Lent Photo a Day: Celebrate

Particularly when our children are very young, there are plenty of exciting milestones for parents to celebrate. We celebrate the first smile, the first step, the first word. When they’re a little older, we celebrate when they learn to read, when they learn to ride a bike, when they learn to drive a car. When they become young adults, we celebrate when they graduate from high school and from college, when they get married, when they have children of their own. Each milestone is satisfying and exciting. But there is perhaps no developmental milestone quite so satisfying, quite so exciting, quite so freeing, quite so worthy of celebration, as potty training.

For the past five years, diapers, pull-ups, diaper pails, and the wiping of small bottoms have been an integral part of my life. I had to deal with other people’s bodily fluids multiple times a day, every day. I was at the biological beck and call, so to speak, of my children. But this week, I am able to officially declare that our family is a complete family of underpants-wearers!

I do not declare this fact lightly. I took on the task of intense potty-training my youngest child about a month ago, during her February break from preschool. She spent the entire week running around free of diapers, pull-ups, and underpants, happily “bare-bummed.” Every hour, I would call her to come sit on the potty. Each time, we would slowly count to ten as she did a “try.” Sometimes we’d reach ten without any action. But other times, we’d both open our eyes wide as we heard the unmistakable sound of peeing. And then her face would blossom into a wide grin of excitement, pride, and wonder, and she would giggle with delight. And so would I. We’d high-five each other, sing Daniel Tiger’s song reminding her to “flush and wash and be on your way,” and then I’d reward her with a piece of candy.

As the days wore on, we’d venture a bit further into the world of “big girl underpants.” Santa had put a few pairs of Disney princess underpants in her stocking (he was apparently as eager to get the pull-ups out of our house as I was), but we obviously needed a few more pairs, so we went to the store and she got to pick out some new underpants, opting for the “My Little Pony” collection. Then we were ready for our maiden underpants outing. We went to the grocery store, doing a “try” right before and checking several times during the trip to see if she needed to go again. We made it home with dry pants. She had an accident less than an hour later, but we made it through our outing accident-free. Celebrate!

After a few more days of practicing wearing underpants without pants around the house and then underpants with pants, we were ready to try a day at school. I warned her teachers and asked them to encourage her to go during the day. I packed extra pants just in case, but she made it through without an accident. Again, she had one after we got home, but it was a minor setback. Celebrate! Later that week, she went to her gymnastics class wearing underpants under her leotard. I was a bit nervous when a try at home and one at the gym right before class produced nothing, but she made it through class dry and clean – and then made it through the rest of the day at home with no accidents. Celebrate!

But the real trial came this past weekend when my husband and I attended a two-day conference spanning Friday evening and Saturday all day, and the kids had a sleepover with friends. Luckily, one of their kids is at about the same stage of potty-training as my daughter, so the parents were unfazed at the thought of possible accidents and were more than willing to risk an accident or two. I wasn’t sure how her training would be affected by a different, although familiar, house, and an unfamiliar potty. I needn’t have worried: my daughter was fascinated by the thought of using a different potty and not only did she not have any accidents, she hardly needed to be reminded to use the potty, but ran in herself whenever she needed to go. Celebrate!

And so, I am boldly declaring that my house is now a diaper-free zone (at least during the day). And I am ready to celebrate!

Celebrate!

You Know You're a Potty-Training Mom When...

I am in the process of potty-training two children at once. (Go ahead, make the sign of the Evil Eye. I know I just did.) Every mom – or dad – or preschool teacher – or nanny – or anyone else - who has ever potty-trained a child knows that there are certain universal signs that you are in the throes of this dreaded process. You know you’re a potty training mom when:

• You automatically put a sticker on the chart on the bathroom door every time you (or anyone else in the family) uses the toilet.
• You can’t help but sing, “Flush and wash and be on your way!” every time you finish peeing.
• You sing “Happy Birthday” while washing your hands. Even in a public restroom.
• You announce to everyone in the room every time you’re about to use the bathroom. And then invite them to join you.
• And you narrate while you’re going.
• You’re more likely to accidentally sit on a child’s potty seat than on a toilet with the lid still up.
• Scrubbing pee off the bathroom floor is part of your bedtime routine, right alongside brushing your teeth and putting on your PJs.
• You occasionally sniff the air suspiciously and ask, “Who needs to go do a poop?”
• Your bathroom closest holds not only towels and toilet paper, but a collection of pull-ups and small underpants.
• And a “treat box” full of temporary tattoos, Dum-Dum lollipops, and snack-size bags of M&Ms.
• You do a choreographed dance any time a child successfully uses the toilet.
• You check for soiled underpants rinsing in the toilet before you pee.
• Your bribery reward list includes trips to Chuck E. Cheese, the Lego store, and the Bouncy House place.
• There are Cheerios floating in the toilet at any given time.
• You can recite “Once Upon a Potty,” “Elmo’s Potty Time,” or “Everybody Poops” without once referencing the book and/or video.
• You do more than one load of laundry every day.
• Ninety percent of that load of laundry consists of underpants and sheets.
• You make everyone in the house “do a try” before you get in the car, even if you’re only going out for 10 minutes.
• You know the location of every public restroom within a 30-mile radius.
• And you’ve used every one of them.

