Potty Training is the Pits

So I have been racking my brain on how to #2 potty-train Gideon. Nothing has worked.

The #1 was hard enough, at first. We started on a Monday, I gave up on Tuesday, started again on Wednesday, and by Friday, our little man had mastered it for the most part.

I messed him up, though. And here's why.

He refuses to poop in the toilet, and I was getting frustrated with cleaning poop out of his underwear EVERY SINGLE DAY, sometimes twice a day. It constantly falls out of his drawers before I can toss it in the toilet, and usually, as he is (or I am) pulling down his underwear, the poop grazes his leg leaving behind a slimy streak o’ nasty before landing firmly gooped to the floor, and that doubles the amount of cleaning up I have to do.

I gag EVERY SINGLE DAY.

To alleviate some of my self-induced disgust and stress, Jeff suggested pull-ups. I was anti-pull-ups because the whole point of potty-training our eldest was to quit buying diapers for 3 children (a very expensive ordeal). However, I thought that perhaps Jeff’s idea could be a good one. I bought a pack of pull-ups the week my parents' washer went out.

Note to self and other selves facing the same dilemma: DO NOT REVERT TO PULL-UPS after you’ve already invested in real underwear. Though I called them his “special undies” Mom and Jeff referred to them as pull-ups, and smart kid that he is, he figured out they weren’t the same as his “real” undies. He started urinating in them thus undoing all of the work we had so diligently begun…so, back to the drawers I went anticipating the poop clean-up and steeling myself for the daily ritual of angst. What I had not anticipated was a regression of “urine accidents” in the “real” undies. Yep. Yep. Yep. So, I’m now basically re-training him.

I totally messed up.

We’re getting there again, but it’s slow. I now bought a stool for him to stand on and “go” like Daddy, and he likes it. A LOT.

In the meantime, we’ve put Scarlett on the potty a couple of times just to get her used to it. According to my mom, I was trained by her age (19 mos). Dubious, was I, until today, because I read that children of that age don’t have the bladder/bowel control that older kids do.

I saw Scarlett hovering over the Bumbo, and wasn’t sure if she was trying to poop or get in. I asked her if she needed to poop and she said “yesh.” I then asked her if she wanted to go poo-poo on the toilet. “Yesh. Toy-et.” And off she ran to the stairs.

Still unconvinced anything would actually happen, I followed her upstairs, plopped her on the special seat, and told her to squeeze hard. She made her “strong” face, clenched her fists, turned bright red, and squeezed with all her little might. I peeked down and saw (sort of to my horror) a big turtle head peeking back at me.

And then. Plop goes the weasel. She did it. I squealed and congratulated her, and squealing together musta worked those bowels good because out plunked some more. You go girl.

Naturally, by this time, Master Curious wanted to know what was going on. He climbed the stairs and said, “whatcha doing up here?”

“Well, Gideon. Clap for Scarlett. She went poo-poo in the toilet.”

“Scarlett get lollipop?”

I had forgotten this promised reward.

“Oh, yes. I guess she does.”

Down we all paraded to pick out a pink lollipop for my poopin’ princess.

Smacking away delightedly with her elder brother gazing wistfully on, with a mother’s obvious intuition, I suddenly knew what was going to happen.

Off Gideon ran, up the stairs and to the top. He turned around and hollered down rather emphatically: “Mommy, my poo-poo in the toilet!!!”

He didn’t, though... this time. But he tried. Boy, did he try! And for his efforts, he got an m&m.

Maybe tomorrow he might just remember and try again. Something to be said for that friendly sibling competitive spirit. I might just get a pooper outta him sooner rather than later!