New Midlife Mommy

Some Things Should Not Be Documented For Posterity

Potty talk, and TMI.  Read at your own risk.

DD has been doing fairly well with potty training at school, though they do remind her to go every half an hour or so.  It makes it easy to succeed.  I'm just not as diligent (read I'm really, really lazy), and consequently, when DD is wearing underwear at home, she just pees in her pants.  As laid back as I have been about this, I told her that it seems like she really isn't ready for underwear at home, and that was OK too.  I told DD that the solution for this is just to wear a pullup at home until she started going to the potty when she felt the need to go.  DD didn't seem to thrilled about that idea, but she wasn't really against it.

Today, when we were getting ready to leave school, DD went to the bathroom on her own (without my usual insistence).  And then I remembered what we'd talked about yesterday and started to grab a pullup.  DD was upset about that and said she didn't want a pullup.  I told her that it wasn't OK to keep going to the bathroom in her pants without even trying to use the potty.  She promised that tonight would be different.

And it was.  She went to the bathroom, on her own, and peed shortly after we got home.  About an hour later, she went into the bathroom again, and what do you know?  Her first poop at home.  Yes! 

Of course, she got her Skittles and stickers.  DH attended to her, and he was quite impressed with DD's little production.  So impressed that he took a picture of it.  Not just one picture.  Two pictures. And one of them was a close up.  And you know what?  I just know that DH wants me to put them in the scrapbook.  He's kind of twisted like that. And I'll bet he thinks I'm going to post one of those pictures here.  I think I'll pass on that one.  (You can thank me later.)

Now, this picture stuff freaked our handyman out so badly that he excused himself for the night.  Eh.  He was ready to leave anyway.  But, I'm sure that his girlfriend will get an earful tonight.  And, you know, he really wasn't interested in seeing the pictures.  Even though we offered.  Gee, I wonder why. 

Lord, we are obsessed with this potty training stuff.

Something Only A Parent Could Get Excited About

This weekend, we went looking for undershirts.  I couldn't find any on Saturday during my normal errand run, so we all went to one more store after breakfast on Sunday.  And we found one package -- already opened.  But, everything looked OK, and I launder everything anyway, so we took it.  Three stinking undershirts.  (I ended up going on e-Bay to find more -- my Internet shopping trip turned up empty as well.)  Just an aside -- don't they make little undershirts anymore, and if not, don't the toddlers freeze in the winter?  Sheesh.

While we were there, we saw some Disney princess underwear -- seven in a package!  (Because you just can't get enough of the princesses.)  DD already has some underwear that we bought about six months ago, in the futile hope that she might actually wear them.  Since hope springs eternal, we bought this package, and I told DD that we would leave these underwear for her at school, should she ever decide that she wants to wear them.  No pressure.

Shortly after she got to school on Monday, DD told her teacher that she wanted to wear her underwear.  She wore them all day, and she went to the potty on her own.  And (drum roll please) -- she pooped on the potty for the first time!  Of course, I didn't hear this until I walked in the door to pick her up at the end of the day.  She was so excited; she was walking on air.  Her teachers were excited for her, and everyone was clapping.  And she couldn't wait to get home to get her reward.  I promised her, months and months ago, that if she ever pooped on the potty, she could have a roll of stickers and some Skittles.  She wanted to collect, right away.

I am so very proud of her.  And my mother would have been very proud as well.  I missed not being able to dial her up and share DD's good news.  She was just waiting for this day too.  I'm sure that wherever she is now, she does know.  But I wish that DD and I could have been the ones to tell her.

I Am So Gullible

We are always so excited whenever DD expresses any interest in the potty.  And, apparently, she's figured out that this is worth a lot of attention.

Tonight, while at a restaurant, DD said -- "Mommy, I have to go pee pee."  DH always defers to me when we're out, so off we went.  We opened the door to the stall, I cleaned the seat, put paper down, took down DD's pants and pull up, put her on the potty, and . . .

Nothing. 

Except for laughter. 

DD:  I farted mommy!

Me:  OK.  Now go pee pee.

DD:  I don't have to go pee pee.  But I still want to wash my hands!

This wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't done the same thing yesterday.  Only yesterday after not producing anything, she said, "I tricked you mommy!"  Followed by wild laughter.

Oy.  Let the potty games begin.

Someday, But I Guess Later Than Sooner

Well, well.  I thought that we were on the way to the future.  But, I guess not.

DD will not poop on the potty.  I know that it seems like all mommy blogs talk about poop, and I try not to do it so much here, but honestly?  It would be so nice if DD would just use the potty -- for everything.

