A Week Full of Progress

After an overly emotional post last time, here's one full of fun and progress.
This week with a lot of hard work and patience, my lovely little boy has taken his first steps towards toilet training and we are confirmed in phase two, training pants.
We smile when there's an accident, we find lots of ways to cajole him to go every hour without making him want to slap us from nagging exhaustion, and as yet have not resorted to treats or star charts.
As parents of these magic little kids, any progress is good and I guess we develop the attitude that instead of planning and worrying how long this phase will be, however long it is, is however long it takes. So I'm ready to have spare clothes in my bag and a patient smile on my face for 2 years, as long as I get to see his pride at his lovely colourful big boy pants and when he manages to get a result where it should be.
The second bit of progress is a big high five for Daddy and his utter stubbornness on something that I was ready to find ways around. Because of a little low muscle tone it's been really hard for L to pedal, and no matter how much J and all of us tried to get that right leg down, it didn't seem to come. So I started to look at balance bikes and a way of having him off his cute but now babyish looking toy motorbike (kindly lent by special friends). I was all ready to remove the pedals and stabilisers from his big cousin's happy hand me down, on the advice of the bike shop, when Daddy got all quietly male about it and muttered how he was sure we were pretty close.
We had one slightly fractious try the other weekend and a reminder that getting frustrated was so not going to do it.
Then this morning while I mindlessly did some domestic tasks and relaxed in a Sunday morning kind of way (ironing, it seems, is not as devilish and awful as I have always thought!) Daddy and boys played in the garden.
I suddenly got called out by big bro saying I "had to come and see this now" and went to the garden to find L pedalling. With both feet. In a continuous motion.
I was so shocked, and so happy to be shocked, I yelped and heaped praise on them all.
I went to find them all in the park after the ironing and I'd finished my chat with my lovely old friend on the phone, and stood at the gate looking for my brood.
My heart plipped a bit as I saw J speeding around on his bike with his helmet, and peddling furiously behind him, with Daddy stooped over pushing him up the incline, was my super boy.
He proudly showed me how he could pull the brakes too (in fact J was the one who showed me) and shoved my hand away when I tried to give him a gentle push, wanting to do it himself.
Awesome and magical and a joy to write about.
I'm smiling as I type and as soon as I'm done, I'm going to watch the video again that I took on my phone.