So I have come to a fork in the road, potty training. For the better part of the past 12 months Sean and I have worked at potty training with Owen. Stumbling along the way, trying this and then that, changing expressions, tone and words and googling, googling, googling for advice, tips, anything. By the beginning of April, Owen was at a really good place and we knew he was so close to being really done but there just wasn’t enough time over the weekends to really get over that hump. At this point Sean and I were trying to figure out what to do, when my Mom gave me a Potty Training Manual that a co-worker of hers, daughter used with her children. Anything is worth a shot! We read it over and liked it and decided to take 3 days off and go hard with Owen. Along the way and planning we noticed that Brandon was really receptive to the potty training concept. He wanted to pee when his big brother peed and he wanted to go running when it was potty time. It took a couple days but Sean and I decided, if we were going to do it, why not just do it with Owen and Brandon together — maybe they would feed off each other – in a positive way! ha ha With taking on this task, we decided we needed a week — we split the week — 3 days with Mom and 3 days with Dad.
We stocked the house with tons and tons of underwear — Spider-man, Batman, Woody and Buzz, Elmo and Cookie Monster, Hot Wheels and Transformers. We bought a bunch of small “treat” toys and wrapped them. We did a Costco trip to fill the house with extra food to account for a week at home together. We were ready.
The manual recommended to have the boys help “throw” away all the pull-ups in the house – it’s underwear only now baby! I hid the pull-ups all over the house and we spent….10 minutes doing that (what I expected to take longer).
Then we did some crafts….another 10 minutes. I dunno, you tell me, but boys don’t seem to stick with anything for long. I hear that girls will do crafts for much longer and sit still longer? Oh well, they had fun while they did it. Owen with intense concentration and…..
and Brandon, just interested in exploring (or what I call, making a mess!).
But at the end of it, Brandon was interested and cooperative enough to stand next to his painting. Owen was done and gone, no getting him close to his picture.
All the while I was filling their bellies with water, juice, milk, anything they would drink to help with the potty training. There were a couple accidents, as expected, I learned quite quickly to line the couch, chairs, beds with towels to help absorb any wetness (and the boys pretended they were at the beach). The nap-time and bedtime potty training was a little more stressful (for me) but limiting the liquid intake close to sleep time helped a lot. Luckily for us the weather cooperated and we were able to do a couple quick trips to the playground and walks in the wagon (potty and then quickly get outside and be back within an hour).
I am writing this at the middle of May (and did the potty training the week of Easter) and can say that it was well worth it. The most rewarding words are “Mommy, Daddy, I have to go potty” and see them dash to the potty and see the smiles on their faces when they go potty!