Monday, August 11, 2008

Things That Suck: Potty Training Edition

I am not going to embarrass future-Mary-Grace by writing all the gory details of her potty training escapades here on the internets for all posterity. I will say, however, that I told her that it was a law that you can't wear diapers after your 3rd birthday, and she totally bought it. Ha!

I will also say that I feel like I've done nothing but say, "Do you need to use the potty?" today. I have had a very elimination-focused day, and I am SICK OF IT. This was NOT in the brochure. Someone needs to start a potty-training boot camp, where you can send your kids for a week and they come back fully trained, and have an additional useful hobby like crochet or gardening.

Seriously, after giving birth twice, I have enough trouble maintaining the integrity of my own potty habits. I am woefully underqualified to take on the responsibility of another person's potty habits. (Hooray for Poise!) Between Claire's diapers, letting Max out, following MG around with a change of clothes and the Lysol, knowing that I need to change the Diaper Genie (and totally avoiding it) and that the litterbox needs cleaning (ditto) and now writing about all of it, I just have to say enough!

And that is all I have to say about that.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

We can leave one thing to embarrass the future Mary Grace. Shouting at Panera, "Mommy, I am not peeing in my leotard!!!"

Heather Bungard-Janney said...

Playdate: either MG will learn from Amelia, or Amelia will fall off the wagon (potty). But she really is almost there. The only reason she wore a diaper today was because all her underwear is in the laundry!

YES, yes I am excited about this. In conversation my husband this weekend, a lady said that this was the parent equivalent of a pay raise.

Anonymous said...

Try this - leave the whole potty thing up to MG to be responsible for. If she doesn't make it to the potty she is responsible for getting changed into dry clothes and for wiping up the mess. Make it easy enough for her to do this, but make her do it. I finally resorted to this with Ian and it did work. Granted you will still have to trail behind her to re-clean whatever she wipes up, but in the end it truly is her responsiblity. It will work especially well if she hates to be wet and really likes the clothes she has on and doesn't want to have to change. And as always PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE for the successes!!! I think it worked for Ian because he hated being told what to do (still does).

Aunt Kathryn

p.s. A little wine for you at the end of the day couldn't hurt

Erin said...

I actually saw a potty boot camp called "Booty Camp" near Chicago on the Today show probably a month or two ago. Maybe if you go to the Today Show archives, you can find it...if you're that desperate. They potty train in one day. No joke. They make the kids eat a lot of sugar and salty stuff and drink tons of fruit juice for one day only. (It happens to be run by an RN.) And then with every accident, they make the kids clean it up. From what I saw the parents have to take a step back initially and let the professionals deal with the kids. Then the pros get the parents involved and also give them pointers and help to keep things going. They say that their method works with special needs kids too, just that it takes about 2 weeks usually.

I'm trying to back off with Katelynn, but last night she climbed out of the tub because she had to sit on the potty. Not to do anything, mind you, but to sit and be read to from the potty books. Everyone I talk to says don't worry about it, she'll get it. Easy for you to say...not your kid! But I'm like you, Amy, Katelynn has to be out of diapers by age 3. It is the law! :)