Vomits and poos and fingers up the bum

I'll be the first to admit that I've been a bit remiss at blogging, but let me assure you that it has been for some very good reasons.

Firstly, both boys have had two(!) bouts of gastro/stomach flu each(!) over the last couple of weeks. This of course has been occupying a lot of my time with all the extra cuddling of sick little guys, mopping up vomits, changing whole outfits after explosive diarrheas, and doing many many loads of pooey, vomity washing. Thankfully, I think that fun is behind us now.

Secondly, I've been a bit extra sleep-deprived of late. Ollie hasn't ever quite worked out what sleeping through the night means, and Elliot has decided that he absolutely positively cannot sleep all alone all night long. This inevitably means that one of us ends up in Elliot's three-quarter length toddler bed for at least part of the night (because we absolutely refuse to start with the whole sleeping in mommy and daddy's bed) while the other one of us gets up to feed Oliver once (and sometimes twice!!) each night.

We're also knee deep in a third (and final?!?!) attempt at potty training, and I'm super psyched to report that we're over two weeks in and doing really well. Wait what am I saying 'we' for? Elliot is the one who's doing awesome!! Sure, he still has an accident now and then, but he's doing a really great job of doing the vast majority of his wees on the toilet/potty. And what's really impressive is that even when we're out doing really fun things, Elliot has still been doing an excellent job of letting me know when he needs to make a dash to the loo for a wee.

Wowzer, have a look at all those stickers!

Unfortunately, the pooing has been a little bit more problematic. Partially this is due to the aforementioned tummy bugs. It's a bit hard to hold it when it's not exactly a patient sort of poo. But even during the periods of  more regular bowel movements, Elliot's been struggling, and I'm not exactly sure why. It seems to me that he's having a really difficult time letting it go, and he ends up getting all constipated (that or sticking his fingers up his bum and getting them all pooey, presumably to stop the poo from coming out? Elliot will hate me one day for sharing that little tidbit).

So if anyone has any advice on this lovely topic (or on how to get a 2 and a 1/2 year old or 6 month-old to sleep on their own all night), I'd love to hear it. In the meantime, we'll keep on encouraging all the successes and making light of accidents and doing our darndest to make it as unstressful as we can.

And I'll try to catch up on the blogging.