After helping my daughter put her clothes back on a couple times yesterday, I was not best pleased to have to find a new diaper as well to replace the one she'd tossed before she peed on the carpet. Though I've been talking about potty training for a couple of months now I just simply haven't had the energy to go through with it... until now. Yesterday was the last straw.
While I was pregnant I would take her into the bathroom with me and sit her on the potty chair whenever she was interested. Heck, I was in the bathroom 50 billion times a day, and like it or not she was in there with me at least 49.99999999999 billion of those times (she must have been asleep the other .0000000001 times). Sometimes she'd go, sometimes not. Sometimes she'd get upset if I took off her pants/diapers, sometimes she thought it was fun. When she sat she'd almost always pee a little bit, but most of the time she just wasn't in the mood. Well mood or not, sister, the camel's back has broken, so let's do this!
In case you weren't aware of how parents are torturing themselves now, there is a 3-day potty training method. You can find more information about it on this website. I talked to one of my friends who had tried it and she said it had worked for her, so I figure why not? Basically it boils down to let the kid run around for 3 days with no diapers and watch them like a hawk so you can swoop them up every time they have to go and dump them on the potty. Not something I want to try on carpets, so we get to hang out in the kitchen for the next couple of days. No biggie, right? Let me just tell you, while there are a million and one things that need done in my kitchen... right now I cannot stand even the sight of it.
Today after waking up she took a shower with me, we got dressed, got baby Connor ready, grabbed the potty chair and headed to the kitchen. The following is a list of what we did today (in no particular order): unloaded the dishwasher, put more dishes in, danced, sang, put together puzzles, hung out with Mrs Chrissy who came to visit us, at a ton of snacks, had drinking contests (no I did not spike either of our juices), played with baby Connor, hand washed dishes, played with some water in the sink, cooked & had lunch, did 2 or 3 load of laundry, swept, had dinner, chatted with daddy, oh yeah, and sat on the potty a lot.
We had more successes than failures. There were 1.5 accidents in the morning and 1 accident in the afternoon. I caught two based on warning signs and the rest she told me about before they happened. At the end of the day the last thing was a huge adult sized poop. We did a silly happy song each time she successfully did something in the potty and then rushed it ("careful, careful" she told me) to the restroom to dump in the toilet. Have you ever had to be excited about pee? It's ... rather exhausting.
All this would be difficult under normal circumstances, but I've decided to up the ante and do it while I'm nursing. Why not, right? I've got another 2 weeks of maternity left. It would be really good to just get it all taken care of before she has to go back to a sitter. Ah, but what do you do if you've just latched a baby on and your toddler says "uh oh," grabs her crotch, and gets this shifty look in her eyes that tells you it's all about to happen NOW as she stands on a chair playing with the water in the sink? Yes, this would be the time that you tell her "Well come on, let's go potty, get down, you can do it" and you hope to goodness that it's true and she really CAN do it. Oh please oh please get down in time.. let's not ruin the record just because mommy can't swoop you up right now. PLEASE you can do it!
Potty training, my friends, is why parents drink.
