Potty Training, Generation II

I remember those days. I think with Jill we tried "Potty Training in Less Than a Day." I don't remember it all, but I do remember it involved many many M&Ms and a full day of nakedness and potty chairs.....

Today I received the following e-mail from Jill, mother of delightful grandbaby, Deven, not quite two:

"Thought you might enjoy the woes of the potty train"er" and the joys of the potty train"ee".

My poor strep infected child who also has a bit of diarrhea, decided today was the day he was going to use his potty. He told me just before his nap he needed to do "stinky pooties" and wanted to use the "potty". His little potty. Now remember, he doesn't like to sit on this thing, so I turned off all the bells and whistles thinking this may have been part of the eversion. He did sit - for all of one second - produced a drop of "stinky pooties" and began clapping and cheering for himself and doing a little dance in the bathroom. I washed out the bowl thinking we were done when he immediately sat down again and produced another drop of "stinky pooties". He would only sit for one second at a time and now insisted we clean out the bowl and wave "bye-bye stinky pooties" everytime. This gets old after drop #3 and I am stooped over cleaning up "stinky pooties" from both the bowl and the seat since he manages to smear stinky pooties all over it and will not sit down until the seat and bowl are completely clean of "stinky pooties". And now I have used up half a roll of Bounty paper towels and the bathroom smells awful!

This does tell me one thing, he clearly has anal sphincter control since he is able to control liquid stool and get up and down off the potty. Of course this does not go off without a hitch, he does manage to poop all over the bathroom floor and while I'm chasing him, he also poops a little bit on the carpeting in his room.

Now that my face is bright red from bending over for so long and my back is killing me, not to mention my patience is wearing VERY THIN! he finishes "stinky pooties" in the potty and continues to clap and cheer. How could you not be proud of him. Meanwhile, I have had to wash the whole floor with the Chlorox clean-up and wash the carpeting. The whole episode took 25-30 minutes.

Of course in order to make sure he doesn't take off his diaper during naptime - he now has to be put in a onesie AND a pair of overalls with the straps crisscrossed so he cannot take off the pants.

Who knew potty training could be so much "fun"!"

Note from Grammie: This is why childrearing is left to the young! :>D