Adventures in Potty Training - Part 3.2

Yep, we're back!
For a re-cap, if you so desire:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3.1



Part 3.2

Day 2 of naked boy – Evan woke up sopping wet around his pants. I have no idea why since he was wearing pull up’s, but he was wet. Maybe they aren’t made for overnight? No clue. Oh well. He wasn’t in a good mood already when he woke up and he was demanding his breakfast. I told him we needed to get him cleaned up and he needed to go sit on the potty, then we could have breakfast. Well, you would have thought I cut off one of his toes, he was so upset with me.


I took a deep breath and tried very hard to gulp down another dose of patience. [At this point, running through my mind were several thoughts from the prior day: 1. I’m a little grossed out with his naked butt running around the house – especially since I knew he needed to poop... 2. I’m a lot weirded out by the fact that he now has a new toy to play with since he is now running around the house naked – ‘nough said. 3. I have figured out this experience is WAY more about my learning patience (argh) than it is about Evan learning to use the potty, and 4. He never actually told me that he needed to go potty yesterday, he just ran to the bathroom and hopped onto the toilet.] So after my deep breath, I decided we are still going to trudge forward. I took his bottoms off and we went to the bathroom.


Only problem today was we had a couple stops to make, and I wasn’t going to walk around in public with a naked child, so I put him in training pants for a little while in the morning. Of course, when we got home, he was wet. Bummer. So again with my naked boy. The rest of the morning was about like the day before, nap time came around and we did the pull up’s again, he woke up and freaked out again when I told him we needed to use the potty.


I reminded him of the M&M chart we made and that he would earn another M&M for after dinner if he sat on the potty. [Ok, YES, I resorted to bribery – but I learned this particular method DID NOT WORK, because delayed gratification doesn’t compute in a 3 year old brain.] So he used the potty again, and he did fine with #1 until dinner.


Remember my concern about knowing Evan had to poop? Well, shame on me – I got distracted for just long enough that I didn’t react to him slamming his bedroom door shut. It struck me as odd, but I didn’t give it a 2nd thought. Well, I really wish that I had after he came out of his room and told me that he pooped and “made it into a ball.” What?!?! I grabbed his arms so he wouldn’t touch anything and we ran to the bathroom to wash his hands. Based on my quick inspection it looked like he only touched it with one finger, as opposed to actually picking it up and rolling it around – it just came out looking like a ball. Lovely.


Ok, back to dinner time - Dan went outside to grill and Evan wanted to go out also. I put big boy underwear on and jeans (because, again, not going to let naked boy run around outside). For the entire 20 minutes or so they were outside I kept sticking my head out asking if he needed to go potty, and Dan was doing the same. He did very well by not having an accident. Dinner ready, after coming inside I told him he needed to go use the potty before dinner. Ok, I got the toe-cutting-off reaction again, and I was done. I was having a bad day already (it might have had something to do with one of the “Not-Me’s” I wrote about), and I was just done. Evan had reached the pitch in his voice that overrides the dose of patience, and I figured if it’s going to be this much of a battle, it’s just not worth it.


I’m not a quitter, so this was hard – I put a diaper on him and said forget it, we’ll just try again later. I was so frustrated that when I gave him a bath later, I didn’t even give him a chance to potty (as you might remember, this has been our routine for the past year) – apparently he was holding it for the entire bath and by the time I had him in his towel getting ready for bed, he couldn’t hold it any longer. He let me know he peed on his towel. Grr. Serves me right, like I said before – this is more about me learning patience than him learning to potty.


After all that, could there really be a part 3.3?!?!