The Wonderings of Wibble: Our A & E, Potty Training Holiday

We have just returned from a lovely family holiday to Anglesey. It was lovely apart from the bits that were not lovely (mainly a giant two year old's poo and a tiny baby having a big bump on the head) but lets start with the lovely stuff. We stayed in a very nice cottage with parents, my two sisters and my bother in law. We've been on holiday to Anglesey before when Percy was a baby. That was the holiday when Percy was sometimes up for the day before 5AM! That time the weather was a bit too cold for sitting on the beach and there wasn't much to do other than that. The highlight of the trip was going to Wilkos to buy pick and mix and eating it while playing monopoly and rocking a baby.
This holiday was loads better, a beautiful cottage with a hot tub and several other adults to hold/entertain our boys.

The holiday began with at least an hour and a half of driving just to get to Runcorn, (which should take about 20 mins) so we had to make two stops. We promised Percy an ice cream for being good on the ridiculously long car journey. He said he wanted a blue one. We eventually found a blue bubblegum flavoured ice cream- yuk.

Weeks ago we started joking about about starting Percy's potty training on holiday just so that everyone else would have to endure it too. But then we thought, actually that's not a bad idea. Lots of other people around to help and carpets we never have to see again-bonus! It sounded preferable to me attempting to pull Percy's pants down while breastfeeding Eric. We bought him exciting "big boy pants" (one pack with dinosaurs on and one with pepper pig on).

On the first day we went to the beach and Percy was wearing his tigger swimsuit (without a nappy). I was enjoying a nice swim in the sea when Dad (aka Grandad) came over and said that Dan was doing something really heroic. Then he described how the tail of his tigger swimming costume filled up in the shape of a tail.

Our nappy training strategy was to put him in pants when we were in the house (not when we were in public or in the car) and when he did a wee or poo on the potty go mental with praise for him. Unfortunately he found this very difficult, he seems to only realise he's weeing or pooing when he's actually doing it. We had to abandon the original plan and give him stickers just for a good try at sitting on the potty. If you spend enough time sitting on a potty it is likely that at some point some wee will come out. So, when a tiny dribble of wee did come out we decided it was time to go mental with the praise, even though in my head I was thinking 'this is just a statistical probability given the amount of time you were "trying" for'. Unfortunately he then kicked off about having to be wiped so we had to withdraw the praise and stickers.

One time he claimed he did a wee on the potty and to be fair, technically he did wee on the potty, but I think when you make no effort to pull your pants down and you just wee through them this makes your attempt invalid.

On the morning we left we sensed a wee was near, and the bribe of TV was enough to make him actually do a wee on the potty. It was high 5s all round, stickers and an episode of Paw Patrol. I wish people celebrated that much every time I did a wee!

On the Friday, which was our last proper day, we went out for galettes at a cafe. We were sitting outside on a table that had a bench on one side, I had been feeding Eric, but when the food came I wanted to enjoy it properly (not one handed while jiggling a baby) so I fetched the car seat put it on the bench and popped him in it. I was halfway through my meal when there was a loud crash and I looked down to see the car seat upside-down and Eric facedown on the floor next to it!

I reacted a bit hysterically, which I was later glad of because I must have that crazy mum instinct that mums should have. I scooped him up and cuddled him, it was so horrible to see him scream. But he didn't look badly hurt and the crying was a good thing really. We put ice on his head and the other customers tried to pretend that everything was normal. I could see that he was probably fine but I just wanted to get him checked so we drove off to the Holyhead hospital while my parents took Percy for a walk. Unfortunately Holyhead hospital doesn't have an A & E, just a minor injuries nurse who isn't allowed to give advice about children under 3 months. So we set off to Bangor hospital where we waited a really long time to be told what we probably already knew... he was fine. Phew! We might have had to stay in for observations but thanks to terrible NHS waiting times the 4 hour post accident observation time was coming to an end anyway.

While waiting I reflected on how unlike the programme Casualty, casualty actually was. You never see a kid wait 3 hours and then have a bead removed from their nose.