DD thinks that she needs to stand to poop, which kind of makes it hard to convince her that the potty is the way to go.  It doesn't matter to her that her friends are using the potty.  Whenever I've offered a bribe, she completely loses interest in whatever it is I'm offering (even if she loved it once).  I have a box with 2500 freaking stickers in it.  She loves stickers.  I offered her one roll of stickers for each time she poops on the potty.  Now, she acts like stickers are so yesterday.  And she told me that I could give the stickers to B & H, the two kids who live down the street.

We suggest the potty when we see the "look."  We've bought potty books, and potty videos, and DD has seen and read all of them.  We've let her pick out "big girl" underwear.  They are laundered and waiting.

It all just doesn't matter.  Whenever she needs to poop, she will show us the hand and tell us to "leave my poopies alone."  If it weren't so frustrating, it would be really funny.

I know that everything has a season.  And then I hear my mother in my ear, telling me how we were potty trained at 18 months (which I cannot verify, of course).  Sometimes, it makes me feel like a failure.  And then I have to check myself, because this has nothing to do with me, and everything to do with DD.  And, I suppose if I were my mother, having to deal with cloth diapers rather than pullups, I would be more motivated.

I try to remember all the benefits that there are to diapers.  We are rather laid back about them now.  We change her in the morning, but DD is lucky to get one more diaper change before bedtime on the weekends (if she doesn't poop).  At daycare, she gets changed every two hours.  (I'm sure that if they knew what slackers we are, they would be appalled.)  And, it's kind of nice to be able to go places and not have to worry about finding a bathroom in each of them.  It's bad enough that I have to navigate a public restroom sometimes; I can't imagine what it must be like with a little one.

So, I guess there are perks.  In the meantime, the peer pressure is building at school.  More and more kids are wearing underwear and using the potty.  And those kids get to visit the next older classroom.  DD will eventually move to that classroom, the preschool room, but she will never leave it until she's potty trained.  That means that all of her friends will move on to pre-Kindergarten, while she sits there stewing in her diapers.

It will be interesting to see how long this takes.  And, as I've said before, I know that she will be potty trained by the time she gets to high school.  Even DD is not bull-headed enough to stay in diapers that long -- right?

Dare I Hope?

I picked DD up from daycare, and the report today was much better than yesterday.  Yesterday, she was hell on earth and lost a lot of privileges.  Today, she made "good choices."  I was pleased to hear that.

On the way home, unprompted, DD yelled in a very loud voice:

I WANT TO WEAR UNDERWEAR AND GO POO POO ON THE POTTY BECAUSE I'M A BIG GIRL AND I WANT TO GO TO PRESCHOOL!!!!

(Preschool is the next step for her.  She's in young preschool now.)

Needless to say, I was a little taken aback.  She was so excited!  It was like being at a sales convention.

As soon as we got home, DD ran over to the stairs and yelled up to DH:

I WANT TO WEAR UNDERWEAR AND GO POO POO ON THE POTTY BECAUSE I'M A BIG GIRL AND I WANT TO GO TO PRESCHOOL!!!!

DH was a little surprised too.  But pleased.  This is the first time that DD has expressed any willingness at all to poop on the potty.

So, tomorrow we will go shopping for some big girl underwear.  I have some already, courtesy of her godmother, but I think it might be fun for DD to pick out some of her own special underwear.

You know, I really don't mind diapers.  In fact, I think it is probably going to be very inconvenient as DD moves full speed into potty training, since I will have to know how to find a potty in a matter of minutes from any geographic point on the planet.  But, it's all part of growing up.

And growing up is exactly what she's doing.  She even forgot to ask to nurse after dinner, something she's never done before.  And that tinkling sound?  Was the breaking of my heart into a million little pieces.

I Just KNOW She's Going To Be A Lawyer

I've mentioned before that we are trying to gently potty train our daughter.  We're doing fine with "number one."  DD will often ask to use the potty, and she goes right away.  She's even learned to wipe herself.  At school recently, she went into the bathroom on her own, took down her pants, took off her diaper, and went to the bathroom.  The teacher didn't know what she'd done until she was finished.  She's wearing Pullups full time now to help her along.

But pooping?  Hell to the no.  DD insists that she has to stand while pooping, and she doesn't want us to come near her.  We keep asking her if she would like to try to go to the potty when we see the poop facial expression, and she always tells us no.  And then she tells us to "leave her poopies alone."  And then she tells us to talk to the hand.  Well, she doesn't exactly say that -- she just holds her hand up to keep us away.

Yesterday, I thought that I would try a new tack.  DD really likes Skittles.  So, I told her that if she would just try to poop on the potty, I would give her one Skittle.  If she managed to poop, she would get three.  Yesterday, she tried, and she got one Skittle. 

