Progress progresses, progressively

So there is good and there is bad. The good: Kiddo has gotten much more proactive about the whole potty thing. He even, occasionally, voluntarily uses it. For some reason public restrooms have a special allure that our boring old bathrooms at home do not (could it be the paper towel dispensers? the separate stalls?), so he's much more enthusiastic about the whole business when we're out and about. We've basically ditched the pull-ups.

The bad: We're not using them at night, either -- per the recommendation of his teacher -- and that's meant a whole lot more sheet-washing. I'd hate to go back to the pull-ups now, since it would feel like backsliding. But he just does not wake up to pee. I've started waking him up to go potty right before I go to bed, but I haven't quite found the magic pee time yet. 11:30? Already peed. 11? Already peed. 10:30? Can't pee yet. And yet, after falling asleep on the couch last night, then waking up in a panic at 12:30, I rushed upstairs and he was miraculously dry. This kid's bladder is playing a mean, mean game with me.

The worse: His #2 issue is so problematic it's requiring medical intervention. As in, suppositories. Every night. I don't know if it's officially considered encopresis -- I wasn't in the pediatrician's office for this latest visit -- but that does sound like what's going on. So at least we know he's not deliberately soiling himself, and at least the "medicine" (as we're having him call it) seems to be doing something or other. I will of course spare you the incredibly gross details, except to say that he's been putting up with all this remarkably well, considering, and he seems positively gleeful when he actually produces something in the proper place, and then makes me come look at it. I thought it was bad enough when my cat would kill things and then casually leave the little corpses around so I could praise her magnificent hunting skills. (Except for bugs, which she ate on the spot.)

What's really kind of aggravating is that I hear and see what other kids eat and I know my kids have better diets, in that fruits and vegetables are involved, dessert is not every night, bread products are whole wheat and high-fructose corn syrup is not allowed near our front door. But clearly this isn't just a diet issue.

I cannot believe how much of my brain is occupied with my child's other end. I mean, I just had to show the cat where the litter box was, once, and she was set for life. Obviously cat ownership did not fully prepare me for this little problem. I feel like the world's worst conversationalist -- like you could drop me in a room full of fascinating people holding forth on art, politics, modern philosophy, the slow food movement, and all I would have to say is "My kid peed in the potty five times today and his bed was still dry after his nap, isn't that just fabulous?"

But, we had the smarts to bring him to the doctor when we did, and he is getting better. So there is hope on the horizon, and eventually, if I actually want to occupy my brain with poop-type matters, I'll have to resort to watching "Dumb and Dumber" again. (I won't.)

Deputy Underpants

I'm not quite ready to promote him to captain yet, but he has been wearing them all week. To school. In bed. And my Lord the laundry. Oh it piles up. But I figure getting this done is worth the sky-high water bill we are inevitably going to have. (Man reading the water meter: "What are they doing over there, showering a yak?")

At first he had a few accidents a day, and then by the end of the week it was one. And it was one yesterday (I think). He has gotten his shoes a few times -- thankfully they appear to be machine washable -- so I just got him an auxiliary pair to keep at school (their suggestion), just so he can still go out on the playground even if his shoes are wet. Hey, I'm shopping at Payless. It's not like he's drenching hundred-dollar Nikes.

A couple days ago, to help him remember which end of the underwear goes in back, I showed him the little emergency opening in the front and explained what it was for. Side note: Really, guys, how lazy are you that you need an emergency hatch in your underwear? Because pulling the whole thing down is somehow too much work? I didn't even realize the emergency hatch is in every single pair, until I started helping kiddo get the underwear on. Anyway kiddo was especially intrigued by the hatch, and when he hit up the potty after breakfast, he was in a hurry and used it. Highly impressed with himself, he explained to us, "When my penis gets in trouble, I can use this!" And we promptly had a giggle fit over that behind the bathroom door. Oh no! The penis is in trouble! To the emergency hatch!

A more mature person would not be so quick to embrace the toilet humor. I am not that person.

There's still the inevitable "but I don't WANNA use the potty" whine after meals and after "Phineas and Ferb" is over but it seems at least a little halfhearted. And he is genuinely using the potty, nearly every time.

I even daringly brought him to a birthday party yesterday, in underwear. At one of those kiddie play places that had a bounce house and video games, either one of which could keep him occupied (and not remotely focused on his bladder) for hours. I brought extra shorts and underwear, just in case, and did not need them. Granted I had to time him more or less precisely, then corral him and drag him to the bathroom, but it worked. Huzzah.

So we'll see how this week goes. I am, finally, optimistic.

Every single parent I talk to, no matter the generation, says potty training is the worst part and they were so happy when it was over with. So ... it gets better from here?

Potty war: A new hope?

Yesterday morning, I prodded him over to the potty for his usual post-breakfast constitutional, and he looked distinctly like something big was coming. He asked me to leave. More precisely, to "go somewhere." Which was a strange bit of delicacy, but I complied. After several long minutes, he triumphantly announced, "I pooped!" And oh boy he certainly had. There was enough left over for an auxiliary potty.

He was highly pleased with himself and the world, until we'd gotten the whole production into the toilet and flushed it. Seems the whole production was too much for the toilet, and it promptly stopped right up. Then made some ominous gurgling noises. Kiddo backed off, a little spooked. And then a stray bit of leftover production fell out of wherever it had been hiding, and kiddo stepped on it. With his new sneakers on. That I had just bought him 24 hours ago.

