We started potty training yesterday. We did a lot of prep work. We bought a little toilet, and underwear, with monkeys on it. We've talked about how exciting it will be to use the toilet, be a big girl, wear underwear, etc. We bought a book for her and read it so many times that she can quote it, or read it to herself whenever she wants. We bought a book for me, written by psychologists who speak my language about learning processes, and understood the book, and were ready to apply the book. (But I should have remembered, it's a parenting book, and those always gloss over the nasty truth that it is never as straightforward as they make it sound (reference feeding my infant). Why do I still read them?)
But there were some glaring signs that should have indicated that maybe all would not be smooth sailing. Like every time we used the phrase "pee-pee" she replied "Peep, peep, ribbit" quoting another favorite book. Like the fact that we had previously had to bribe her just to sit on the toilet, so she expected chocolate just for sitting down. Like the fact that the answer to everything is always "no," even if it's done with a pleasant smile and often followed up with a yes.
There is a good chance that I will look back on this and laugh, so feel free to do so yourself, but I'm not ready yet.
I taught her with a dolly, and she thought that seeing the water in the potty pot and emptying the water in the toilet was very exciting. So when she sat down she announced "Here comes the water" and wasn't sure why it didn't work for her. She absolutely did not care when the dolly had an "accident" (so we could talk about consequences of the accident). And things just didn't go well from then on out. Kiddo stayed dry for about an hour. Then she peed about 5 times in the next 2 hours: on the floor, in the cupboard, by her toys, on my stool, on the chair, but never in the potty chair. At some point along here, the stress started to overwhelm her, and she would often cry, and suck her thumb (a sure sign of distress), a lot. (And yes, I thought about the cleanliness of that thumb.) I tried to convince her that wet pants were bad and no one liked that, and had her help me clean it up, and practice going potty, but every move I did seemed to reinforce an idea of hers that she didn't want to use the toilet. She did, though, announce to me her accidents by the information that we needed to "clean the floor." Her obsession with wiping up messes means that having her help clean her pee was not the supposed deterrent it was advertised to be.
I felt like everything, especially myself and my child (but not the potty chair), was covered with urine. I wanted to give up, to try again after nap time, but was going to persevere. Until her next accident. She peed on the floor. What does that resemble? A puddle. So she tried to splash. Pee puddle + bare feet (okay, bare everything) + tile floor = disaster. She fell down in it. And she hurt herself. Given the tension and stress of the morning, there was not much to be done but to pick her up and rock her for a while. Now we truly were both covered in urine.
Much too soon for her taste, I put her down, wiped her off, changed my shirt, and put a diaper on her (oh, and cleaned the floor). Then we rocked for a while longer, and then finally had to read the frog book to distract her from her sorrow. After that we had a pleasant lunch, then headed off for much needed naps. When we woke up a few hours later, I had to bribe her out of her diaper. We didn't make it into underwear (she just ran around in a shirt that afternoon). The afternoon was more successful than the morning, in that she didn't fall into any of her accidents. But she always seemed to go just before or just after sitting in the chair. Always.
Then, hallelujah, daddy came home. We had dinner that I didn't have to make. I insisted that we wear underwear for dinner. He sat next to her while we waited for her to go, which meant there was some successes before bedtime.
After one day of this, she can pull up and down her underwear, empty the potty pot into the toilet, and tell me when she's had an accident. I will pretend this is progress, as I gear up for another day.
