Who knew it was a three-way fight?
My special toddler recently bathed in the potty limelight woke up this morning, wide awake and tummy grumbling, at 5:00. It was inconceivable. He ate a huge dinner of French toast and drank lots of milk the night before. He can be counted on to not make a peep most nights until at least 6:30 am, and usually 7 or 7:30. This 5 am hoohah belongs to his little insomniac brother. Fortunately, Isaac is also a freak and, after serving him some milky in bed, I convinced him that he needed to stay put and that he couldn't get up until it was light outside. He did just that, laying wide awake and being a quiet little monkey and occasionally kicking his sheets around, for A WHOLE HOUR, until Jacob screamed to schedule the real start of the day. Bless that Isaac that he doesn't think to disobey his tired Mama.
After such a rough start, I began to question my ability to handle another day of chasing his bare tush around and cleaning up his pee. But two cups of coffee later, I ripped his britches off and it was Nekked Day: The Sequel. "I a nekked boy!" the toddler screamed, running with glee throughout the house, stopping only briefly to pee on the living room floor.
I took it a little easier today, with slightly less harassment. Instead of asking him every 5 minutes if he had to go, I tended to wait until I actually saw him doing it. At one point, we were playing in his room and he started to pee. I startled him, loudly saying "STOP!" and he did. I led him to the bathroom. "Isaac, do you want to do that on the potty?" "NOOOOOO," he whined, and started doing the peepee dance. Great. Boy still doesn't want to use the potty. How does one potty train without the potty?
And then potty angels broke through the heavens above and spoke to me in song to give me the most fantastic idea yet. I looked around the bathroom and saw the bowl of yesterday, the one in which I placed toys in lukewarm water for him to play with while he sat on his Isaac-potty in vain.
"Isaac! Would you like to try to pee in that bowl?" "Yeah!" he said. "I pee in the bowl!"
I threw its contents into the sink and set it on the floor in front of him. The most super-cute thing I've ever seen happened next. Nekked-boy walked up and very purposefully straddled the bowl and, bending his knees ever so slightly, stood above it and let loose a gigantic pee waterfall straight into the middle, not spilling a drop on the floor. "Mommy! I peeing! I making a circle!" he said, referring to the circular base of the bowl which was now being filled in with pee.
When he was done, we had a serious little party. There was whooping. There was hollering. There was much ado made about dumping the pee in the potty, which he insisted on doing himself, and flushing, too, because that's what we do when pee goes in the potty. There were two Tootsie Rolls to be consumed. We even called Dada, who was in the middle of his field work in West-by-god-Virginia and, again because the potty angels were looking out for us, had plenty of signal on his cell phone to listen to his firstborn recount firsthand his very first successful potty adventure. Dada told me that us calling him was the best reason thing that had ever happened to his cell phone.
So the score stands: Isaac 1, Mommy 1, Potty 0.
Of course that was our only success of the day. Once the bowl had been so marked, Isaac was not in the least bit interested in using it again. I hung some IKEA lights on the wall in Jacob's room, leaving Isaac unattended in his own room long enough for him to make a large, neat pile of stinky poo next to his bed. Somewhere during the 10 minutes I took to make dinner, leaving Isaac with the order that he was to watch Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving while sitting on his potty, he got up and peed right next to his potty and then sat back down on it. Clearly the solution is that I shouldn't leave his side, but that's just not going to happen. You can already start to feel sorry for poor Jake, who is getting neglected during Potty Boot Camp (not that he seems to mind -- I will give it to my darling secondborn that, as long as the Mama is within 3 feet of him, he is wonderfully capable of entertaining himself). One thing I can say is that so far Isaac seems to enjoy making his messes on the hardwood floors and not on the rugs, which is lovely. Well, lovelier than the reverse.
I do pay attention, though. The potty adventure is teaching me a lot about his excretory habits that before were quite literally under wraps. I am amazed the capacity and steel-trap-edness of his bladder. The boy-child can take in massive amounts of fluids and not pee for literally hours. At one point when I was trying to force the issue, I let him climb up on the big-people potty so he could reach the bathroom sink and pour himself as many glasses of water as he liked. I am not joking when I say he probably drank 10 cups of water, and then proceeded to hold all that water in for an hour, and then for another 3-1/2 hours through his nap, to wake up dry. I with my iron bladder can't even do that. He must be part camel.
