Tales from the Toilet

I might be holding my breath as I type this....but dare I say that WE are potty trained. I say WE because I feel like John, Will, and I have all gone through extensive training :) Let me start from the beginning...You can catch up here and here. We decided to try again on January 1st...you know...new year, new beginnings, blah blah BLAH. I decided not to blog about it because honestly if we failed, I didn't want to have to again recount our misfortune :) Well, Will caught on much quicker this time. It was still frustrating for me at times, simply because it was slow. He can hold it a LONG time. And I don't do very well being home bound, even if just for a few days, but I didn't feel it was fair to him to try and catch his accidents and get comfortable on the potty (our potty-we ditched the cool, engine roaring, Lightening McQueen potty...) while also taking him out of the house on errands. New Years Day was a Sunday. We spent this day and Monday (John was off thankfully to help me!) re-training Will, if you will. As I said, he got it....and by Monday mid-day I felt we had gotten over the hump. Little did I know the real hump would be school. I got brave and posted to the world of Facebook that we had been accident free, Will was doing great etc. Tuesday I sent Will to school. I had to be out of our house that morning for a bit so it was just easier that Will go. He had no accidents at school, but he didn't go either. When John went to pick him up, it was 3:40 P.M. He had held it since 6am. John got there, took him to the potty at school, and he went. We breathed a sigh of relief and figured surely now that John had taken him, he would do it the next day without us no problem. After all, the potty at school is much smaller, lower to the ground. He continued to do fine that night, however he had not pooped in 3 days. We were trying not to stress over that because everyone told us this was fairly normal. Wednesday was my first day back at school. I was still pumping at this point. So Wednesday morning I am showered and ready, pumping in the kitchen, and Will comes and says he needs to go potty. He woke up dry but could not go right when he got up. So I waited and figured we would try again in about 10 min. I stopped pumping (those of you that are familiar with this process know what all this involves) and took him to the potty. We sit on the potty and he screams in frustration, "I NOT NEED TO POTTY." So calmy, gritting my teeth, I take him back off the potty, get his undies and pants back on, go back in the kitchen, and resume pumping. 3 minutes later he comes and says he needs to go potty. Since we were trying to get it and make it stick, I stopped what I was doing AGAIN and took him in there. "I CAN'T DO IT!!!" I turn the water on, walked out, etc and nothing worked. I got him back off the potty and go back to pumping for the THIRD time. 2 minutes later, "I HAVE TO GO POTTY." Trying to keep Alex asleep, I rush him into the bathroom and sit him on the potty. Literally in one sentence this is what he said, "I NOT GO POTTY. I CAN'T GO POTTY. I NOT NEED TO GO POTTY. CAN'T DO IT. IT WON'T COME OUT. GET ME DOWN.....OOOOOH MAMA HERE IT COMES (tone changes, happy now) LOOK I GO PEE PEE THERE IT IS!!!!!" I so excited and proud of him, but I knew I could not do this every morning. Not even for one more morning. I didn't get to work until 8:15 that morning. It was a teacher work day granted, but I was supposed to be here by 8:00. The process was just miserable because he was miserable because he needed to go, so that made him B-A-D until he finally could go and was relieved. I pick him up from school on Wednesday and his teachers were worried. He had not gone again the entire day, but also told me that he sat at the table the whole day. He wouldn't talk, barely ate, didn't play or talk with his friends. He was pretty lethargic. I figured he was concentrating so hard on not wetting his underwear that he couldn't do anything else. I took him to the potty at school figuring he would go like he did with John and he wouldn't. He was in a mood. We get home and he is seriously crossing his legs with his hands over his privates shouting "I DO NOT NEED TO GO POTTY. NOOOOO!" I called John and we made the executive decision that while he was physically ready, emotionally he clearly was not ready. Plus, he still hadn't pooped and we could tell it was bothering him. I put a diaper on him soon after and with tears in his eyes he asked me, "I pee pee in my diaper?" He waited for permission. It was pitiful. I know what you are thinking....John and I must have scared the daylights out of him and threatened him if he wet his underwear. We absolutely did not. However, he internalized this somehow. So immediately after the diaper was on, he calmed down, peed, and proceeded to poop for 3o minutes. We felt so bad for him. But I also felt like we were such failures again. I couldn't figure out what we were doing wrong. I called the pediatrician and she said it was not good for him to be holding it all day so to just stop and start again when HE was ready. She said we would know. I had no idea what that meant until Friday. Basically John and I had convinced ourselves that he wouldn't be potty trained until June when I had more than 2 days off to work with him.
Friday when John picked him up at school his teachers told us that his friend Gabe had peed in the potty and Will saw him and said he wanted to pee pee in the potty. Y'all he has been in a pull up EVER SINCE FRIDAY with NO accidents. We have not stayed home-he has peed at a friends house AND at the Circus! We don't ask him if he has to go. He has told us every time. Now that we are on the other side, I totally understand when people say they will go when they are ready. Will was very capable, he just had to make up his mind that he could do it. This go round we went with pull ups instead of straight into undies. I feel like this has made him a bit more comfortable and not as nervous about having an accident, though he hasn't had one! And he is pooping....in his pull up but still at least he is. John told him it was okay to poop in there. We just want him to get down the pee pee first, then we will tackle that beast. On Sunday morning, he pooped in his pull up. We were putting it in the toilet to flush and he looked at me as serious as he could be and said, "I poop in my pull up but it is okay because I did GREAT yesterday!" Made me smile. So if you are still reading this....and you are in the midst of potty training or about to be there, we are living proof that you will come out on the other side....eventually! :)