The Small Family     

Well, since our life this week has been 95% potty training, and I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath for an update (ha!), I thought I’d provide a little snippet of what I like to call “The Potty Diaries.” (Theo will shoot me if he reads this when he’s a teenager, I have no doubt! He will also shoot me for the requisite potty shot in this week’s album, but it had to be done.) So here goes…

Day 1: Monday

Theo wakes up bright and early at 6am. We keep him in his diaper for breakfast, then remove it and let him roam naked, after sitting on the potty for a few minutes. He’s happy with this, as he never minds naked time--ha! Besides, we’ve been telling him for days that soon he won’t be wearing his diapers anymore, except at bedtime and naptime. We place the potty in the living room for easy access, and Chris sits him on it a couple times. After an hour or so, the need apparently arises, and Theo begins to panic a bit. I’m upstairs working, so Chris tries to get him to sit on the potty. He does, but doesn’t do anything. Chris steals upstairs for a minute to get something, and voila--Theo poops on the floor in the living room. At first he’s a bit panicked, but when Chris calmly says, “Oh, you pooped. Poopoo goes in the potty,” Theo calms right down. Shortly thereafter, he pees while sitting on a chair at the kitchen table, coloring. Again, panic…until Chris calmly says, “Theo, peepee goes in the potty” and cleans up the mess. (This is one of the “rules” of this method of potty training--there is no scolding, only a calm reminder that elimination is done in the potty.) Theo calms down, and all is well.

Chris begins his workday at 9, so I take over. Theo roams around naked all day (with training pants put on while he’s eating, since sitting naked in a high chair would be quite uncomfortable!), and there are no more accidents. I sit him on the potty numerous times, and we have success on two occasions. Other than that, he holds it. It seems he has quickly learned that he does not want to go on the floor or in his training pants, and he’s quite capable of holding it. Wow, that was faster than I expected. And as an added bonus, the weary soldier took a three-hour nap!

Final score: Two misses and two hits. 50% success¾impressive for the first day!

Day 2: Tuesday

Theo wakes at a lovely 7am, and Chris does his usual two-hour morning stint. This time, the diaper comes off right as Theo gets up, and he wears training pants for breakfast (and goes commando immediately thereafter). He remains dry and shortly thereafter begins letting Chris know he needs to go. Chris sits him on the potty in the living room, and between the two of us, we do everything in our power to get the little guy to relax and go. It takes an hour, but he finally relieves himself of a decent amount of what’s in his bladder, and there is much merrymaking.

I seize the opportunity (because by now it’s 9am and my turn to take over) to get a shower, taking Theo with me in the bathroom, with a reminder that “If you need to go potty, tell Mama right away, and I’ll help you.” The potty is right outside the shower, and Theo is wandering around our room.

Halfway through my shower, I hear the inevitable, “All done! Poopoo! All done!” and a bit of hysteria. I leap out of the shower to see Theo standing next to my bed, doing the potty dance and repeating, “Poopoo! Poopoo!” I get him over to the potty and try to help him sit down, but he’s kicking and thrashing in his nervousness. But by some twist of fate, 90% of the poop that he makes while thrashing around lands in the potty (the other half he steps in, and then dances all over my bathroom floor). So I treat it as success and make a big fuss over it¾and Theo is rewarded with a Cookie Monster Band-Aid. (That’s what he wanted instead of a sticker.) I do find a wet spot by my bed, so apparently the other half of his bladder emptied, but no matter…we’ve still got more successes than accidents this morning. I take him outside to roam the yard in just a shirt (putting on quite a show for our neighbors, I’m sure¾since some of them can see into our yard from their second story), and we play for almost two hours, with two hard-won potty successes while we’re out there.

The afternoon is a bit less successful. I go to the gym while Chris feeds Theo dinner, and Theo has two accidents, though one is right NEXT to the potty, so that’s pretty close!

It seems Theo has quickly learned to hold his elimination until he’s in the appropriate place…the challenge is that he doesn’t feel comfortable going in the potty yet, so he sits on it quite nicely until the elimination is imminent¾and then tries to leap off it in terror. Okay, next step: Getting him comfortable with using the potty. The “don’t pee everywhere when you’re diaper is off” part of the process was surprisingly easy.

Final score: Four hits, three misses. Not bad for Day 2!

