I tried to potty train P in January (he was 1 month shy of 3 years old), but he had other plans.
This is his first time in underwear. His face says it all.
I even had him throw away his last diaper.
I even tried putting Thomas the Train undies on him, thinking he'd love them because he loves Thomas. Nope. No way Jose. Still wasn't having it.
I spent literally all day trying to get him to go tee tee in the toilet, but he would bawl his eyes out every time we'd get in the bathroom. By 5:00 I decided that wasn't worth it and wasn't how it should go. I felt very defeated that day. I did everything I did when I potty trained C a year and a half earlier, but P just wasn't having it. He simply wasn't ready. I decided to take a break and try again later...like, months later.
So 6 weeks later was Spring Break, and I thought this would be the perfect time to try potty training again. It was so spur of the moment. It popped in my head Sunday evening at dinner, and I told T that I was going to give it a shot again starting in the morning. I cancelled everything we had scheduled for the next few days, so we
could focus solely on getting this little boy to go tee tee in the
toilet. And guess what. He did it! That boy took to the toilet like a fish to water. He was finally ready! Woo hoo!
For the first couple weeks though, he did have some trouble realizing that it wasn't exactly acceptable for him to drop his pants anytime, anywhere.
If he was in the backyard playing and he didn't want to come in, he'd run to the back fence and go. The only reason I'd know that's what he was doing was because I would see a bare bottom staring at me.
He got to be so fast at pulling his pants down that I was caught off guard by his exhibitionist ways at first...
Next to the park at the entrance to our neighborhood? Check.
The front yard? Check. Twice.
The parking lot between cars when I turned for half a sec to grab his brother's hand? Check.
The outlet mall next to the firetruck you put a quarter in to ride? Half a check--I grabbed him just as he was looking down at it to aim.
The only problem (and remains) is that he refuses to poo poo on the toilet. He still runs and hides. Unfortunately for him, I know his m-o: run and hide behind the couch or run, slam his bedroom door, and squat next to the bed. Unfortunately for me, he's super hard headed and I can't break him of it.
This boy has had some doozies for #2. One time the boys were playing in the sprinkler on the driveway, and C said to me, "Mommy, there's poop over there," as he pointed to something brown on the driveway. I replied, "No, that's just a rock." I decided to take a closer look, and sure enough, that was a ball of poop. And it wasn't the lone survivor in that mine field of little boy feet trampling all over the driveway as they jumped through the sprinkler. I was shocked to see that neither of them had stepped on one yet. You know how someone looks when they walk their dog and they stop, squat down, and with their hand in a plastic bag, pick up the dog's poop? That was me. But we don't have a dog.
Another time, I saw him walking funny across the living room. That's a universal sign, people. If your kid looks like they just got off a horse and there's not a horse in sight, you know they just took care of business behind a couch. I scooped him up as fast as I could jump over four Spider-Man figures, a sippy cup, and a train track and ran to the bathroom with him in my arms. "Yes! I got him in the bathroom without any of this falling out of his underwear in the living room," I thought to myself as I was cleaning him in the bathroom. I spoke too soon. No sooner did I step foot out of the bathroom, I saw a trail...yes, literally a trail...of poo poo balls on the path I had run from the living room. It was just like someone who would leave cookies on the ground to keep from getting lost in the woods, except this wasn't a delicious snack. It was like a crime scene that spanned the length of 3 rooms. And to top it all off, just when I thought I had picked up all of his DNA, I kicked something that went flying across the room. I'm sure you can guess what it was. Well the bright side was that it was hard and stuck together, I guess.
And here's another for ya. P's speech teacher brought him out to me in the waiting room and told me she thought he needed to poo poo.
HER: "He said, 'Go poo poo' . Does that mean he needs to go?"
ME: "Yes, it probably does. But he won't go here."
HER: "Why? Because it's not his toilet at home?"
ME: "No. Because it's a toilet. And he refuses to actually do that on the toilet at all."
At this point, he ran away and was shimmying his way under a chair. I grabbed his feet and pulled his little body out before he could get all the way under the chair. It was too late though. He had already taken care of business. As I thought about taking him in the bathroom to change him and then sending him back in with her to finish his session, I noticed that his butt started growing. The bulge in the back of his pants was literally getting bigger and bigger. I called it a day then and there, and we quickly said our goodbyes as his teacher, the receptionist, and the other moms in the waiting room were rolling in laughter.
Look, I am so thankful that he does it in his underwear and doesn't strip before squatting in my house somewhere, but I'm over cleaning that stuff out of his underwear. I know from experience that this whole poop issue could take a while to resolve, but I'm still hoping it will on the sooner rather than later side.
And here's another for ya. P's speech teacher brought him out to me in the waiting room and told me she thought he needed to poo poo.
HER: "He said, 'Go poo poo' . Does that mean he needs to go?"
ME: "Yes, it probably does. But he won't go here."
HER: "Why? Because it's not his toilet at home?"
ME: "No. Because it's a toilet. And he refuses to actually do that on the toilet at all."
At this point, he ran away and was shimmying his way under a chair. I grabbed his feet and pulled his little body out before he could get all the way under the chair. It was too late though. He had already taken care of business. As I thought about taking him in the bathroom to change him and then sending him back in with her to finish his session, I noticed that his butt started growing. The bulge in the back of his pants was literally getting bigger and bigger. I called it a day then and there, and we quickly said our goodbyes as his teacher, the receptionist, and the other moms in the waiting room were rolling in laughter.
Look, I am so thankful that he does it in his underwear and doesn't strip before squatting in my house somewhere, but I'm over cleaning that stuff out of his underwear. I know from experience that this whole poop issue could take a while to resolve, but I'm still hoping it will on the sooner rather than later side.
So please pray for us. For me. For P to start doing his business on the toilet before school starts back in August. Otherwise, I think I'm gonna be stocking up on gallon size baggies for his teacher.
