Finding the Funny in between the Failures
Dear fellow Potty Trainer,
I know that you hear poop stories enough from your kids. And some of you may be thinking "I can't handle this crap right now!" But isn't failure a lot easier to take when we can laugh at it and move on? With my first kid, I had a great potty training experience! It took some time, some patience, some stickers and candy and rewards, like normal! But it was mostly a successful adventure with the random little accident here and there. With my second, life got a lot more complicated. Not because he couldn't learn, but because he did not want me to teach him to do anything.
The first time I trained him was not hard, he seemed self taught - held it when he had to, let it go when he needed to. Bedtime was a breeze for him to hold it until morning. So I knew that he could do it. And for awhile he was perfect at it. Then, when I became a stay at home mom when he was 4, suddenly it was like he needed attention and back tracked or something. It seemed like he wanted to have an accident during the day at the most inconvenient times purposely. When we were grocery shopping or when we were out to dinner, I would make him try to go potty right when we entered the store or restaurant and he usually stood in front of the potty as if he was trying. But he frequently "didn't have to go". He held it until we were at the back of the store. We had to race back to the potty! Then sometimes one or both of my boys would go pee and then 5 minutes later had to poop and we had to go back to the bathroom in a record breaking pace! Sometimes, we didn't make it. And he seemed to be fine with it. I began lugging around a backpack that contained not only his inhaler and Benadryl for his many allergies, but also two pairs of underwear and pants. I looked like some kind of hiker...
I tried bribes, I tried rewards and outings. I was thinking this kid was not going to go to kindergarten. He would frequently refuse to go to the potty while dancing the infamous potty dance standing right in front of the bathroom and insist that he was fine. I would of course pick him up and place him on the toilet and wait for him to go and he would scream and hit and glare at me. I said”If you have to go that bad, why don't you want to go? Don't you want to let it out and just be done with it!?” “No! Not gonna do it!” Oh boy! Well, like they say, it was just a phase. After that phase passed, he did start to actually go in the potty when I asked him to and I started to give him a little freedom except for the occasional butt wipe assist for #2.
A month or two went by and I noticed something. When I would let him try to go potty by himself at home, he would lie about it, frequently. He did not lie in a good way to make himself look better. No, my kid would go to the potty perfectly, wipe, wash hands, and come out and tell me that he did not go potty because he did not have to go.
A couple times I was like “Why would you flush and wash then?” Then one time he did this fake out potty routine and forgot to flush. He came out with freshly washed hands and smiled and said “I didn't have to go, mommy!” As he continued down the hall to play, I said “Wait a minute, you forgot something!” He came back innocently and said “What?” I looked in the toilet at pee and a couple sheets of toilet paper. Haha! Evidence! I smiled and looked at him hoping that he would not run away screaming. “Honey, you did go pee. You forgot to flush the pee and toilet paper down the toilet.” He stared down at his hands and kinda ignored my comment in silence. “Buddy, this is a good thing when you go pee in the potty, why would you lie about doing a good thing? Don't you want to be good at this?”
“I don't know….” Came the shy mumbles……
”Well I thought you were a big boy now!? Don't you want to be a big boy!?”
“No! Never!” And he ran away ignoring me once again. I really don't know how I got through that phase with my sanity intact. God had mercy on my little control freak soul I guess! After that phase came the “I’ll go pee on my own, but you’ll wipe my poopy butt for the rest of my days” phase. While he was going through preschool lessons at home with me, I started making learning to wipe his butt part of the lessons. I thought he could get better at it slowly and by the time he went to school, he'd be all set! Half way through the year I started losing faith when he gave me his lifelong potty strategy…I was wiping his butt, again, trying to teach him how to lean his arm over with me to do this himself, again, and making him try it by himself, again. He gave up after one wipe and said, “You just do it, mommy, I’m tired….”
This was not a bedtime, this was like 10:00 am, he had already done two break dances and ran around the house three times, but bending slightly to reach and wipe his own butt was too much to ask?
“Listen kid, you need to do this, this is not just mommy and daddy that make you do this, this is a real thing that you will be expected to do on your own all of the time when you start kindergarten!”
“Well then, I just won't poop at school.”
“You can't control that, you will sometimes have to poop at school…” I know, reasoning with a preschooler, I should have known better, but I continued…“What about when you become a grown up and you live away from Mommy, what will you do about pooping and wiping then?”
He paused for a second and I thought I had him! He smiled and said “I know! I’ll just have my wife do it!”
I immediately burst out laughing. Now, I know that it's a parenting rule to not laugh at something that you don't want your kid to repeat or think is a good idea, but I could not contain myself. After a few chuckles I regained my composure.“Honey, good try, you're really trying here, but that's not going to work! You see, we don't know who your wife is going to be, that's a long time from now. However, one thing I can guarantee is that she is not going to wipe your butt!”He looked at me in shock like ‘Who wouldn't want to wipe my butt!?’
Through this process, I learned that my children have different learning styles. My oldest is a people pleaser, like me. He will do everything he can for rewards and praise. I learned that my youngest is independent, like his father. The more I try to inspire him to do learn my way, the more he will fight it and run the other way, his way. And then he will come back and find a way to prove to me that he is 'self taught' genius.
<Notice the messy house and the huge box of diapers in this picture! LOL That was just before we starting the potty training adventure.
You’ll be happy to know that my now 5 year old has been wiping on his own for awhile. However, I look at this memory frequently and treasure it as a story to share with him for years to come! For any moms or dads going through the potty training adventure right now, I pray for you and I hope that you have an easier time than I did! Your flaws and failures will one day become funnies to laugh about together!
Hebrews 12:11(NIV) No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.
Love and blessings!
Aubree