After such a rough start, I began to question my ability to handle another day of chasing his bare tush around and cleaning up his pee. But two cups of coffee later, I ripped his britches off and it was Nekked Day: The Sequel. "I a nekked boy!" the toddler screamed, running with glee throughout the house, stopping only briefly to pee on the living room floor.
I took it a little easier today, with slightly less harassment. Instead of asking him every 5 minutes if he had to go, I tended to wait until I actually saw him doing it. At one point, we were playing in his room and he started to pee. I startled him, loudly saying "STOP!" and he did. I led him to the bathroom. "Isaac, do you want to do that on the potty?" "NOOOOOO," he whined, and started doing the peepee dance. Great. Boy still doesn't want to use the potty. How does one potty train without the potty?
And then potty angels broke through the heavens above and spoke to me in song to give me the most fantastic idea yet. I looked around the bathroom and saw the bowl of yesterday, the one in which I placed toys in lukewarm water for him to play with while he sat on his Isaac-potty in vain.
"Isaac! Would you like to try to pee in that bowl?" "Yeah!" he said. "I pee in the bowl!"
I threw its contents into the sink and set it on the floor in front of him. The most super-cute thing I've ever seen happened next. Nekked-boy walked up and very purposefully straddled the bowl and, bending his knees ever so slightly, stood above it and let loose a gigantic pee waterfall straight into the middle, not spilling a drop on the floor. "Mommy! I peeing! I making a circle!" he said, referring to the circular base of the bowl which was now being filled in with pee.
When he was done, we had a serious little party. There was whooping. There was hollering. There was much ado made about dumping the pee in the potty, which he insisted on doing himself, and flushing, too, because that's what we do when pee goes in the potty. There were two Tootsie Rolls to be consumed. We even called Dada, who was in the middle of his field work in West-by-god-Virginia and, again because the potty angels were looking out for us, had plenty of signal on his cell phone to listen to his firstborn recount firsthand his very first successful potty adventure. Dada told me that us calling him was the best reason thing that had ever happened to his cell phone.
So the score stands: Isaac 1, Mommy 1, Potty 0.
Of course that was our only success of the day. Once the bowl had been so marked, Isaac was not in the least bit interested in using it again. I hung some IKEA lights on the wall in Jacob's room, leaving Isaac unattended in his own room long enough for him to make a large, neat pile of stinky poo next to his bed. Somewhere during the 10 minutes I took to make dinner, leaving Isaac with the order that he was to watch Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving while sitting on his potty, he got up and peed right next to his potty and then sat back down on it. Clearly the solution is that I shouldn't leave his side, but that's just not going to happen. You can already start to feel sorry for poor Jake, who is getting neglected during Potty Boot Camp (not that he seems to mind -- I will give it to my darling secondborn that, as long as the Mama is within 3 feet of him, he is wonderfully capable of entertaining himself). One thing I can say is that so far Isaac seems to enjoy making his messes on the hardwood floors and not on the rugs, which is lovely. Well, lovelier than the reverse.
I do pay attention, though. The potty adventure is teaching me a lot about his excretory habits that before were quite literally under wraps. I am amazed the capacity and steel-trap-edness of his bladder. The boy-child can take in massive amounts of fluids and not pee for literally hours. At one point when I was trying to force the issue, I let him climb up on the big-people potty so he could reach the bathroom sink and pour himself as many glasses of water as he liked. I am not joking when I say he probably drank 10 cups of water, and then proceeded to hold all that water in for an hour, and then for another 3-1/2 hours through his nap, to wake up dry. I with my iron bladder can't even do that. He must be part camel.
posted by Claire at 9:56 PM
2 Comments:
Oh my. This sounds so much like Beaux....
I designated this weekend as potty training as I will have three days at home with Beaux. I am going with John Rosemonds three days of nakedness to pee. Except we will have guests on Saturday so we may just be chaning lots of pants.
wow! i haven't even thought about how or when we are going to start any potty training!
i can't wait to hear how everything is going!
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