Potty Like It’s 1993
Greyson was home bound this weekend for his 20th high school class reunion. (Insert old-man joke here. Trust me. I did.) He got a last-minute grossly overpriced plane ticket and went to hang with the class of ’93. 1993 was the same year Beverly Hills 90210 and Saved By The Bell graduated. (If you remember “Donna Martin graduates!” Awesome, we can be friends.) This dear man has a hard time doing things just for him so I pretty much made him go. He hung out at my 10-year reunion a few years ago and partied with my class like it was 1999, so I made sure he got on a plane Friday.
This started Mother-Daughter Potty Training Weekend ’13.
Charlotte’s teacher and I had a good talk about her bathroom progress. We both know she can do it. She goes everyday, but only because we make her. The child simply does not stop her intense playing/reading/singing/dancing/running long enough to go. She would rather go in her pants than stop and go in the potty. We have flirted with Pull-Ups for too long and I’m sick of the diaper company’s overpriced ploy to keep my kid in their glorified diapers. We’re done. Her teacher has potty trained many toddlers in her career and agreed with me that Pull-Ups aren’t cutting it and this kid needed to go cold turkey.
So we did. No turning back now. Pull-Up at night and during naptime. Panties the rest of the time. We’re doing it.
That conversation was Wednesday, the same day Charlotte spotted the one item she has not stopped talking about since. A girl in her class has an older sister in the Pre K class with a Rapunzel backpack. Seeing the Rapunzel “pack pack” was all Charlotte needed. I promised her I would get her one if she went #1 and #2 on the potty and CONSISTENTLY stayed clean and dry.
I understand this is bribery to teach a life skill. I don’t care. Feel free to judge me and my parenting.
Thursday at school she kept her Abby Cadabby panties dry on the way to school. I was very skeptical and filled her cubby container with extra clothes. I was shocked to find her that evening in the same Abby panties, clean and dry. I was thrilled to tell her she was on her way to her “pack-pack” goal.
Friday she did great until a #2 fiasco at the end of the day that resulted in her teacher having to toss her precious pair of Rapunzel panties. She tearfully told me “Miss Cyn-tee-a frew my Rapunzel panees in da trashcan!” (Translation: Miss Cynthia threw my Rapunzel panties in the trashcan.) Still proud though. The “pack-pack” was in sight.” I even called the Disney Store to make sure they had a stock of Rapunzel backpacks.
Saturday morning I made the mistake of turning on Mickey Mouse Clubhouse which distracted her too much and she got her pants wet. Thankfully, she ran into her BFF Adalyn from her class at the local farmers market and she wanted to go potty because Addie wanted to go potty. Let’s hear it for positive peer-pressure!
What happened Saturday afternoon made me realize my idea of a Mother Daughter Potty Training Weekend was darling, but just ain’t gonna cut it. This is going to go on for awhile.
We were at Michael’s, unsuccessfully finding something for my half-assed attempts at crafting. I kept checking with Charlotte to see that she was “clean and dry.” Things were going great. She had a Rapunzel coloring book and was happily flipping through black and white pages. I let her sit in the large part of the cart so she could stretch her legs. I was searching for the right color paint when I heard it.
Trickle, trickle, trickle, splat splat.
I turned and gasped as pee went through the grate of the shopping cart and into the middle of the scrapbooking aisle. I only reacted. No thinking, just reaction. I scooped my bewildered tot up from the dripping cart, snatched the book from her hand, left it on the shelf and ran out of the store. Charlotte screamed the whole time. Not because of her embarassment over leaving her mark in Michael’s. Nope. She was mad I didn’t buy the damn coloring book.
Yes, I should have fessed up to the managers of the store. I’m really sorry, and really embarrassed. I only hope I don’t end up on the “Best of Security Camera Footage” or something like that.
Needless to say, the coloring book wasn’t the only thing she didn’t get. She didn’t get the “pack-pack” yet either. I REALLY wanted to just slap a Pull-Up back on her, but I didn’t. We kept it up today too.
The moral of the weekend? Donna Martin may have graduated, but it will take longer than a weekend to graduate out of Pull-Ups.
Spread it around:
Amy – make her a sticker chart so that she can see her progress. You decide how she earns them – one for going pee, two for poop, or just one for every day that she stays dry – you decide and then tell her. start with small increments like : 5 stickers gets you the coloring book, then make it all the way to 10 15 and you get __________, make it to 25 and you get the pack pack. Work on that all this week – then next weekend stay at home. Stay at home for a couple of days where it is easier and more comfortable for her to get he hang of it. And don’t fret, she is still young and lots of kids her age are not potty trained yet. She will get it!!!
Ah! A chart. Good thinking. I gotta talk this one over with Grey.
We set a “potty timer.” Every 30 mins it goes off & we go potty, whether she says she needs to or not. If we’re watching something special on tv, we pause it to go potty. If we’re playing, we talk about how we’ll potty really fast so we can come back and play more. We even make a game of racing to the potty. Now, she’s asking to potty if it’s between time & she needs to go. We wear pull ups when we’re out running errands, but she often asks to go potty even when we’re out. We just started panties at school too last week. It’s going well for her there too, so this method works great for us. I don’t know if it would help Charlotte, but worth consideration if you all start getting frustrated. Btw, our reward is singing a fun, potty celebration song and cheering. She still likes it and proudly announces all her successes to anyone within ear range!
I like the timer idea. Hmmm….this is interesting. Thanks!
Hey Amy. Look up Lora Jensen’s 3 day potty training method. I’m always super-skeptical of these “fad” methods, but this one actually works. You need to devote the 3 full days to it (a weekend basically). Which means staying home and always near the potty. But it really does work. After 2.5 days our 3 year old was totally potty trained. And no, don’t go back to pull-ups. How confusing for her! If she’s going to wear underwear, stick with it.
Does your 3-year-old wear Pull Ups to bed or for nap?
Ask me one day about Barnes and Noble and how at the end of the trauma Sam and I had to sit down in the closest restaurant so that mommy could have a beer. I think we are both still traumatized.