Fortunately everything cleaned up nicely and neither kiddo nor the toilet seem to have developed post-traumatic stress disorder.

Honestly. I'm reasonably lucky in that my work hours are a little flexible. What do parents do when they're on a stricter time clock, and this sort of thing happens? What do they say? "Well, my kid and the potty and the poop was everywhere and cleanup and, you know, sorry I'm late."

Kiddo also announced at school/day care yesterday that he needed to pee, then ran into the bathroom to do so. And then used the potty three times after getting home last night. Then while climbing into bed, announced that he needed to use it again, and climbed back down and did so. All promising signs. His teachers think give it a few more days, then send him to school in underwear and see what happens.

In the meantime, kiddette is now capable of informing us that she needs a diaper change by pointing at her butt and saying "poop." Which her brother never, ever did. So I'm thinking once kiddo is finally off the pull-ups, we start right in on kiddette. I'm envisioning a world of no more diapers, of retiring the Diaper Genie permanently, and it's a beautiful world. Also a cheaper one.

Potty war: The continuing saga

So we turned a bit of a corner. I think.

We were up at Grandma's for the weekend, and we brought the potty with us. Have small plastic toilet, will travel. It's a little like when we used to bring the cat places with us and we'd pack her litter box. Periodically through the weekend we would declare potty time and have him sit -- and when I say "periodically" I mean there was a little timer constantly ticking in my head, counting down the minutes between the last potty time and the next potty time, between a meal and the next potty time, between a nap and the next potty time. Because really, could there possibly be anything else more interesting to occupy my brain? He peed occasionally, but reluctantly, since potty time was taking valuable Grandma's-toy time away from him.

And then ... he pooped. I mean he really pooped. I mean it was bigger than some of the dogs we'd seen at the park that morning. DH, I believe, is scarred for life just from the sight of it. And kiddo was thrilled. It was the first time ever he'd fully, willingly pooped in the potty, and he was apparently delighted to have survived the experience.

Since then he's pooped in the potty two more times, and he's peeing nearly every single time we get him to sit. He's way more excited about it than he was before. The pull-ups seem to be drier a little longer. And once he's on the potty, he stays on it, even if we get up and leave the room. He may scooch the potty out of the bathroom and into the hallway to retrieve a toy that rolled away, but he is, technically, still on the potty.

We're still holding the doctor's "special prize" over his head, because it works. I fake-called the doctor one more time, and since then I just have to threaten to do it and he yelps, "No, I don't want you to give the prize to the other boy!" Sometimes he gleefully talks about how he's going to get the prize and the other boy won't, and the other boy will cry. He's decided the mythical other boy is one of his buds from school. Not sure why he wants to make his friend cry. Is this a guy thing?

I've been quizzing his teachers on it, and they're not so much impressed with his progress. He still fights them on sitting, especially before nap. It's true he's still not volunteering to use it on his own. But I clued in one of the teachers about the doctor-prize strategy, and at school today he peed and pooped. So we'll see how this weekend goes. I figure on sticking him in underwear again to see how he does. Unless of course the world ends, in which case I may be a little annoyed that this is how I spent my last days on Earth.

Potty war

And oh man is it a war. He doesn't want to do it. Won't have it. Doesn't care if he pees or poops his pants, even when wearing underwear instead of pull-ups (so all the books/magazines/web sites that endorse that method, please take a flying leap). I took all the toys out of his bedroom and told him he would earn one back each time he used the potty. Which he'll do, and he's happy to get a Matchbox car or a Thomas train back, until the next time we tell him to use the potty and he throws a screaming fit and runs away from us. Even though it would obviously earn him back another toy.

The doctor noted he's clearly strong-willed in general (as in, if you give him the chance he'll walk all over you, something every single authority figure who's ever dealt with him has learned at some point) and recommended counseling. For us, not him, to give us techniques on dealing with him. Not sure how that works exactly. We get on the couch and they say, "Hi there, sucky parents! Here's how to do everything you've been doing wrong!" She also told him that she was going to call every night to find out if he'd used the potty, and if he had, he would get a prize. So dragging that line out has helped some. Although it's gotten to the point where I faked a phone conversation with the doctor yesterday, explaining that kiddo would not use the potty and she would just have to give the prize to the other boy. Kiddo freaked out and immediately got on the potty. I told the dial tone I would have to call her back later.

Then of course he asks for the prize, and I tell him he has to use the potty for a whole day and not pee his pants if he wants the prize. And then 20 minutes later he pees his pants.

We didn't force it while he was having trouble pooping and we had to put him on Miralax. We didn't force it when his sister was born, because that was upheaval enough. Then we moved -- even more upheaval -- and he started a new school (or day care) with kids he didn't know. Not to mention this new bedroom he was sleeping in, with a bed instead of a crib. So we would try to get him on the potty, but we didn't try that hard, because he was already having problems settling into his new class. But now he's 4 and the only one in his class still in pull-ups. Enough is enough.

Yesterday, I let him watch a little TV because he'd used the potty, and sometime during the show, he peed his pants again (and knew it, clearly, because he was standing instead of sitting on the couch and trying to squeeze his legs together). So no more TV, I think, since clearly he won't leave it to take care of business. I was so furious I hauled him upstairs and left him in his room, pantsless, with the potty, and told him he could come out after he'd used it. He did, almost right away, and then asked, with complete sincerity, "Are you happy now?"

And then I felt like the world's biggest schmuck because all I do is yell at him.

So that was my Mother's Day, how was yours?