Potty Training, Day 5

We are in our 5th day of introducing potty training, and in our 3rd day of fully executing it, and I can positively say, it has clicked.

This morning, I got James up and brought him into our bed with the rest of us. When we don't have anything to do on the weekends, we like to laze around in our king-size bed, watching stupid cartoons and just goofing around as a family. Sometime around 8:30, we usually get out of bed and have pancakes, or go get donuts, or have some other "special" breakfast.

Thanks to our busy last few weeks, I have no clean clothes. So after throwing a load of randoms in the washer (who has time to really sort when you're actually out of underwear, but need to fill the washer to a level where you're not wasting water?) last night, I snuck out of the bedroom and down to the basement to grab my jeans.

James didn't pee when he got up this morning, so I figured, like the past few days, he wouldn't pee until at least 9:00 or so.

Wrong! As I was grabbing my laundry out, I could hear his little footsteps two floors above me. I hurried, knowing that the second he came to the basement, he would want to stay down there all morning. Without the fireplace circulating warm air all night, it was cold this morning! I heard James start down the first set of stairs, calling my name. I grabbed the hamper and met him just as he was getting to the top of the basement stairs. Then he yelled, "Mom!" one last time, and peed. And it was a lot of pee.

It was hard not to start the day off on a negative note after that. I had read blog after article after blog about how their child was potty-trained in three days. Although I made very sure that my expectations were not as such, I was still hopeful, especially after the success of yesterday.

I walked him back upstairs after helping me clean up his mess, and we changed his underwear, then put sweatpants on. I remember being weary about the rest of the day.

However since he had peed so much, I knew he wasn't going to need to pee for awhile. I also knew we had about a half hour to 45 minutes in a car, dropping my car off to get new struts, and of course, grabbing some donuts (for those of you scoffing, this was something my dad did for us when we were little, on Saturday mornings, and I turned out just fine, no childhood obesity anywhere...). So we loaded up, a towel on the car seat, and away we went.

James remained dry. I remained calm. Catherine remained cute.

And that was the last accident we had. All day, James would yell, "I pee!" and proceed to go to his toilet, pull down his pants, sit or stand (he has amazing aim), whatever suits his fancy, and pee. Afterwards, he would yell, "I peed!" and grab his bowl, carry it carefully to the toilet, dump it out, rinse it in the sink, wash his hands, and flush the toilet.

Nap time came and I went to put his diaper on and he adamantly said, "No!" Okay, then. Not really sure what to do, I decided what the hell, and left him in his underwear.

He woke up dry. Albeit naked, because he was ready to pee when I got to him, but nonetheless, everything was dry.

He gets how to pull down his pants, he understands that pee goes in the toilet, he knows what it feels like when he has to go. He is starting to take himself to the toilet, even though he mostly looks for us to at least be there, present in this ever-easing process of potty-training.

So for those people that say potty-training can be done in three days, I guess their definition of potty-training CAN be done in three days. Although, when people say potty-trained, I think of no-peeing-at-night potty-trained. I hate grey areas, and apparently, what constitutes full potty-training is definitely, almost all-grey area.

But does he get it? Yes. Is he ridiculously proud of himself? Yes. Has he played dozens of levels of Angry Birds and read hundreds of books while sitting on the toilet? Yes.

But he hasn't pooped. Although we have tried getting him to "toot" into the toilet. Several times. And he usually does, but nothing that produces poop. So we will keep trying.

All in all, with the blogs and articles and pieces of advice I have sought out and pored over, I can say I hardly followed any of it. I went with what worked for us, our family, and our parenting style.

Mostly, the you're-going-to-do-this-damnit approach worked for us. There was no slow, month-long introduction to just the toilet itself. We said, "You're going to shit on the pot" and although no shit has happened yet, we didn't look back once we started.

I have bags and bags of candy sitting in our cupboards, because the reward for my son was a sense of accomplishment. Although we may need to use that for poop. So hopefully I don't eat it all.

It's been a relatively easy process and a heartwarming journey. Who thought I would be excited about pee? Certainly not me!!