Any other parents out there who are in the throes of this stage? Let’s all remind ourselves that there are very few children who go to kindergarten in diapers. And even fewer who do so in college. And let’s not think about how many parents wind up losing their minds before they reach that stage.

And then let’s all have a glass of wine together. 

Photo A Day, Day 28: Chaotic

“Chaotic.” That one word pretty much sums up every day of my life for the past few years. Particularly recently. At this moment, I am attempting to potty train two children at once, which, as any mom will tell you, is an exercise in chaos. You have to be prepared at any moment, no matter where you are, to rush to a bathroom. You need to be able to unhook, unbutton, unzip, or otherwise undo various assorted garments in a split-second. You need to be able to locate and reach a bathroom in any public place in under 30 seconds. You have to have the magical ability to determine the exact urgency of the situation at a single glance. You must develop secret psychic powers to determine the exact moment when a child needs to relieve him- or herself and somehow get him or her to a toilet before all hell breaks loose. The word “chaos,” in this instance, is an understatement.

This pretty little potty chair looks so innocuous, doesn’t it? And yet, it is the hub of chaos for every parent for a period of approximately 6 months per child (although in my case, I’m starting to have the feeling it’s going to stretch out to closer to 6 YEARS). For those 6 months, your life seems to revolve around potties. You let your child watch you use the potty. You watch Elmo use the potty. You talk about using the potty. You talk about Elmo using the potty. You watch videos, read books, and have conversations that all revolve around toilets. You invent new words for bodily functions involving toilets. Your world, for a period of time, is centered around toilets.

It is a sad, sad period of parental life.

But eventually (or so they tell me) it is over, and the chaos transforms into freedom. Freedom from diapers, freedom from diaper pails, freedom from diaper bags, freedom from all things associated with diapers. I yearn for that day. But until then, I will just deal with the chaos.

The Underpants Project

I was not an exceptionally difficult child, for the most part. But I did have two major traits that made my mother’s life difficult, and they have both come back to haunt me in the form of my own son’s most difficult traits: hating vegetables and refusing to use the potty.

Hating vegetables I can live with. My mom was convinced that I’d develop scurvy by the age of 6, and she didn’t even know how often I saved my veggies in my cheek or my napkin and flushed them down the toilet. And yet, I grew up to be the tallest person in my family, so I guess my poor nutrition didn’t stunt my growth too much.

But late potty training is definitely my past coming back to haunt me. I stubbornly refused to use the potty until I was nearly 4 years old. My mom went to the pediatrician in tears when I was about 3-1/2, and he assured her that he had never sent an otherwise healthy child to kindergarten in diapers. And when I decided I was ready, I simply began peeing in the potty on my own. So it’s not all that much of a surprise that my son is still in diapers at age nearly 3-1/2. But I have the added issue that he’s the size of a 6-year-old, and then to add insult to injury, he started showing interest in peeing in the potty at around age 18 months, so he’s been taunting me for close to 2 years now.

I’ve read books, websites, and online advice columns looking for ideas. We’ve watched potty videos, read potty books, and talked about using the potty until I’m blue in the face. I’ve tried rewarding him with M&Ms, letting him pee on Cheerios, giving him special stickers, and I’ve even offered to buy him any balloon he wanted. I’ve tried setting a timer and making him try to go every 30 minutes. I’ve tried to get him excited about wearing big boy underpants. I’ve let him run around naked. I’ve reminded him with every round of diaper rash that his bottom won’t get sore if he learns to use the potty every time. He either wasn’t ready, or he wasn’t interested, or both. But I think that, finally, he’s ready in every way.

Some time ago, I bought him a few pairs of “big boy underpants,” intending to offer them as an incentive. For the longest time, he frankly didn’t care. But when I offered them again recently, he got kind of excited. So for the past few evenings, he’s put on big boy underpants from suppertime until bedtime (usually a “poop-free” zone) for practice. But today, he’s wearing big boy underpants all day long for the very first time.

It’s been an adventure.

