So. Potty training again.

There are strings of days when it seems like your kid is really getting it, and it begins to feel more and more permanent, and then a day or two when it seems like all of the progress is  disintegrating in front of your eyes. These last 2 days were like that. I thought that once Deven got into going on the potty, that he was turning out to be the easiest potty trainer, and that the biggest struggle was just getting him on it to begin with. There are days when your kid regresses even when things haven’t changed for them at all. It’s still frustrating, and it’s discouraging, but the fact is, giving into that and going back to the ease of diapers and pull-ups is not going to make it any easier in the future.

So, yesterday, I needed to go grocery shopping in the worst way, and since it’s spring break, I couldn’t get out of taking Deven with me. I had a sizable list, but I was still thinking that it wouldn’t take more than an hour, and Deven would be fine. He had survived hour and half car rides without wetting himself, as well as 3 hour naps. If I got him to pee before we left, there was no reason he wouldn’t be fine. So I didn’t bother preparing in any way for catastrophe, by, like, packing a change of pants, or some pull-ups (had to buy some anyway), or by bringing the potty with us and leaving it in our van.

You can probably guess what happened.

Towards the end of our shopping trip, Deven announced rather woefully, “You peed on you-sulf!” Yeah, in the middle of the frozen food section while I was trying to settle on a brand of waffles.

I didn’t scold him or get mad, I just…silently freaked out. I told an employee what happened, and asked her if I could take him into the restroom with a pull-up from a pack I hadn’t purchased yet, and if it was okay if we finished shopping with a pant-less kid. She was totally nice and understanding, and even offered to watch our cart and even wiped it off for us while we were gone. It made the experience slightly less humiliating.

Just when I thought the day was totally shot, Deven pooped on the potty twice. The second time, he asked me to take him to the potty in the middle of his shower. See? This early on I guess things can vary so greatly within a day.

Today was another story. We didn’t leave the entire day, and I mostly just cleaned the downstairs area. I was exhausted, Deven was bored most of the day. At one point I dozed off on the couch only to be awoken 15 minutes later with another woeful announcement. I couldn’t help but point out to him that there was no reason to pee on himself since the potty was right. there. in the middle of the living room, and that he had USED IT more than once that day. I think he did it out of spite, or as a way to get my attention. And then tonight after I came home from work he peed on himself again for no apparent reason. That time he didn’t even bother to announce it. Oh, and he had peed in the potty 10 minutes earlier.

Ups and downs. They seem to really get it some days, and not so much others. One step forward, and two steps back.

I have no plans on changing anything that we have been doing, no matter how bad his regressions get to be. I know that they are bound to get pretty bad once his little brother gets here.

I just thought I would update everyone on how potty training has been going. He’s been doing so well, that I sometimes forget that this is only week 2. We could be going back and forth with this for months.

There has got to be some sort of lesson out of this for the next one. There’s just gotta be.

Sorry, again, I don’t have a lot of time for blogging tonight, though today has been quite a day.

If anyone were to ask me for any advice on potty training, there is really only one thing I would tell them, and it would piss them off. For one, only have one  piece of advice would annoy the hell out of any first time parent who has no idea what they are doing. They want instructions, details, or better yet, someone to come over and do it for them. The advice itself is so simple, and really doesn’t work out to well in other facets of life with a toddler. The advice is to listen to your child. Its the best thing to do. You can avoid tantrums, and accidents, if when they tell you “I need to go sit on the potty,” take their word for it. Yes, Deven will tell me he needs to potty and then sit there for 10 minutes and do nothing, but doing that 50 times a day sure as shit beats having to clean human excrement out of the carpet.

I’ll fill you in on what inspired this post tomorrow. Right now, I have a tired, antsy husband, and a short mouth breather staring over my shoulder at my computer screen. Night all.