In our family...

In our family....we do second chances...we do grace...we do real...we do mistakes...we do I'm sorry (and I forgive you)...we do loud really well...we do hugs...we do family...we do love.















Monday, August 18, 2008

It's my party and I can cry if I want to

My last couple of posts have been pretty serious and deep with my thoughts as I have started on this journey of finding myself again....of figuring things out before I disappear over the deep end. Thank you to everyone that stopped by and gave me such great encouragement. Because my writing tends to be on the more deep or serious end, you might think that I am a serious person, which I can be, but for the most part in my daily life, I am not. Believe it or not, I actually have a pretty damn good sense of humor...most days anyways. It is the one thing that gets me through some pretty tough shit, the monotonous days of motherhood and of course all those days that fall somewhere in between.

A week ago I posted that we had jumped aboard the potty train...which although gets very monotonous, and involves some pretty stinky shit, falls somewhere in between. There is NO time, like potty training, that NEEDS a sense of humor. Let me tell you, we had quite the potty party. I cannot quite say that I was laughing through out this party...okay maybe there were a few tears but for the most part I kept my sense of humor..at least inside my head...I did not laugh at my little people...at least that they were aware of anyways...they just thought we were having a party. For one, they were extremely happy to be getting juice to drink since we never have juice at our house.

I assumed that training two children wouldn't be that much different then training one child. WRONG. We bought into this 3 day potty training boot camp and lets just say that this time last week...about 24 hours after starting, I found myself regretting ever starting. I thought we had been scammed. My husband came home from work at the end of day two and I am sure that he wanted to turn around and walk right back out that door...I wanted to go with him.

The concept was to be filling up my little people with LOTS to drink so that they would have many opportunities to pee. Then, catching them doing this and running them to the "potty" so they would have many opportunities to learn how to do it. You throw in lots of stickers, rewards like candy and fruit snacks...and lots and lots of praise. If you follow the program like it is laid out you are to see results by the end of day three. Sounds simple. It's not. This is an understatement because the pee was non-stop. Picture two little people peeing non-stop. Oh, and you can NOT take your eyes off of them so as not to MISS all the opportunities. And this is not even mentioning the poop...the little chant that I sang quite often was, "what goes in, must come out" still echos in my brain a week later.

Thank God we do not have carpet in our main living areas...we rolled up all the rugs and put them away for the time being. Many rolls of paper towels were gone through, not to mention around 30 pairs of wet underwear and 30 pairs of wet underpants...each day. So, yeah, it was one hell of a pee fest until the middle of day three...when it was almost magical...more pee was ending up in their pottys then on the floor...by that night they were both using their pottys regularly! They have had only a few accidents here and there...mostly in the poop department which is to be expected. I am shocked, to say the least, that one week later, they are pretty much trained. And you better believe that we have celebrated with much singing and dancing as our potty party came to an end.

To think that one month ago, I was regularly changing diapers every day on three children, since I still had my 16 month old grandson here with us and now I am changing NONE! I never thought I would be potty training again at the ripe old age of 46 but as our friend Dora would say "we did it, we did it, we did it, HOORAY!"

5 comments:

Kool Aid said...

OK, I really need to know where you got this information from because I feel like I've been potty training my one child all summer long. The concept of possibly being done in 3 days is so impossible right now, I just can't even get it.

gram said...

fantastic, you did a great job. my littlest grandson is 2 1/2 and daughter is still holding off on training. one of these days she will get sick of the diapers. hopefully he will be ready soon. so glad you'll have one less task to do each day....changing diapers. great, great, great. gotta run. take it easy girl!!

Anonymous said...

Congratulations! You're now the second person I've heard having success with the potty training boot camp. I'm so happy for you and your little people. It is very nice to be able to say goodbye to diapers.

Unknown said...

Wow! So that program worked! Thank goodness, huh? And just imagine the money you will be saving on diapers! LOL

Unknown said...

So, when i was 19 I moved to Paris to become a very fashionable au pair. I was taking care of 4 children. I did not know at the time that the mother would leave for a few weeks and then tell me to potty train child number 4. It was hell. He had no problem sitting on his little potty, he loved it, he reclined in it. He read a book, but he would not be moved upon to hold his little hummer down so that pee did not spurt all over me and the floor and everything else around.

I am now almost 31. I have no children. To this day that was the best form of birth control I have ever been privy to.


But! Way to go you!!! That's an amazing feet. I'll have to remember that if I ever change my single ways!