Day 3: it’s only day 3? Really?

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I don’t want to write another boring post all about potty-training my kid, really I don’t. You see, it’s understandably dominating our every thought and waking moment of our lives. And I can’t not write about it now, because today was fan-fucking-tastic and I would be cheating ourselves and everyone else by not talking about it. I’m also probably jinxing it, but, you know…

So are you guys ready to hear about what happened today? You ready for it?

Deven peed on the potty 4, possibly 5 times today. And the number of times he made it on the potty totally outnumbered the amount of accidents that were made. Holy. Crap.

There were keys to this success: after he noticed he got praise for going potty, he wanted to use the potty, and being as independent as he is, he wanted to go by himself and was only really successful when the potty was in sight, and he could get to it by himself. So, taking him to the potty every 15 minutes at school may not work out, but just having a potty in the room at home definitely does. Does this mean I could possibly trust him when he tells me he doesn’t need to potty?

Of course, there was the poo incident. I talked to Jackie about the potty training being a possibly problem at her house, but it didn’t occur to me that he would poop. He had been holding it in until he got a diaper on his butt at bedtime, or just not going at all, so I wasn’t counting on him actually going in his underwear somewhere other than home. Of course it happened while I was in therapy, and Jackie was not very happy to have to clean it up. On the plus side, she said it appeared as though he had tried to get his pants off (he was wearing jeans, because I am retarded) to sit on the potty, but he just didn’t make it in time. So there was that. Then he peed on the potty, threw a kicking and swatting fit over a band aid, and pissed Jackie off so bad, she basically kicked us out. I felt horrible. My kid is a real, genuine asshole sometimes. I’m thinking next week I should give Jackie a break from having to watch him so she doesn’t end up wanting nothing to do with either of us.

So there was day 3. I know that with potty training there are really awesome days like today, and then days when he seems to go backwards. It’s a process, but it’s hard not to be optimistic about days like these. Also? The week is almost over. That is something worth getting really excited over.

Night everyone!

 

Day 2: progress? Maybe?

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So, this morning did not start out any differently than yesterday, except this time the fight was over shoes instead of underwear. His attitude about the potty really wasn’t any different when he came home either, and I think I have this figured out.

The training program at school  is called a “boot camp” and that’s exactly what it is. For the 4 hours he is there, they take him to the potty every 15 minutes unless he uses the potty, and then they go every 30 minutes. They sing songs about the potty, read books about the potty, center their entire day around the potty. Everything at school is potty, potty, potty, potty, potty, POTTY, potty, potty, potty, do you need to potty? You want to try and sit on the potty? Hey, have you heard about the potty? Potty.

Potty.

So, understandably, when he gets home, the last thing he wants to talk about, hear about, or go NEAR is that fucking potty. It’s new, it’s SCARY, and toddlers, especially stubborn and proud little turds like mine, don’t like to feel insecure or uncomfortable. At first it just seemed like an opportunity was about to go to waste because this was again the worst time we could possibly imagine choosing to start potty training. I was really starting to freak out thinking this whole thing was lost on us, and this was not something we could conquer on our own.

I’m not ready to give up hope yet. We’re about to begin day 3, day 3 of what will probably take months for him to get a handle on, so it’s too early to freak. I think the best idea is to back off a little bit when he is at home, especially at the beginning of the day. He’s tired, he’s overwhelmed by that stupid potty, so I shouldn’t continue to shove it down his throat for the first few hours of the day. As it has been, we fight over it mercilessly for the first hour or so he is home, and then we nap, and after daddy comes home, he is as happy as can be and will GLADLY accompany me to the bathroom and sit on the potty. He just needs a rest in the middle of the day until he gets used to all of this nonsense.

So, I might as well talk about what happened today. I picked Deven up from school, and the teacher told me he didn’t pee all. day. long. He was wearing the same pants he had been wearing. Wow. That takes some serious willpower right there. I panicked, and as soon as we got home, I dragged him up the stairs, kicking and screaming, and threw his little hiney on that potty. He did not like this very much, and started screaming, and hitting, and struggling, and screaming some more, so I decided I would ignore his fighting and tickle and make stupid faces at him to try and distract him. The tickling worked, and he managed to squeeze out the tiniest bit of pee into the potty. I praised him, but as soon as he realized what was happening, he stopped midstream. In hindsight, I should have thrown a fucking party right there for the 2 drops of pee he managed to let go of, but I didn’t. I was too concerned with getting him to pee more. I mean, he held it in for at least 4 hours, there was so much more in there! But it freaked him out. We sat in there for nearly an hour before I decided to give it up for a while. We went down to the kitchen, and he promptly peed all over the kitchen floor. It was so much pee. So gross.

