Potty Training…Sigh!

(Dad, since you don’t like posts about bodily functions, just don’t read this post.)

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I swore I would never do it again.  NEVER!  I was serious, too.

I LOATHE potty training.  H-A-T-E…HATE it!  It makes me absolutely crazy, and I admit I am a total FAILURE at potty training!

Child #1:  We did the intense, don’t leave the house for 3 days, pump your kid full of juice and treats, Nazi potty training.  He is so smart, and he got it immediately.  I just couldn’t get the kid to go in the toilet!  He would dance and cross his legs, and jump up and down, as he was claiming that he didn’t need to “tee-tee” – which of course led to wet pants.  This smart child wet his pants almost EVERY.SINGLE.DAY for 2 1/2 years.  That’s TWO AND A HALF YEARS!  Do you know what that did to me?

I loved all the advice I received regarding this issue, too.

• “He just can’t tell when he really needs to go.” Really?!? I would think the jumping up and down and grabbing his pants would be a pretty good indication that he KNOWS he needs to go, but he would rather not stop playing basketball to relieve himself.
• “You tried to train him too early.  He just wasn’t ready.” MmHmm.  That’s right.  This child who can do multiplication at age 5 can’t find his way to the toilet.  He wet his pants DAILY until he was a few weeks from FIVE years old!
• “Just let him wear wet pants.  He’ll see how nasty that is, and he’ll stop.” Well, I tried to do that, but my child was allergic to his own urine, of course, so he broke out in a rash that made him itch until he bled.  Backfire!
• “When he’s in school, he’ll be embarrassed and he’ll stop.” If you could see his CLASS picture from his 4-year old mother’s day out program, you could see the large wet circle on his pants.   I did not purchase the picture, but I wish I had.  I had to send a change of clothes every day!
• “Well, my child just picked it up real quickly.  I just told them to go on the potty and they never really had accidents.” First of all, if you’re over the age of 50, you have probably forgotten, so please keep your opinions to yourself.  If you only have one perfectly compliant, easy child, please keep your advice to yourself.  If you have 4 children and they all did it amazingly well, go away!  I don’t understand you.

See that pretty red swimsuit in the picture below?  Right after this picture was taken he poo-pooed all inside that brand new mesh-lined swimsuit.  And as if I wasn’t frustrated enough, a mom that I don’t know came to tell me, “Ma’am, your son left his remnants all over that toy over there.”  Good times!

Preston is now 7, and he doesn’t wet his pants anymore, however I have pulled him off the baseball field in the middle of MANY games to take him to the restroom.  The boy still doesn’t want to stop playing.

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Then there was Child #2:  Where do I start?  I could start here if you have the need to VOMIT today.  This HORRIBLE story pretty much sums up my hate-hate relationship with public restrooms!

Or it makes me I think of being at Target with a buggy full of stuff, and an infant strapped to my chest in a sling, a crazy 5-year old, and a 2-year old who doesn’t need to use the restroom until we’re CLEAR across the store from the bathrooms.  Do you know how fun it is to juggle a child on the toilet and try not to dump the “slinged” baby into the toilet?  A challenge, my friends.  And in case you don’t know, girls are much harder in public restrooms than boys.

Just when I thought LK was getting the potty training thing, she started poo-pooing everywhere!  Every time we went swimming, she pooped in the pool…other people’s pools…It was BAD!

She also went on a playground at the park, on the floor of our house, and in a store.  Then we went to a party where Brad’s clients had invited their family and friends to come see their new house.  They had turned their dining room into a playroom, and they had a large tube toy the kids could crawl through.  I suddenly smelled something NASTY, and started looking for Lilly Katherine.  My child had poo-pooed inside that tube, and it was EVERYWHERE!  It was all over her, all over the toy, and it was HORRIBLE smelling.  Brad and I were working together (frantically) to clean it up when a guy that doesn’t have kids yelled, “Party foul!”  We did the walk of shame to our car, with red faces, holding our naked, stinky child straight out in the air.

Then comes Child #3: I wasn’t going to potty train.  I swore I wasn’t.  I knew she wouldn’t go to college wearing diapers, and being the third child, I just wasn’t concerned about it.  Diapers are easier.  AnnaLeigh has been begging for MONTHS to go on the potty, and my response was always, “Nope.  Mama’s not ready yet.”  I’m sure some of you see that as mean, but I needed to be ready and I wasn’t.  Not to mention the fact that she can’t pull her pants up or down by herself and she’s so stinkin’ small she can’t get on the toilet by herself.

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I caved.

I finally decided that she was ready when LK had almost potty trained her without me.

I bought her some big girl panties.

I pumped her up.

She went on the potty.

SHE DID GREAT!

NO ACCIDENTS!  We went almost 3 weeks with not a single accident.  She was my HERO!  I didn’t understand how she could be so easy, but she has always been more compliant.  I was so proud of her, and I finally understood why some people were so critical of me with P and LK.  They just had an easy one and didn’t understand that ALL CHILDREN ARE DIFFERENT!

(She’s telling her daddy and the whole gym that she tee-teed on the potty…so proud!)

She did so well.

Then we went to Cabo.

She REGRESSED.  RE-GRESSED!

She had FOUR accidents yesterday.  I don’t understand why, but I’m SURE it’s going to be the death of me!  It just reminds me again that I am not the kind of mom that’s cut out to potty train!  I’m just not.  In fact, I’ve said this for years, and I’m more convinced than ever that HELL is a horrible place where there is an endless line of 2-year old devils waiting to be potty trained…Forever!

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Now, with all that drama, I completely know that this is so stinkin’ minuscule in the grand scheme of things.  I know there are just a few people on earth with worse problems than a little poo!  I’m just venting and being dramatic, because I’m a mom and this is what I’m dealing with, and this is my blog, and I wanted to vent, and if you’re still reading at this point, bless your heart! :)

I should just thank the Lord that all my babies are physically and mentally able to be potty trained.  Puts in into perspective.  For now, today is a new day.  Sticker charts always seem to motivate…right?!?

(I know the prize doesn’t seem like anything fancy to you, but that “Brand New Cup” is a HUGE treat to my little Pinky!)

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