Adventures in Potty Training

I really do believe that potty training is what put the “Terrible” in “Terrible Twos”. Ugh. My little Carmela – so sweet and so innocent and cute. Until of course I look over and she is sitting in a wet puddle happily playing away. Let’s rewind about 8 months or so to my carefree life when all I had to do was bring a diaper or two and some wipes and we could be off to do whatever we had to do for the day. Ahh, the memories. Then one day, she pulled her diaper off and said in a squeaky voice “Potty!”. YES! This was it.. the SIGN. She was ready to be potty trained and my little genius was telling me! I was thrilled. Leo had been pretty easy to train. He pooped like 5 times a day, and he loved it! He would line up his little cars along the toilet seat and talk to himself and play while he did his duty. It took a little while for the peeing (including frequent stops along the highway where he just couldn’t hold it until the next stop) but he was pretty well trained quickly. Everyone kept telling me how girls were SO much easier to train than boys, so I thought, well great! Carmela will pretty much just train herself then. Haha – I now laugh at my then naive self. But she was giving the sign, so I said OK! I went out that day and bought the essential supplies. Kitchen timer so I could set it to 30 minute increments as a reminder to go, check. Sealed container of M&Ms as a treat each time she went, check. Cute girly little potty throne that played music every time she tinkled, double check!! Okay, let’s do this! I needed to go to the store later in the week and thought, hmm, well I’ll give it a few days and by then she’ll hopefully be ready to go out and about in her new Dora underwear. My optimism was seriously adorable.

Okay, now fast forward 8 months and let’s see where we are at. A pile of pee-soaked underwear and pants in the laundry room, Carmela running around naked because all pairs of said underwear are soaked, and me about to pull my hair out. And that adorable seat? Turned out to be the most ridiculous purchase I’ve made. That thing got cleaned and thrown in the basement about 2 months in. Turns out that as soon as she peed in it and heard the little jingle, she would jump up in excitement thus peeing all over herself and the bathroom floor. And not only that, whenever she actually would go to the bathroom in it, she was so proud she wouldn’t let me help to dump it in the toilet. An excited 2 year old’s uncoordinated hands flinging around a plastic bowl full of poop – how did I possibly think that was a helpful purchase?! Also, those diapers and wipes I could just stash in my little purse and be on our way? Now I have a much larger purse chock-full of underwear, wipes, and as many pairs of pants and socks that I can fit in there “just in case”. Grrrr. So here are the bribes, er I mean things we have tried: M&Ms as treats when she went (worked for approx. 1 week and then the novelty wore off), a sticker chart (worked for approx. 2 weeks until she decided she didn’t like stickers anymore), gobs of gratuitous praise every single time she went (worked, but didn’t give her reason enough to do it). So, I pulled out the big guns. I spent $20 and bought a large package of Squinkie toys – tiny little rubber figures that come in individually packed plastic balls. They went into a container and every time she told me she had to go to the bathroom and actually did, she got to pick one out. This actually did really work – better than anything else – but I ended it after having these little figurines invading every space of our home and car. But the bribery from them got us pretty far along in the process.

At this point now, a few months away from 3, we are almost there. She will go days without an accident, but then all of sudden have several in a row, so I am not quite sure what that is about. I assume at some point I can stop harassing her every 15 minutes asking her if she has to go, is she sure, is she really really sure? It eventually has to work, right? At this age Leo was well trained. It actually still blows my mind that he knows when he has to go and does his business on his own. Like a little man, so independent! I imagine for Carmela that I might just have to buy like 3 dresses for her High School Prom, just in case she pees through the first 2. And maybe her date will respond to her accidents the same way I do " Carmelllaaaaaaa… AGAIN!! SERIOUSLY?".

Kristen Foote is a part-time SAHM to 2 of the most energy-sapping joyful little bundles ever and surrogate-mom to two 9-month-old incredible twin boys. A crafty fun mommy who prefers to see the funny side of things and is always on the lookout for the next big thing!