Now, on to the real deal...
...the adventures in potty training!
My husband and I are clearly gluttons for punishment.We recently moved our 3 year old son into our 8 year old son's room so that our 6 month old daughter could finally have her own room. We are also working on getting her to sleep in her crib. We are also housebreaking our 8 week old puppy. So what better time to finally say enough is enough with our incredibly stubborn 3 year old and get him potty trained? On a Tuesday? When my husband has to leave for work an hour after we begin?
What could possibly go wrong there?!
I'll be chronicling said adventures right here, as often as possible. I'm even keeping notes in my phone so that I can try to post and share them at the end of the day. So, here are yesterday's events.
Day One.
Roger peed in his underwear four times in a 45 minute span. Never pees this often in diapers, but suddenly now he's expelling liquid like a fire hydrant. I should have bought him more underwear. Down to two clean pairs only about an hour after I got home from the store.
Out of the entire day, he told me when he needed to go potty only once, at about 11:10 AM. Got him to the toilet, he suddenly throws a tantrum about not wanting to go. Finally manage to strip him of his underwear so he can go, and he pees on the floor. Dammit. All the while, my daughter is in her bouncy seat screaming because she's hungry and ready for a nap (which she never took anyway, as luck would have it), and my delightful dog has chewed up a pacifier and peed on the rug--again. By 11:15 AM, I am literally counting down the seconds until noon when I can crack open a beer without feeling like a total alcoholic. I've actually set an alarm on my phone that says "It's go time."
No, I wasn't joking.
It's 11:35 AM. Close enough. Open a cold Budweiser. Realize I'm low on beer, kind of wanting to cry, kind of wishing I'd purchased both beer and underwear in bulk. Already washing Roger's underwear because he's almost out of clean ones. Also realizing I'll be doing a lot of laundry for the next several days and hope I have enough detergent.
12:00 PM. Successful toilet use; lots of praise and two Skittles as a reward. Alarm goes off, reminding me to open a beer. Joke's on you, alarm, I already finished one and am considering a second one. Alarm kind of makes me feel like a failure.
1:00 PM. Another accident, down to one pair of clean underwear, the rest are in the dryer, I feel like I'm racing a clock, quickly trying to dismantle a bomb. Oh, wait, that's just my head feeling like it's going to explode. Okay. I tried making him wait a few minutes before cleaning him up and changing his underwear, in the hopes that he would get uncomfortable and realize that this is clearly no way to live. This bright idea failed spectacularly, as he doesn't seem to mind being covered in his own pee at all. Finally had to force him into clean underwear against his will, and he screams at me and throws a huge fit, because what kind of horrible mother would inflict this kind of medieval torture onto her child? I'm obviously the worst. Having a second beer.
2:00 PM. The inmates have taken over the asylum.
2:15 PM. Successful toilet use; feeling a little better about the day, very proud of my son, but still on the verge of a heart attack because I'm trying to do about 500 things at the same time (as opposed to the usual 400 things on an average day). Haven't had time to sit down. Already checking my bank account to see if I have money for more beer.
3:15 PM. Another successful toilet use. Things are getting a little better, but more chaotic (if that makes any sense at all), because now my 11 year old brother and 8 year old son are home from school and the house is starting to resemble a junkyard and the kids are as loud as a rock show (or what I remember of one anyway). Fortunately my mother is here, and I have someone to rant to.
3:45 PM. Go to store for more beer, because I'm sure I'll need plenty for the next few days. Ha! Yeah right, like it will last a few days. Come home, start getting things ready for dinner. Starting to feel crazed again, but the food in the crock pot smells delicious, so I'm okay with it.
After that, I stopped logging times and events because, well, between potty time, accidents from both the toddler and the puppy, dealing with the baby, making and serving dinner, homework with my 8 year old, bedtime, etc., etc., there's just no time for note-taking anymore.
But! Roger successfully used the toilet several times and only had one more accident between about 3:00 and 5:00, because I realized I'm obviously an idiot for constantly asking when he needs to go and instead, I just started making him go every 30 minutes, and he actually did, every time. By bedtime, everything from the day felt like a blur, and I wanted to cry and eat a lot of candy and sleep. It was also really hard not to eat his Skittles as they mocked me mercilessly from on top of my fridge.
As I'm typing this, I'm also making notes about today's events for me to post tonight or tomorrow, and I'm hoping and praying (yes, praying, just in case) that today is much smoother than yesterday, because rereading all the events from yesterday is making my stomach turn.
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