June 23, 2001 - Saturday
There hasn't been a lot of activity with Harry's potty since his initial flurry of interest. That's not unexpected, I suppose. He's really very young - by current thinking, though not necessarily traditional thinking - and we're happy to take it slowly for the time being. Harry does continue to show strong interest in the process whenever I take him in the bathroom with me to watch and I'm sure it's just a matter of time before he becomes committed to mastering this, too. For the meanwhile, Harry's obsession with the toilet remains strongly intact. He likes to flush the toilet and we encourage that as part of the learning process, especially when we put something of his in it. We're still working on teaching Harry that it's only good to flush when there's a real reason and, then, only once at a time.

Harry's started to understand that you can't flush several times in a row, at least not without waiting for the water to fill back up in the toilet tank. But, that's part of another current obsession. A couple of weeks ago, Harry was continuing to pull the lever after an initial flush and didn't seem to understand my verbal explanation of why it wasn't going to work. So, I got the misguided idea that maybe if I showed him how the water had to fill up in the tank he'd understand. At least, I thought, I would distract him from trying to flush the toilet again. So, I took the top of the toilet tank and held Harry up on the seat so he could watch the water filling up inside. I pointed out that the water would eventually push the float up to stop the water and we watched together until that happened. Harry seemed satisfied and we left the bathroom without objection. Unfortunately, since then, every time Harry's been in the bathroom when a toilet has been flushed, he's insisted on watching the water, saying "wah-wah, wah-wah" until I hold him up to see it fill the tank. I'm not sure I understand this particular fascination and presumably it will eventually pass, although I can't help thinking that the family genes from Harry's great-grandfather, a plumber, are somehow at work.


Comments, opinions?