Day 3: Wednesday

Today didn’t start off positively. Theo held his urine for almost four hours to avoid using the potty, and when he finally couldn’t hold it anymore, he cried and cried. I felt horrible, wondering if I was being cruel to him by refusing to put him back in a diaper. But one thing about this method is that if you go back and forth between diapers and no diapers (other than for naps/bedtime), it’s supposedly quite confusing for the child, and it pretty much negates what progress you’ve made. So, I tried everything in my bag of tricks to calm him down, but he was just really upset. I finally told him, “We don’t wear diapers anymore, so you can either peepee on the potty or on the floor. It’s your choice. If you go on the potty, you’ll get a sticker. If you need to go on the floor, you won’t get a sticker.” He peed on the floor. And that was fine¾I cleaned it calmly and said, “Peepee goes in the potty. Next time we’ll try for the potty.” And then I emailed one of my friends who used this method with her son (who in some ways reminds me of Theo temperament-wise) and said, “Am I being cruel?” No, she assured me, this anxiety about actually making something in the potty is very common. Chin up!

Theo and I played for another couple hours, and then it was naptime. He woke up with a new attitude about the whole thing and peed in the potty FOUR times between waking from his nap and going to bed¾with NO further accidents! Lots of hugs, lots of praise, and stickers, stickers, stickers. I think we all felt a lot better after that!

Day 4: Thursday

Theo achieved potty-training rock-star status! Not a single accident today--NOT ONE! He peed in the potty seven times and pooped twice, with far, far less anxiety than the day before. He still gets a little nervous right when it starts to come out, but then he settles down and is so proud of himself for doing it! Twice he even took himself to the potty when he had to go! Suddenly, the trials of Wednesday morning all seem worth it.

Day 5: Friday

Theo woke at 5:45--an hour earlier than normal--because he had to go right now!!! Although Chris and I had worked until 1:00 a.m. the night before and thus were very tired, we were elated that he woke up, realized he had to go, and called to us. And an hour or so later, while I was working upstairs and Chris was dozing on the couch in the living room while Theo watched an episode of Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (a new treat brought out to try to relax him while sitting on the potty), Chris was awoken by a happy little voice saying, “All done!” as Theo stood up from a potty full of pee. Woohoo! By naptime, Theo had seven hits under his belt (pee and poop), and only one accident (out in the yard--he ran for the door to go in to go potty, but he didn’t quite make it). Post-nap was equally successful, and we ended the day with 11 hits and only that one accident.

Day 6: Saturday

Well, my son never ceases to amaze me! He woke up at 5:50 to let us know he needed to go potty…and his diaper was nearly dry! I suspect he may have gone a tiny bit in this sleep at some point, but usually when he wakes up his diaper is heavy and totally soaked, and this diaper felt totally dry, with only a tiny bit of the heaviness you get when a diaper has been wet. We are not expecting nighttime dryness for a long time (really, I was thinking by age 4 would be a success on that one), so we were really surprised.

Funny thing is, I told Theo when I put him to bed, “You have a diaper on because it’s really hard to get to the potty when you’re sleeping. So if you go in your diaper while you sleep, that’s okay!” But I guess, subconsciously, he must’ve wanted to stay dry. Go figure….

We’ve also noticed that Theo has relaxed considerably while going on the potty. He seems to have no further anxiety about urinating in it--when he needs to go, he just calmly sits down and goes and then announces, "Peepee, all done!" and attempts to take the potty insert into the bathroom to empty it for us. Defecating can cause a wee bit more anxiety, but not a lot--he’s actually gotten quite calm about it. Yay Theo!

Okay, diary over, and on to some regular blog chitchat. Although much of our lives was consumed by potty training this week, there are actually a few other things of note. One is just an amusing observation. Anyone out there familiar with the If You Give a Mouse a Cookie series of books? My Mom’s cousin got Theo a really beautiful collection book from that series some time back--it has four of the stories, plus some sheet music for the songs and some recipes and activity ideas. Until recently, Theo’s attention span for long books was pretty much nonexistent, and the Mouse books are a little longer than the average “baby” books. But now Theo’s attention span is much longer, and he has discovered the Mouse book and wants me to read it over and over and over. They’re really cute stories, and I love the illustrations, but what I find funny/neat about this is that the mouse reminds me so much of Theo! I swear that’s why he likes them so much--the mouse is just like him! In the story If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, the mouse runs his poor owner/friend ragged asking for item after item after item. “If you give a mouse a cookie, he’ll want a glass of milk. If you give him a glass of milk, he’ll ask for a straw to drink it. After he drinks his milk, he’ll want to look in a mirror to see whether he has a milk moustache. When you take him to the bathroom to look in the mirror, he’ll realize that his hair needs a trim, and he’ll ask you for a pair of scissors….” I’m paraphrasing, but that’s basically how the story goes--the little mouse bounces from activity to activity to activity with boundless energy, while the little boy in the story follows him all over, cleaning up his mess and getting him whatever items he’s asking for. And so, I realized that a day in the life of this mouse is like a day in the life of Theo! And much like Theo, the mouse is so sweet that you can’t help but love him, even when he’s running his owner ragged with all his requests. :-)  (Side note: My friend Amber brought Theo a present when she came over on Saturday, and it just happened to be a Mouse book and a stuffed animal of the titular mouse! I hadn’t even told her he liked those books--she must be psychic! Theo was hugging the mouse Sunday morning and dragging him all over. Awwwww….)