Today, we tried again.  When I saw her facial expression change, I made the same offer.  DD finished pooping anyway.  Then she said "I want to try mommy.  I want to try to go poop on the potty."  So, she tried, and of course, nothing happened.  And DD got her one Skittle for trying.  Later today, the same thing happened.  Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.  And she got another Skittle, because she "tried." 

I believe she's on to us.  She's figured out an easy way to get Skittles while preserving her diapers.  I think she's well on her way to becoming a con artist.  Or perhaps a very smart lawyer, since she seems to be so good at finding the loopholes.

Be Careful What You Wish For

DD has undergone a complete metamorphosis.  She is now the potty queen.  She always wants to sit on the potty.  This morning, she interrupted DH when he was getting her ready to sit on the potty -- success.  She sat on the potty at school -- success.  She sat on the potty before bath -- success.

But.  I started washing her, and she wanted to get out of the tub to sit on the potty again, even though she'd just gotten off the potty only minutes before.  I told her that I needed to finish rinsing her before she could do that.  I also managed to wash her hair quickly, and then it was back on the potty.  Her normal bath is about 15 minutes, including play time.  Today?  About 2 minutes.  She was still sitting there when DH came down to rescue me, and I left them there.  My guess is that she will probably want to sit on the potty again after he dresses her for bed.

So, I'm not certain if the potty has become a novelty that will wear off, or whether it's here to stay.  For now, she will only pee on the potty.  If she wants to poop, she stands in the living room and makes the poop grimace until something comes out.  We can't convince her that it would be easier to accomplish her goal if she were sitting. 

I'm getting to the point where I want to bring in some reading material in the bathroom.  Sitting and waiting 20 minutes for someone to go is really not as exciting as you might think.  Even though we have just started down this road, it is getting old really fast.  I know, I know.  I shouldn't complain, and I'm trying not to.  But I've read that the whole potty training thing can take up to a year to finish.  A year!

I guess you can call us the all potty, all the time family.

Success!

We are so excited!  This evening, as DD was finishing her bath, she got a very distressed look on her face.  Then she said, "mommy, I have to go pee pee."  I whisked her out of the tub and sat her on her little potty.  Within a minute, she'd done it! 

I am so very proud of her.  What a great start to the New Year.  Is it too soon to wonder if we will be changing diapers next New Year's Eve?

Way to go, little one.

More Potty "Learning"

I was really surprised to learn that DD is making a special effort at daycare to actually sit on the potty.  This is just the opposite of what she does at home (which is to completely ignore the potty).  And, whenever I suggest that she might want to sit on the potty when she has her clothes off before getting into the tub, she turns her nose up at me and says "no."

So far, her teachers said that she hasn't produced anything for her efforts.  But they have been really impressed.  DD said that there is one other kid at daycare who uses the potty, but I haven't verified that.  I would think that the more kids that do it, the more she would want to use the potty to be like them.  Or, maybe if she actually goes potty one of these times, that might be reinforcing as well.

In the meantime, I haven't been bringing the subject up anymore at home.  I guess I figure that at two years and only a couple of months, there is still a lot of time for this.  I don't want to stress DD out at all.  It would be nice not to have to deal with diapers anymore, but they really aren't that big of a deal.  And I'm so not looking forward to night time potty training, and night time accidents, since we are still co-sleeping.  Just looking ahead. 

Fortunately, we have a plastic cover over the mattress that we keep under the sheet.  We started using it during my last trimester to protect our mattress in case my water broke, and it has come in handy when DD has had her few stomach upsets.  I had to replace it when it started splitting, but I think that we have good reason to keep it around for awhile.

We Have Poop!

Tonight, we went through our usual bath routine, and DD was stripped down and running around with that cute little belly poking out.  She does occasionally sit on the potty chair when she's naked, but I don't push it.  I guess I just figure that it's there for when she's ready, and I don't want to pressure her.

Tonight, as I turned toward the tub to check the water temperature, DD sat on the potty.  It wasn't for very long.  But after she got up, I noticed a very, very small piece of poop in the potty!  It was shaped like a triangle, and it was only about 1/2" at the widest part.  And it was flat.  (I was so sure that you wanted all the details, I thought I would include them.)  But there it was.  Poop!

I asked DD if it was hers, and she said it was.  At that point, I still didn't believe it, wondering if one of the cats had made a deposit instead.  But it was probably DD.  She's been a little constipated lately, so I would imagine that this small piece of poop was just waiting for her to bend over so that it could make its debut without too much effort.

Even though I don't think she really tried to go to the potty, she was certainly proud of her little poop.  We had to save it for daddy to see.  DD kept repeating, "daddy, poop in potty . . . poop in potty!"

My, how things have changed in the last few years.  I never thought I would be so proud and excited over a piece of poop.  And such a  small one at that.  But we feel like we should be throwing a party.  Any excuse for more wine, I guess.