking him when he wakes up in the morning, after he nurses, and when he wakes up from a nap. You can do it as much or as little as you want, whatever works for the both of you.

We took a bath, then I nursed him. He was falling asleep afterwards as he usually does, so I wasn't sure if I should wake him up, but I did, I held him over his little potty and made the sound. He immediately started straining a little bit and pooped and peed in his potty. It was amazing, so easy! Again, I just wiped his butt with a little toilet paper and he was all clean and ready to go back into a clean cloth diaper. So much easier than changing a poopy diaper and having to wipe all the squished poop off him! And the poor thing, the diapers are all chafing his groin and now he has a yeast infection there in the groin folds that is red and sore. I am treating it and it's clearning up, but it breaks my heart to have to keep putting a diaper on him when I know it will rub on the sore patches no matter what I do. I wish the weather would warm up again so we could go outside and be diaperless for a while.

The squatting position that he is in on the potty seems to make it much easier for him to poo than sitting up with legs out, or on his back in the diaper.

So anyways, we're off to a good start. I'm excited to keep going. And I swear, he is too! I get the feeling from him that he is SO much happier not having to poo and pee in a diaper and then sit in it, even if it's just for a minute or two. It's like "Finally Mama, you understand!" When he was born he absolutely HATED to sit in a dirty diaper for even a minute. He would cry instantly until he was changed. He is a mellow baby, and doesn't cry anymore when his diaper is a little dirty, but I can't imagine it's fun for him. And I don't want to train him to get USED to sitting in his own poo/pee, which is what happens as babies get older. They start off hating it though. So this is a bonus for both of us. It's a little more time-consuming to strip him down and hold him over the potty, but whatever...I'm not so busy these days that I can't handle it. It's not like diaper-changing isn't time-consuming, either.

We went to my friend Gillian's birthday party last night and he was wonderful. Everyone commented on how calm and alert and happy he was. I just wore him in the cotton pouch and took him out for a stretch every now and then, or a little nursing. We danced to the DJ and he looked intently at all the sparkly lights. Gillian's friend Heathcliff played guitar and sang and Julian thought that was fabulous. I really should take him to more live music events, he loves music and singing.

We took a whole bunch of new photos of Julian, he is so cute. Must post those today.