But there was progress! Even if it was the result of desperation and distraction, my child peed in the potty the tiniest bit! And then he again sat on the potty a good 4 times in evening, once for a good 20 minutes after his bath! These are good things. We’ll see how this new approach goes tomorrow. He has a half-day at school, and Jackie is supposed to watch him while I go to therapy. I need to go over all of this with her, and make sure she is okay with the possibility of him having an accident on her floor.

Alright, I’m going to finish watching A&E and head to bed. Night all.

 

 

Potty training: day 1

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I’ve decided I am going to start logging this potty training  journey with Deven for memory’s sake, so they we may look back and laugh, use as a reference for when it comes time to potty train this next little cadet, or so we can be given further affirmation while we are sitting in the urologists office, awaiting Vance’s vasectomy.

God ALMIGHTY.

It was just day 1, right? Yesterday was day -1, and it was a very bad idea to attempt a head-start, because it set the tone for today. Flashbacks from yesterday haunted me most of the day, causing me more stress, making the most crucial parts of the day so much worse than they had to be.

I got Deven up, fed him, and took him to the bathroom and explained to him that from now on, he is going to be wearing underwears to school, (except I kept calling them “panties” out of habit, a horrible 22-years-old habit) and that there were no more diapers or pull-ups. He threw a fit, begging for a pull-up, I told him he can just go to back to bed if he wont wear the underwear. It’s the same stupid teeth-brushing fight, only with underpants instead. He ended up in his room, on the floor, screaming his head off, while I sat in the bathroom almost in tears from frustration. Super daddy heard the wild banshee calls, and came to the rescue. He somehow managed to get Deven in his underpants in, like, 2 seconds. Again, the little shit was SMILING the entire time, happy to please daddy while mommy cries.

This was just the morning, before we even got out the door to school.

I got him to school, and talked to his teacher about what the day would entail, and asked her to PLEASE share ANY advice she can, because I have tried EVERYTHING. She didn’t offer much outside of “it’s just a lot of work.” No shit. Only lots of it. And urine. Thanks, lady.

I went home and just tried to put it out of my head. I cleaned my living room and took a nap since I didn’t get much sleep the night before, and wasn’t sure if I would even be able to get a nap in with all of this potty nonsense. When I am sleep deprived in my current condition, it increases the chances of a meltdown occurring at some point in the day. I got up and went to pick up Deven to find him in new pants. The teacher told me he only had one accident, and they weren’t able to get him to go on the potty. That didn’t surprise me, so much as it horrified me, because that meant it was on ME to get him to pee in that potty. Really, I knew he wouldn’t get it the first day, even with taking him to the potty every 15 minutes. I just felt this surge of  panic because of his recent habit of completely ignoring me in favor of everyone else. Pleasing mommy is nowhere near as fun as watching her morph into a frazzled nutcase.

Sure enough…

I got him home, and the last thing he wanted to do was sit on the potty. For the first half an hour, I was fine with that. I didn’t want to pressure him and make the entire thing traumatic for the both of us, so I decided I would be patient and just tell him that he can have whatever incentive or reward he wants for sitting on the potty. Naturally, him being the ever-principled young patriot he is, those offers fell on deaf ears. He had an accident in the kitchen, and I cleaned him up and offered him new underwear, and he again started pitching a fit over a pull-up and outright REFUSED to wear ANYTHING down below. There was screaming, and wrestling, and running, and more screaming. Things were just going in the complete opposite direction of how I had originally intended them to go, you know, all peaceful and pressure-free.  If I couldn’t get him to sit on the potty, FINE, but I, at the very least, needed him to wear something over his bottom, and I couldn’t even get him to do THAT. I ended up breaking down and calling Vance, who told me there was no way he could come home, that I needed to take a deep breath and try to relax, to which I told him “EASY FOR YOU TO SAY!” He was being very patient considering how belligerent I must have sounded. He threw out a suggestion or two for Deven, and I literally clammed up and said, “…I guess I could try that.” There is probably more to this whole Vance winning at parenting thing lately.

So Mr. No-Pants got to sit in in time out until he agreed to put on underwear. It sounds harsh, but after a good 15 minutes of back-and-forth in the corner, he agreed to put on the underwear. I hugged him, thanked him, apologized profusely and the day took a better turn. We went upstairs to nap, and I made him lay on a hospital-grade puppy-training pad so he wouldn’t wet our bed. He ended up holding it in through the entire 3 hr nap, and then when he got up, his next accident happened literally 2 inches away from the potty on the bathroom floor. I call it a WIN. I convinced Vance to take Deven upstairs and promise him chocolate and stickers for sitting on the potty, and somehow, it worked. We were able to get him to attempt the potty a good half a dozen times before the day ended.

Yes, he had 5 or 6 accidents, but it was the first day. After how the day started, I would call today mildly successful.

Tomorrow is another day. Hopefully I can be in Mexico before sunrise.