This Sunday we woke up with our regular routine of Disney channel and French toast. I thought, hey, why not start potty training today? So by the seat of our pants we tried it. I know that naturally you want to know some quick assessment of how the potty training turned out. I would love to say that after a day of potty training we’ve ditched the diapers but that would be a lie. A bold-faced lie. Honestly, I have no idea how to determine if this went well or not. We started with introducing the Cushie Tushie he got for his birthday as well as the potty books (mind you others might be pissed to get such practical gifts for their birthday but that’s how I was raised). We had him sit on his potty and talked about going potty and peeing and pooping. Then we set a timer, or actually figured out how the timer worked and then set it, and let him run around in just his pajamas, sans diaper. He held on to his junk for a brief time because fabric on your junk has gotta feel beyond odd after wearing a diaper for your entire life. After fifteen minutes we sat on the potty again. Nothing. Figured out how the time worked a little faster this time and set it again. We kept with this all day. He ended up going potty while playing in his toys and all I can say is I’m glad we have tile. He went through four pairs of pants before we gave up on free-ballin’ and decided to bust out the pull-ups. After lunch he went down for a nap in a diaper. When he woke up we changed his diaper and went right back to the 15 minute intervals with the pull-ups.
At one point, while I watched my husband try and coax our son to pee, I had a thought and shared it with the love of my life. I have been sexually active for about 14 years. I have never paid this much attention to a penis as I have this day. Watching it peak it’s one eye out over the rim of the Cushie Tushie, I willed it to pee. I must apologize to Juanito for not eyeballing his junk with such fierceness and hope in my heart.
I began to worry that we had created all this attention to the potty that he might get some level of anxiety about it and ultimately would stop pooping. This kid is pretty regular, at least twice a day and worst case scenario once a day. So when it was 4 pm and no poop, well I was concerned that I had ruined him forever. I started thinking about Freud’s theories about the oral and anal stage and how he does suck his thumb (my son not Freud but I bet he did too) have we jacked something up by forcing the potty training too soon? Too late? Too forceful? Is he gonna cut the heads off of bunnies when he is 14 because Mom and Dad made him sit on the potty against his will and talk about bulldozers and dump trucks in hope of pooping and/or peeing in the potty?? And if the mental frenzy wasn’t enough, every time I mention potty to him, I had to pee. We didn’t need to download the Potty Dance video from Pull-Ups cuz I was doing my own little version for him.
While working in the backyard, I hear my husband ask our son, “Do you need to go poop?” and then a rush of activity into the house heading straight to the bathroom. I didn’t want to over react and run after them because I was still struggling with my Freudian issues, so I hung back. But then my husband calls from the bathroom, “Uh, can we get some wipes in here?” I asked if he pooped and his answer of “kinda” made sense when I walked in to find my son on the potty, my husband holding him there and little plops of poop that have fallen out of his bum and pull-up onto the floor in front of the toilet. It was also smeared down my son’s leg. I want to take a moment here and let you all know that our dogs are doggie door trained and I haven’t had to deal with poop in the house and on the floor in a long time. So my initial reaction was delayed because honestly I didn’t know what to do, other than laugh. Juanito told me to grab toilet paper which snapped me back to what I was supposed to do. And I would again be lying if the warmth and weight of the bundle didn’t make me gag but I did get the poop in the potty and wiped our son down.
That was the closest to success we had on our maiden voyage of potty training. I read many articles last night about what to do. Apparently all of the advice….potty every 15 minutes, no diaper, no pull-up, the books, watch mom and dad, the cheerios in the toilet, the step stool, the pull pants up and down, well…these are things to work towards and not to be accomplished all in one Sunday. I took him to day care in a diaper because I’m not sure what the morning after is supposed to be like. But she will work with him too and I’ll keep reading. Everyone eventually learns to go in the potty so I guess I should find comfort in that right?
And while I’m not gonna say that he didn’t put his head in the toilet and sing a little song at the top of his lungs, I will say that he has no fear of the potty and has learned a lot.
1. He knows what the timer is for, well, kinda.
2. How to pull his pants up and down
3. Flushing the toilet while sitting on the potty is fun
4. Once you flush the magic is gone.
5. Toilet paper is to wipe your tush. We’ll work on not putting it in the trash once we poop in the potty.
If I were to give advice to anyone starting this journey….it’s a journey, not to be accomplished in one day. Those people who say that their kids were potty trained in one weekend are lying bitches.
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