The other amusing (but really not!) part of the week was my trip to the chiropractor. I’ve been going for a few months now, and I really feel so much better--no more sore back, and the pain in my neck (no, it is not named “Theo”--ha!) is much improved as well. Usually I mostly only require adjustment in my upper back and neck, but this week the chiropractor kept working on my lower back, too. I asked her why, and she said, “Your hips are all out of alignment.” I thought for a moment and then realized something: I’ve/we’ve been going to the gym a lot, and I’ve been using the elliptical machine. And I love it--it’s a great workout--but one of my legs keeps getting sore while I do it. So I talked to the chiropractor about this, and her assessment was that because of the torsion problems I have (which I know I’ve mentioned a couple times in past blogs), it’s pretty much impossible for me to hold my legs in the correct position while working out on the elliptical machine--and by trying to keep them in that position, I’m throwing my hips out of whack and causing the pain in my leg. So really, this isn’t funny and is actually kind of a bummer, but I can’t help but laugh when I think, “Hmm. I’m going to the gym to improve my overall physical health…and in doing so, I’m messing up my hips!” Lovely, eh?! Anyway, my chiropractor is a big fan of the elliptical machine because it’s a good full-body workout and very easy on the joints, so she has a few suggestions for things I might try to see whether they’ll help the problem. Fingers crossed…

Good lord, I’m only 36. I sound like an old lady here: “My back! My hip!” Just imagine all the good stuff I’ll be able to blog about in another 40 years or so. ;-)

The non-potty parts of our week also included a BBQ/game night at our house on Saturday. A bunch of our friends came over for burgers, hot dogs, and homemade ice cream. Didn’t end up getting around to many games, but why bother with games when you have excitement like Theo pooping on the living-room floor right in front of everyone eating dinner?! (You didn’t really think I could keep potty out of this discussion, did you?) In fairness to Theo, there was a lot of chaos around him, and he tried to make it to the potty--just wasn’t quite successful. He actually made it there but couldn't get his pants off fast enough. (We put shorts on him with no diaper, just so he wasn't flashing everyone.) But that was his only accident of the evening, so I think he did super! (And really, could the timing/location have been any more amusing?!)

Sunday my Mom came over to watch Theo for a couple hours so Chris and I could go to the movies. Really, just the two-hour break from all things potty was wonderful! We did enjoy the movie, though, too--Knight and Day with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. I actually really don’t like Tom Cruise, but I have to admit he was very good in the movie, and we both enjoyed it.

And so ends our week. My thoughts on this potty-training method? Very favorable, and Chris has said the same thing. First of all, the amount of laundry we do has decreased drastically, since we're not washing cloth diapers every day. (He hasn't had a diaper on since Sunday, other than a disposable for his nap and a disposable for bedtime. The cloth ones don't hold enough liquid for naptime/bedtime, so we use disposable for those times.) But more importantly, we both can’t believe how well Theo adapted to it and how truly awesome he is doing! Tomorrow starts our trips out of the house to float lessons, so that will be an interesting challenge. It’s a half-hour drive to/from the lesson, and he tends to go potty a lot after being in the pool. So I’ll put him on the potty before we leave the pool, but I know he’s likely to have to go on the drive home, too. I’m expecting a lot of accidents, but he may surprise me. He certainly favorably surprised us with how well this method worked for him. I know it’s not uncommon for young children to have lots of potty-training setbacks, but we’re both very, very optimistic about this. I think we can safely say that our son is a potty-training rock star!