Day +665: Big Boy Potty and a Special Letter

I guess I just had to post about Isaac being resistant to the big boy potty for him to get it figured out. I think the whipped cream was the key step. We first got him to sit down on the plastic potty with his pants on, in exchange for whipping cream. Once he got used to that a little, we switched to giving him the whipped cream only if he actually went potty. He did it once, and that's about all it took. Then whenever he was about to go potty, we'd say "Run to the bathroom, quick!", and he'd say "No!" and start to cry, and then we'd say "Whipping cream!" and he'd hesitate for a minute, and then turn and run to the bathroom. After two days of wearing underwear all day with no accidents, Keri took down the changing table and got rid of the smelly diaper genie in the back room, and he hasn't looked back. He's had a few accidents here and there, but only a few. I think that's pretty good for someone who isn't even two and a half yet.

Next step is to get him to give up the plastic potty and sit on the big one. The current stage, where he goes in the plastic potty and we have to dump it into the big one and then spray out the plastic one, is actually worse than diapers in some ways. At least it is for people like me with sensitive stomachs. He did go on the big potty all of last weekend in the guest house we stayed in, but he had a fit when I tried to move his plastic potty out of the bathroom, so we're giving him some more time. Pretty soon we're going to start withholding the whipping cream until he goes on the big potty...

Last weekend we got a last-minute invitation from our friends Blaire and Walt, with the two-year old daughter Devin, to a beach house outside of Watsonville, 15-20 miles south of Santa Cruz. They had lucked into the house when a friend of Blaire's had a family emergency and couldn't use the reservation they'd already paid for. So we got to spend a free weekend in a house about 30 yards from the beach in a gated community. It was very nice, although not particularly luxurious other than the location. The kids had an absolute ball, of course; they get along well with Devin, and they do love the beach. Sunday we found a great spot on a river about 200 yards inland from the ocean across a sandy spit. The river side of the beach was much less windy, the water was knee-deep about 30 yards, and there was a massive stump that had somehow ended up marooned there right at the water's edge that the kids climbed on for hours. It was a very nice and relaxing way to spend a 3-day weekend.

Monday we stopped by to see Rich, Olgica, Niko, and their brand-new baby girl Lenka. Mina was excited all weekend to go and see Baby Lenka. We'd been talking about the baby for several weeks, and last time we were over there Mina had gotten to feel the baby kicking in Olgica's tummy. She really wanted to hold Lenka, but that's going to have to wait until after Niko has his first turn. Lenka is a very pretty baby, with a head full of dark hair and pretty dark eyes. It's so nice to hold a newborn and think back on the days when our kids were that size.

Mina had a doctor's appointment last week, and it went really well. Her blood counts are looking stellar these days, and everyone is kind of gearing up for the two-year anniversary of her transplant here in a couple of months. We've finally been given the name of a doctor at Children's Oakland who can perform the long-overdue neuro-psych evaluation. That really should have been done two years ago, and then again last year, but UCSF hasn't had the right specialist and it hasn't felt like that urgent of an issue with all of Mina's progress. But it will be nice to get that finally taken care of.

And last but certainly not least, the most exciting news of the last couple of weeks is that we got a very nice letter from Mina's donor! He had sent a really touching letter along with the stem cells that was read over and over again on transplant day and really helped to cast the whole experience in a positive and optimistic light. Donors and recipients are allowed to contact each other after a year, and we finally sent him a package in about August that had a letter, pictures of Mina and the rest of the family, and some drawings that Mina had made for him. It took us awhile to get the package out because it's kind of an emotional thing and very significant, and we wanted it to be just right. He seemed to feel the same way about the return letter. He is a very talented amateur photographer, and he sent us a CD with some pictures of his friends and family and some very beautiful photos that he had taken along with a letter telling us a bit about his life and about the process of donating.

He said this is kind of a private thing for him; only a few people know that he did this, so we're going to respect his privacy and not say much more about him. But to answer some questions I know some people will have, he didn't say anything about any friend or relative with cancer that might have spurred him to place his name on the registry, though he himself had a medical incident that probably helped to make him more sensitive to the needs that are out there, and he has a been a platelet donor for ten years which says right there that he is a unique and caring person. And he didn't mention anything about his ethnic background, which would be interesting to know because of the tissue matching. Certainly nothing about him says "Scandinavian", but then again Mina is probably only half Scandinavian anyway.

So this was a very exciting development, and Mina knows that he is a significant person in her life and that this was a big deal. The other day she was asking me some tough questions: "Why did he give me his blood?" "Why did my blood make me sick?" A lot of times kids ask "Why" questions just to make conversation, but I suspect these questions will come up over and over again.

Thanks for checking in on us! Sorry for the slow posting these days. I'll try to get back to at least once a week now that things are slowing down a bit at work.