Tuesday, January 18, 2011

The Great Potty Training Adventure

Ryan is an incredible father. Seriously incredible. A Superdad, really. But every superhero has a vulnerability, and the thought of potty training is my husband's kryptonite. Thankfully, I have tons of potty training experience as an occupational hazard. That's [one of] the great thing[s] about our relationship - his very few weaknesses are my strengths, and my innumerable weaknesses are his strengths. I'm the yin to his yang, and he's the PB to my J. Together we make an unstoppably perfect pair.

We decided to start tackling potty training over the winter break, when I'd be home for two whole weeks. That, I thought, would be just enough time for me to intro the concept, establish a routine, and hand off the torch. I prepared ahead of time, investing in potty training books of both the resource (for me) and picture book (for Ethan) variety. I bought two giant clear containers and filled them with M&Ms and marshmallows for rewards. I picked up plenty of stickers, a timer, two different types of potty seats, and "special" post-potty Winnie the Pooh wipes for clean up when my little Winnie goes poo. I was ready.

And Ethan was not.

He was definitely into the potty books. He actually requested them as his bedtime story night after night. Our interactions went a little something like this:

Me, pointing to an illustration of a toilet: "What is that?!?"
Ethan: "Pee pee potty!!!"
Me: "Yeah!!! Whose potty is that?!?"
Ethan, excitedly: "ETHAN'S PEE PEE POTTY!!!"
Me: "Yeah!!! Do you want to go sit on your pee pee potty?!?"
Ethan, after a pause: "NO!!!!!!!"

So, in a nutshell, he's not exactly taking to it like we hoped he would. We've made a bit of progress - he went from being scared of the potty, to waving hi to the potty, to eventually sitting on the potty. But that's about it. Needless to say, I haven't had to break out those Winnie wipes yet.


(Don't let that cute little grin fool you - that's a reaction to the "special treat" he earned for sitting on his frog, not pride in his potty accomplishments.)

We'll get there. I figure that he'll eventually be potty trained sometime between tomorrow and when he enters kindergarten. Either that, or we'll have to homeschool him. But I guess we can cross that bridge when we come to it.

3 comments:

Katie said...

Aah potty training.
I thought for sure my son was going to go off to college and still be wearing diapers.
As it turns out, I just had to wait for HIM to be ready, even though I was ready WAAAAAAAAAY before he was.
Once I realized to let him lead me, it was smooth sailing.
Good luck to you and your little one. :)

Poppy said...

Huh, I can't wait to encounter problems like that when I have kids. NOT. :)

My nephew is 2 and still isn't potty trained. He was already going to the bathroom himself and then he suddenly got a little brother an he became a little rebellious devil. :)

Funny, how jealousy works. :)

Karen Whittal said...

I was always told that winter is not the right time, summer was best because you could let them run around with trainers on, and they wouldn't freeze to death if they had an accident........... But one thing is for sure, he will know soon it is not cool to go to university with nappies on.....