On the road to potty-learning...

...just not sure whether it will be a short or long road this time!

Ronan is getting pretty good at using his potty first thing in the morning and after naps. He also wants to go after every diaper change (and doesn't want to put another diaper back on). If I let him run around naked he may go and use the potty, or we may sit there multiple times before he eventually leaves a puddle on the floor somewhere. Today he asked to go in the middle of the day and he actually went, and his diaper was dry. We are spending a lot of time in the bathroom right now!

I am not very good about relaxing during this process. Yesterday we actually left for a playgroup earlier than necessary, just so I could have the relief of putting a diaper on him for a while. I have put him in undies a few times to run around the house. He looks awfully cute in them but he doesn't really understand the point of them. He would rather be naked and have free access to his penis, LOL.

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On a completely unrelated note, a few people have asked how Ronan's speech therapy is going, so here's an update!

We were really lucky to get a friend and fellow member of our AP group as our SLP. She is wonderful and fun, my kids all love her, and I know she understands us. Now if Ronan starts asking for milk I don't have to pretend that he wants a glass of milk from the fridge. ;) She has been coming to our house every other week to work with Ronan (and us). It is going pretty well. He has started babbling more, is attempting a lot more words, and has added to his vocabulary a bit.

We are also working on signing so that Ronan has another way of communicating with us. He was not particularly interested in them as a baby, and he is still not using many, but he is beginning to get it. Sometimes he does kind of gibberish signing, where he waves his hands around randomly--aware that he can get things by signing, but not knowing the real sign to use!

Our speech therapist has helped us to see that they way he acquires language is unique to him. It is not necessarily the "normal" way or the way our other kids did. I was trying so hard to give him words for the things around him but he's not very interested in labeling things. He is much more into moving and going and how things work, so words like more, again, on, off, stop, and go are much more useful to him! It seems simple enough now, but it had never occurred to me. 

We are still a long way from the 25-50 words and two-word sentences that a lot of toddlers his age have. There are still only a handful of words/sounds that I would recognize without context. It was a little hard for me to realize that there are no exact answers out there... no one can tell me why Ronan's speech is delayed and no one can tell me when he will catch up. But I do feel like we are making progress, and that's something.