Four years later, someone noticed. In helping Alek choose baby goods, I noticed a brand shift. You can now shop for Carter’s exclusive Target line under the moniker “Just One You.”

Pretty sly and good I’d say. Maybe I’ll look and see if they do pajamas in 4s or 5s now…

I got an early payoff yesterday. I was downstairs hanging laundry on the line when Simon came into the unfinished part of the basement with a play-sized basketball. About the same time I called out “Be careful!”, Simon called out “Oh no!” as he dropped the ball and watched it roll into our sump pump. Yuck.

I wasn’t mad, but I wasn’t excited about ball rescue either. “Oh, man. This is not going to be fun,” I mumbled, “and that’s why I don’t like you coming into this part of the basement.”

Mind you, I wasn’t mad. It was an accident, and he just wanted to keep me company. But what came next surprised me, because Simon sometimes (often?) struggles with apologies when he’s done something wrong. More than once an act of mild disobedience has ballooned into a major drama over his reluctance to apologize and our insistence that he do so. This time I wasn’t asking for or expecting an apology. I was just griping out loud when Simon quickly and sincerely offered this:

“I’m sorry, Mommy. I wasn’t paying attention to what I was doing. I’ll be more careful and won’t do that again. I’m really sorry.”

Did I hear that right? Was that a whole sentence, a demonstration of contrition, and an understanding of the source of wrongdoing? Wow! Maybe,  just maybe, some of what I’m saying really is sinking in. And maybe, but not likely, he can repeat this feat the next time I demand an apology from him. The jig is up, Simon: I know you can do it.

About that ambivalence: We’ve more or less followed the T. Berry Brazelton approach to parenting. You could call his approach child-centered, for he generally advocates following your child’s cues and responding to (and respecting)  their unique needs and temperament rather than enforcing a one-size-fits-all approach to parenting. In his books, he comes across as gentle and wise. And he clearly loves children—all of them.

Meanwhile, if I had to pick two adjectives I’d want to describe my own parenting, “gentle” and “wise” would be them. While I don’t know if I’d go so far to say that I love all children, I’ve certainly developed a soft spot for them and I passionately love Simon. So when Simon threw some tantrums, I took the T. Berry approach. And when he hit a negative and persistent spell, I did the same. And it has paid off every time. I know kids that have reached milestones faster than Simon, who have fewer issues with change than Simon, and who are more regimented and tightly disciplined than Simon. But I like our family the way it is, as do Matt and Simon, and so I’m not about to change my approach.

Except for potty training. Brazelton thinks kids will let you know when they are ready to train, and that we adults put far too much pressure on them to train at our pace. It’s a lot to ask of them, Brazelton states, and every child will get there in his or her own time. If a kid doesn’t train until 4,  so be it. They will train, and there is no point in developing lasting problems or getting into miserable power struggles to force an artificial schedule. I have to admit that this sounds eminently reasonable to  me.

So child lead we did/have done. And Simon, my extremely change-resistant child, is just not interested. Or rather, he’s intellectually interested (“Big boy underwear, M&Ms, a flashlight when he’s finished!”), but it’s not translating to action. He’ll be 3 1/2 in two weeks, and Matt and I both sense that this is the time. We can’t wait until he’s 4 unless we pull him out of school next fall. And in the grand scheme of things, I think pulling him out of school would do more harm than pushing potty training. Meanwhile, Dr. Newstadt suggested that he’d want to see progress by late spring or early summer himself.

With this week being spring beak and Matt having the time off, all signs seemed to point to this being THE TIME.

We’re using the cold turkey approach: No more diapers. We put Simon in underwear yesterday morning, plied him with drinks, and decided to let nature take its course. And it did: ten times. The tally, if you are curious, is once on the potty, and nine times down his leg, on the floor, and in his (rubber) shoes.

Today, following some advice given by a teacher at KIP, we put him on the potty every 30 minutes. The tally? Potty: Zero. Accident: Nine. That’s right, we set the blasted oven timer a gazillion times and had a 0% success rate. So that was demoralizing.

What I don’t know is whether Simon is intentionally doing this as part of a power struggle or if he’s sincerely missing his body’s cues. He’s not protesting sitting on the potty, he likes his big-boy underwear, and he’s learned to pull up and down his underwear on his own. On the other hand, we’re 1 for 18 where it counts. (Almost like Kentucky’s outside shooting in the regional final against West Virginia now that I think about it.)

Panicked at lunch, I did what I always do: I surveyed the literature. Well, fat lot of good THAT did. Depending on who/what you read, we either need to strip him bare and let it rip, continue the 30-minute intervals and hope for some synchronicity tomorrow, discontinue because he’s obviously not ready, persevere because he’s got to be ready, or abandon hope because we’ve waited too long. In case that isn’t unhelpful enough, almost everything you read comes with the authorial caveat that “You know your child best.” In other words, “Heck if we know. You figure it out.”

I’m inclined to try again tomorrow but not do the 30-minute thing. Just let Simon decide on his own to try or not to try, to enlist him in clean-up help (he’s been willing so far), and put him more “in charge.” Actually, that’s a lie. What I’m really inclined to do is to either make this Matt’s job, give up, or find someone who has some Valium lying around.

Matt came downstairs to watch him while I went up to grab a shower and asked Simon if he needed a diaper change. The conversation went something like this:

Matt: “Simon, do you need a new diaper?”

Simon: “No, I’m fine.”

Matt: “So mommy changed it?”

Simon: “Yes, yesterday.”

He used the same word in a different but correct context later yesterday, too. This is pretty cool; up to now “yesterday”, “today”, and “tomorrow” were pretty meaningless for him. On the other hand, if he was trying to avoid a diaper change, he’s going to have to get a lot craftier in his responses.

Apropos to nothing, we also had this hilarious exchange yesterday, which took place when he saw a commercial for giant cupcake molds. [Aside, do we need bigger cupcakes?]

Simon: “I want the cupcake, Mommy.”

Me: “That cupcake? The giant cupcake?”

Simon: “Yes, Mommy.”

Me: “But Simon, a cupcake that big wouldn’t fit in your tummy!”

Simon: “It doesn’t go in my tummy, Mommy. It goes in my mouth.”

I thought this a pretty crafty response for a just-turned three-year-old. It also strikes me as the beginning of a more sophisticated pattern of argument from him. Since arguing is my favorite sport, I’m (almost) looking forward to watching those skills develop. Bring it, Simon!