Going, going, and going some more

Well, potty training is a very interesting business. One of the things so, um, exciting about parenting, I'm finding, is that if one thing doesn't work you try something else. Well, bribery did not work. Waiting until Ian was sick of sitting in his own waste did not work--he doesn't care. All he did was get a chapped bottom and a rank odor (think PigPen from Peanuts). We even tried the whole "babies wear diapers and big boys wear underwear" thing. As well as the important fact that he can't go to school (preschool) if he can't use the toilet All the Time. In 3 year old logic, every time he goes on the toilet, he asks to go to school. Go ahead, give yourself a big Homer Simpson "d'oh!" and wave it in our direction. No, we don't watch the Simpsons, but some things are just pop culture. Well, we heard every "solution" in the books from parents, grandparents and strangers in the Pull-Up aisle in Walmart. Some were silly (the solution was to enroll him in a daycare and let them train him--What?!) and others were horrifying (every time he goes in his pants, take him outside and spray him with the hose. Some sounded a little excessive (just let him run around naked or just make the toilet area like a play area and stay in there until he learns). Since I have another child and the bathroom is not big enough (or plush enough) to stay in all day long, besides the fact that it is our ONLY bathroom and we all share the toilet, this didn't sound promising. And the fact that toilet ring on your bottom doesn't make you want to sit there longer than 3 Thomas books.

Another solution was to just keep him in Pull-Ups or diapers until he figures it out for himself. By the time he gets to public school, if he isn't trained by then, peer pressure ought to do it. Yeah, and that one will NEVER be forgotten by the kids at school. No way! Since waiting for him to get the incentive could take years and he turns 4 this summer, we were getting kind of alarmed at his easy acceptance of sitting in a gross Pull-Up until you caught him and pried it off. He's getting harder to catch, too.

So we went to Wal-Mart and bought big boy underwear and let him pick. Thomas and Cars won. So we went home, threw out the last day time Pull-Up and stuck Thomas on his cute little bottom. Thomas lasted about 10 minutes before we required a costume change. Underoos, pants, socks and even the shirt. At least the pants prevented a large puddle on the floor, but no one liked peeling the soggy clothing off. As the day went on, we gritted our teeth and kept changing clothes. That afternoon, we ran out of clean underoos and had to revert back to Pull-Ups. I have started doing a load of laundry every day just to keep us flush. Today was better, only three costume changes and when I neglected to put pants on him, a large puddle on the carpet/heater platform. And a big glob of grape jelly on the potty seat (don't ask).

I think he is starting to welcome bath time because that means pjs and pullup. We've only had one poop so far in the underoos (gag, gack and bleagh!) and it wasn't pretty. Every time the kid squirms or changes positions or blinks too long it pops out of my mouth. "Do you need to go poo poo?" He groans. "No, Mommy!" he answers in a longsuffering sing-songy voice. Well he'd better not go....

So how is potty training going? Hm. This is day 3 of big boy underoos and potty training is going, uh....well it's going. All over the carpet. :)