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.