Life has gotten crazy in the last few weeks. Summer is on it’s way out; not the heat, but summer break from school. I told myself at the end of the school year last year that we would start potty training Oliver once school was out. It would be perfect timing because we wouldn’t have anywhere to be on a daily basis and he would be all set by the time school started again and then the baby was here. Well, I kept putting it off and putting it off and putting it off some more. Honestly, I was mostly scared of a walking sprinkler and the fact that we have carpet pretty much everywhere here. (Which I hate, but we don’t have a choice.) Then there was the fact that I’m pregnant and tired and Oliver is a busy handful without adding in the potty training. Somehow I kept telling myself we could do it next weekend all summer long. Then last Friday I realized there were only 10 days until school started and oops, we hadn’t even started. My only choice was to suck it up and just do it already or possibly wait and then deal with a school schedule, a newborn and a potty training toddler. I decided sucking it up was the way to go. Say a prayer that he doesn’t regress once the baby gets here.
The good thing is that I think Ollie was really ready. He had actually been asking to go on the potty and would tell me pretty much as soon as his diaper was dirty. He doesn’t wake up in the morning or from his nap dry though. I figure one step at a time. He was so excited to try and still is. The first day was long and exhausting and the score of pee on the floor vs. pee in the potty was a lot to a little. Which I completely expected. One huge plus – no poop on the floor. That made me happy. I was SO done by the time he went to bed though. It’s hard to stay encouraging and positive when you just don’t want to clean up any more pee, especially out of carpet. Ick.
Day two went a million times better! We made it to nap time without any accidents and then all afternoon too. I decided to try putting a pair of training pants on him and then we had the first accident. The first day and the majority of the second day we just did the run-around-commando method. It works well. Day three was pretty successful too. Then, the last few days he’s done great pretty much all day and then in the afternoon when it normally gets crazy anyway (moms, you know, that magical end of day time where everything just goes downhill until dinner) he’s started having accidents. More specifically, he lands himself in a timeout for one thing or another and then pees his underwear. It’s a two minute timeout and he’s usually just gone to the potty. I think he’s gotten wise because the first few times it happened I got him out of timeout and had him run to the potty. Now, I make him sit there until the timeout is up. I think he’s doing it on purpose. He’s a sneaky one.
It’s been a week now since we started #OperationPottyTraining and it’s been up and down. Some things have been easier, some harder and some just different than it was when we potty trained Hanna. Girls and boys are different and in general each child is different. I’m hoping I can keep the momentum and excitement going for him and that we really get into a routine with the potty.
It’s Friday night, on Monday Hanna is starting first grade and I’m feeling a little sad that summer is over and a little panicky that it means there’s just about six weeks until the baby’s due date. Then a little paranoid that I’m feeling panicky means that the baby might come early and I’m so not prepared at all. I will say though, I have this feeling that this time around I’m going to have the baby and life will just keep on flowing. It felt much more momentous when the first two were born. I don’t feel like I have the same kind of time to really relish the moment. I can only imagine that it gets harder to do the more kids you have.
