Potty Blog

[mrs_pulley]

The other night Emma, my 2 year old, said to me "no more diapers!" three times in a row. I took her seriously but didn't know what to do. We have been working on potty training on some level since she was 18 months, but lately her progress had stagnated and she had yet to overcome the "I'd rather go in my diaper than stop playing" dilemma. Common issue, I'm sure, but I didn't know what to do about it. I had heard that some ladies will just go straight to underwear with the idea that after a few accidents, the kids quickly realize they have to go potty or become very uncomfortable. Knowing my daughter, that method sounded like it would have a greater impact on me than her! Yet here I am, just a few hours after asking for cafemom advice (all overwhelmingly in support of aforementioned plan), holding a package of cute Hello Kitty underwear that has no idea how defiled it is about to get, and not really sure if this was remotely going to work. With a raincloud over my head about the whole prospect, I thought it would be darkly humorous to track what is bound to be our dismal failure in this journal, which I'm dubbing potty blog for the time being, and ultimately torture her with this story as a teen, at her wedding, with her firstborn's first potty adventures, and generally whenever I want to remind her that sometimes love means cleaning up a pooped on Hello Kitty.

The Plan: put her in underwear featuring a beloved character, regularly set the kitchen timer for 30 mins to help me track when she needs to go potty (I know they suggest 1 hour but I'd like to try and minimize the potential accidents for now!), and pray that she doesn't take to protesting through urination!

3pm: We pick up a pack of Hello Kitty underwear at the store. My mom is with me and says I should make a big deal about them. I try to muster some excitement for underwear that is about to get destroyed and hand them to her. She looks the package over, doesn't seem to notice her favorite character is smiling unaware on them, calls them socks and drops the pack on the floor.  

3:45- We get home and eventually put the first pair on. She now sees Hello Kitty but is much more interested in escaping them and running around naked than my forced enthusiasm for them, pinning her down and ultimately winning the first battle of the undies.

4:15- Adam, my husband, comes home and we decided to immediately push this experiment to the limits by taking her out to the store to do some returns. We have her go potty before we leave (nothing happens) so we're a little anxious and I anticipate rushing a wet baby home. The though of bringing a change of clothes completely escapes me in the moment as we rush out the door to play beat the clock.

5:00- we're back at home and surprisingly there are no accidents! she ran up and down the store but somehow Hello Kitty remains in tact...for now.

5:30- total meltdown unrelated to potty. wants to ignore everything, making this potty break a total bust. I'm starting to wonder if I should have waited for a day when she hadn't only gotten an hour nap. What was I thinking? Right. I wasn't. She literally just had her birthday party on the 9th, went to a friend's on the 10th and has spent much of the week leading up to it out of town on family vacation with us and visiting relatives coming in for the birthday. If I had read a potty training book, I'd imagine I have so far done everything wrong except miraculously manage to keep this baby dry. And even Charlie Brown had some luck before getting the slats knocked out from under him.

7pm- bedtime! we made it through day one! ok, 7 is not usually bedtime but miss ma'am is in full meltdown mode at this point and keeping her up any longer would be torture for everyone in a five mile radius. The half hour potty breaks were hit and miss, but we managed to get her on the potty for all of them. Hello Kitty is clean and staring blankly at me, having been replaced by a diaper at my husband's insistence. If I'm not in a hurry to clean less than a square foot of cloth, I'm sure not anxious to clean out her bedding, so I agree. Is that what we do? Underwear in the day and diapers at night? The thought of going straight to underwear at night sounds like the idea of a crazy man. Who likes sleeping in his own waste. So without further guidance, the call is made and Miss Emma ends her dry afternoon in diapers.