No one ever says being a parent is easy.  Recently though Isaac has gone through some changes developmentally and it has really ratcheted up the degree of difficulty.

He is much more talkative than has been in the past.  He has started to use reason, dropping the word "because" into his every day vocabulary and, disturbingly enough, demanding we do the same.  Oh, yes, and in case you thought otherwise, "Because I said so" goes over with Isaac about as well as it went over with him when I was a kid.  It is a terrible answer and he knows it.

He is also clever.  I explained the potty method and how he got stickers, but last night while getting ready for bed, he tried taking stickers off one piece of paper and putting them on the potty chart.  For a minute I thought was I living with a Wall Street trader or a mortgage broker from before the market crash.

Then there are the meltdowns.  We used to have them before, like candles melting in front of a hot flame, but now they are Chernobyl-style meltdowns.  They can end with his feet kicking in the air and him screaming red faced.  Sometimes I get upset, but then I realize they are 90% because he can't express himself perfectly, 9% because he can't do something he wants to do (either because of parents or coordination), and 1% him being a bad kid for a minute or two.  We have even instituted the Naughty Step, the bottom step on our stair case as a place for time outs.

His decision making is excellent, if we were in Washington debating the fiscal cliff.  One minute he wants to go see the horses when Nanna and P-Pa come up for Christmas, the next it is Baby Begulas in Mystic Connecticut.  It is so fast a change that it makes your head spin.

In a way it is like living with a foreign exchange student that is bi-polar--the mood swings are impressive and the language ability is only so so.

But then you get moments like this:

And it makes it all worth it.  Easily, ten times over.

Since my birthday fell on a Wednesday this year, my birthday weekend was the following weekend.  For my birthday I decided that we would go to Edaville, which is a small amusement park in southeastern Massachusetts.  Tucked in among the cranberry bogs are a few rides, like flying elephants and bumper cars, but the real attraction is a narrow gauge railway system.  It runs about two miles and as it weaves through the cranberry bogs, there are lighted displays.  The reflection on the bogs makes the lights look amazing.

The plan was that we would meet Poppa Dom down there and hang out.  Bianca went there as a kid for Christmas with her family, so the trip was rekindling an old tradition.  She has faint memories of the rides and the train, but that was about it.  Poppa Dom, however, has much more vivid memories.  We were all pumped.    

When we woke up it was pouring down rain and it kept raining until around 10:30.  We were worried that our trip would be rained out, but once it stopped, we decided to just jump in the car and see what happened.  On the way down there Isaac took a nap.  When we were about 10 minutes away we got a call from Poppa Dom.  He told us that he was already there AND as a surprise Myles, Colby, and Uncle Dom were there too.  When we relayed the message to Isaac he let out a shriek of delight and began talking about his cousins at warp speed.

We pulled into the parking lot and found Poppa Dom.  Myles, Colby, and Dom were already in the park.  The first ride that awaits you is a flying elephant ride.  Isaac saw it and immediately became transfixed.  We had to ride it.  So after a few minutes in line we hopped in #6 Elephant (we had been scouting #5, but someone took it; #6 was the second best choice).  Here we are riding the elephants:



After that we went to wait for a train.  Here are the three boys eagerly anticipating the arrival of a Choo Choo:

After much stalling by the line person, we raced to the back to grab the caboose.  I mean raced because as I was sprinting with Isaac to catch up with Colby and Myles the conductor yelled: NO RUNNING AND THAT MEANS ADULTS TOO!  Shamed, I slowed down.  Fortunately we made it to the caboose and we even got the boys up into the crows nest:

 

The ride in the caboose was quite fun, so much so that there random involuntary hoots for joy.  Myles was pretty cool about the whole thing, but Isaac and Colby could barely contain themselves.  The ride itself was pretty cool, wandering through the cranberry bogs that supply us with Ocean Spray's delicious nectar, checking out an impressive array of lights.

Once the train ride was over we made our way into a large building on the grounds which is designed for younger kids, kids more Isaac's age than Myles'.  Inside was a few major attractions, but it was the ball crawl that captivated Isaac's imagination.  Here he is rolling around with 100,000 red balls:



Isaac had so much fun here.  So much in fact that his older cousins got bored waiting and went outside to ride other rides.  Isaac and Dad hung back though, and did the ball crawl for more than a half an hour.  It was, to be fair to the little guy, the biggest ball crawl I have ever seen, probably 5-10 times the size of a Chucky Cheese ball crawl. 

After that Dad and Isaac rejoined the group and Dad rode a ride with Colby as the Napolitano adults were all about to heave from motion sickness.  We rode a small astronaut ride that went in circles and up and down and Colby had a great time waving to everyone as we sailed by.  By this time a thick fog had rolled in and the sun had set.  We decided it was time for one last train ride. 

This time it was packed.  Every seat was taken and some people were standing.  We found some seats for the kids and the train lurched forward.  This is how the experience was meant to be--cutting through the mist with the train light sending out a huge cone of light.  The light displays were much more spectacular at night and their reflections on the bogs made them twice as numerous.  In all, the last train ride was definitely the highlight of the day, aside from finding out that the cousins were surprising us.

We got some eats and then walked out.  On the way out there was a wood carver, and if you have seen Brave, like Isaac has, you know that there is a fine line between wood carver and witch.  The entire rest of the day Isaac giggleboxed every time I said "WOOD CARVER!  WITCH!".  It was a great day, Poppa Dom, who was in all of his Grandpa Glory, graciously paid for everything, and it was absolutely the best possible thing to do on my birthday weekend.

This is not our last time at Edaville.  

When you think about how efficient of a multitasking device a diaper is, it is a wonder we ever give it up.  When you think about how gross it is, it is a wonder we ever use it in the first place.  But the idea of going from diaper to potty is daunting.  Training Isaac has really be difficult.  Not because he doesn't want to or he is being difficult but because he has quickly found the weaknesses in every reward system we have devised.  The Rollo Method worked for about two minutes.  So we switched recently and he has been doing very good.

The new method is an idea that has been around for a while, but I was introduced to it by a friend of my from work named Justin Hayes.  The Hayes Method of Potty Training involves a chart and stickers.  In the first phase every pee gets one sticker and every poop gets three.  Five stickers equals a small reward and 30 a large one.  The idea is that a sticker is a reward that quickly leads to more and more rewards.  The second phase awards rewards for more stickers.  The third phase awards stickers for days with entirely clean pants.  It is a really good system and Isaac took to it a like a fish to water.

We were worried that the delayed gratification might be too much or that it would be too confusing, but when he got a beep beep on his fifth sticker it all became cemented in his mind.  He is holding pee over night, waking up to go to the potty with a dry diaper.  He is also remembering how many times he peed at school (though the number is not always accurate).  Thus far he has received five small prizes and just today he received his "large" prize--a tractor trailer pulling a backhoe.  He was thrilled and even called it his Pee on the Potty Beep Beep.  There might have even been a bit of pride worked in there and it is a really great thing for a parent to see their child take pride in their accomplishments. 

He is a great kid and thanks to Justin Hayes for the potty training method.