Potty Training

I’m leaving Aurora and writing behind for this entry. My first priority in life is my son, Henry. He is how I start my day and usually how I end my day with all the worries of the next day on my mind before I drift off into (cross your fingers) a miraculous full nights sleep. I’m going to broach our latest Henry milestone, the very scary potty training months. I was completely against potty training Henry before two and was hoping to push it even further than that. For one reason, I was sure it was going to be HELL! For another, he is my baby and although changing a diaper several times a day sucks I was certain this was another stage ending his babyhood.

My husband insisted we try. He believed Henry was ready. I wasn’t on board! He finally tricked me into it by telling me we couldn’t have another baby until Henry was potty trained. Well that perked me right up and as I always tend to do with Henry, I threw myself in full force and never looked back. I started with the seat that fits on the big potty but that wasn’t steady enough and my first attempt to put Henry on the potty ended with him screaming and throwing himself from the potty into my arms. Lets just say that day did not continue well and I put his training on pause until I was able to get him a portable potty that night. I got the potty, bought an Elmo book on potty training and tried everything to make this new potty look like the most awesome adventure he was going to have. He liked it! I was happy, he was happy, so now all I needed to do was teach him how to use it.

On a side note, I am a nanny and work about forty minutes away from my home. I take Henry with me so I am still with him 24/7. Mornings in my house are the hardest! There are so many things that I have to do to get out the door and I’m sure if I woke up just a little bit earlier it wouldn’t be a problem, but that is never going to happen. So I have to pack my “bags” every night and then load them up in the morning. I have the grocery bag (containing all our food for the day or week) the toy bag (holding any number of things but mostly the twenty-five figurines he can’t live without) and lastly the diaper bag (two sets of clothes, pull-ups, any medicine, diaper cream, sunblock, my wallet and nook). I load all those and Henry into the car. This is after we wake him up, get him to go potty, give him his milk and pray he doesn’t cry when we take away the binkie. On top of all that I added a potable potty to the list of things I needed to get in the car every morning. On this particular day everything was in, Henry was holding his lovey (known as brown dog or doggie) and we were off to work. It wasn’t until I got there an hour later and five minutes late that while unloading all that crap I noticed I forgot the potty! I had a small panic attack and decided to just deal with it. I refused to put him in diapers for the day so I was just going to have to make the big potty work. First potty attempt he cried for his “lil” potty and then went on the big one. Second time he didn’t make it. He stood right in the middle of the rug and peed. I tried to get him to stop and make it to the big one and that only resulted in a trail of pee through the house. The little girl I watch decided to crawl through the trail in an attempt to follow us. I got them both clean, came back and tried to clean the massive mess. During all this I stayed calm remembered it was only the first week and went about my day. It wasn’t until I sat down to play with the kids that I noticed I hadn’t cleaned the rug. I spent the rest of the day with a huge, wet pee stain on my butt.  

As you might imagine it took several mornings of “naked time” and lots of drama to get things right. Henry loved “naked time” and was over the moon to run around the house all morning with no diaper and no pants. Henry would go pee no problem! It was the pooping that became an issue. He’s a pretty regular guy and I always knew when he had to go. It was now a matter of getting him to the potty in time. This resulted in many piles of poop on the floor. It was not pretty. I was certain it would never happen and then a week of some intense training, Henry was going no problem!!! A month later we were accident free and I felt and still do like the luckiest Mom in the world to have such a smart little man.  

Current status: still no accidents and have escalated training to getting clothes off and on the potty by himself. My patience is seriously being tested but every time he does it all by himself he gets the sweetest smile and the last fifteen minutes don’t seem so wasted.