Part of the incentive was that we could go to the store so he could pick out some new big boy underpants. So this morning, as soon as he got up, he put on his big boy underpants and a pair of elastic-waist pants (snaps and zippers take too long when it’s urgent), and we started Day 1 of The Underpants Project. After breakfast, he peed in the potty right before we went to the store for our first outing sans diapers. Luckily, TJ Maxx is less than 10 minutes from our house, so I was pretty sure he could make it there and back without needing a potty stop. He had informed me that he wanted lightning bolt and superhero underpants, so he very quickly picked out one pack of Superman/Batman/Green Lantern underpants and another with Buzz Lightyear, Lightning McQueen (close enough to lightning bolts, I guess), and Sully from “Monsters, Inc.” We were about to hop back in the car when he remembered that Dunkin Donuts was in the same plaza and begged for a donut. I figured it was a little added reward for both of us, and off to Dunk’s we went. Before we left, I asked if he needed to use the potty and he declined, so into the car we climbed and headed for home.

Not two minutes later, he announced that he had to pee. I asked if he could hold it for 5 minutes until we got home and he confidently announced that he could not. So I pulled over on a quiet, non-residential side street, all the while explaining that although we don’t pee outside or in public unless it’s an emergency, sometimes in an emergency it’s OK to find someplace where other people aren’t around and pee on the ground, especially if you’re a boy. I pulled over, raced around to unfasten his seatbelt, pulled down his pants for him, and waited while he peed. Or, I should say, while he tried to pee. Apparently, it was not as much of an emergency as he thought. Being the dutiful mother, I reassured him that it’s better to try to pee when it turns out you don’t have to go than to try and hold it and find out you can’t, and I thanked him for telling me he had to go.

When we got home, I encouraged him to try peeing again before we went outside to play, but he informed me that he didn’t have to go. So naturally, not five minutes later he informed me that his pants were wet and that he was poopy. Sigh.

I cleaned him up, changed his clothes, and exacted a promise that he would not pee or poop in his underpants again, and helped him put on his new Buzz Lightyear underpants. So far, he has run in to use the potty of his own volition several times, and his new underpants have stayed dry. So we’ll keep trying. Like my childhood pediatrician said, I’m sure he’ll catch on sometime before he starts kindergarten…

 

Bathroom Bribery

Once upon a time (or, more accurately, twice upon a time), I gave birth to a couple of babies. Which means that at some point after that, I had to start potty training those babies. And for child #1, that day has come.

That day has been a long time coming, truth be told. My son was only about 18 months old the first time he peed in the potty – at his own request. I was thrilled to death, and pictured my amazingly advanced child potty-training himself by his second birthday.

Ha.

He’ll be three years old in a few short months, and although he will willingly pee in the potty right before tubby time and even asks to use the bathroom every time we’re at Costco (I don’t see the allure of the public bathrooms at Costco, but apparently he does), but he has shown very few indications of being able to sense when he needs to pee or of being bothered by a wet or dirty diaper. So I had resigned myself to the fact that he, like me (as my mother often reminded me), was simply too busy and uninterested to be potty-trained until he was closer to age 4 than to age 3.

But just this week, he’s started to show more interest and willingness in using the potty, so yesterday I went with my gut and we started potty training in earnest. He loves pushing the buttons on the kitchen timer, so I brought it down to the playroom, set it for 30 minutes, and let him push the “Start” button. I explained that every time it beeped, he could turn it off, and then he could pee in the potty, and each time he did, he’d get some kind of a treat.

I am not above bribery.

I am also aware that there are many different things that motivate a child, so I made a mental list of a bunch of different bribes – er, motivators – to encourage him to use the potty. The most obvious is, of course, sweets. Like most children, my son has a sweet tooth, and like most parents, my husband and I allow him sweets sparingly. So dangling the figurative carrot in the form of a mini cupcake, half a brownie, or a single Rolo candy was my first line of attack. But I realized that dealing with a small, already energetic child who had been eating candy and sweets every half hour all day long was not necessarily an improvement over changing diapers all day, so I tried to mix it up. He’s always begging for juice boxes (mostly because he like to put in the straw by himself), so that became one of his rewards. He hates wearing pants, so another reward was getting to play outside without having to put on pants. Watching YouTube videos on my computer is another treat he begs for on a regular basis, so the offer of getting to watch a few silo demolitions or a clip from Cars 2 dubbed in Russian (? we stumbled across it by accident once and for some reason it became one of his favorites) was added to the treat list.

Other than a few token protests here and there, he was surprisingly willing to go “do a try” periodically through the day. At the end of the day, we’d only gone through two diapers – and the only reason I had to change one was that he’d peed in his sleep during nap time.

So we’re on to day 2 of “motivational training.” If all goes well, by my son’s third birthday, bathroom bribery will be a thing of the past.

At least until child #2 is ready to be “motivated.”