We have been toying with the idea of pottytraining Sophia for a couple months now. And by "we" I mean me. Every time I would change a two-year old's poopy diaper I would think "It's SO time!" (Is there anything stinkier or more vomit inducing?) I even picked up a cute little frog potty at WalMart a little while back, just so we'd be ready.
Since introducing Sophia to the frog potty she would occasionally get on it for kicks, and even went #'s 1 and 2 on it, possibly accidentally. For a little while I tried just praising her, lots of clapping and cries of joy . . . "Good job, Sophia! What a big girl!" And that resulted in her going on the potty about twice in a month. Time to move on to bigger motivation.
Enter M&Ms.
About a week and a half ago, I decided it was time to get serious. I brought out the big girl underwear, just to show Sophia what she had to look forward to, and also started bribing her with M&Ms. And now the pottytraining adventures have really begun.
Sophia has a huge bladder, apparently, because back before pottytraining she could go from breakfast to naptime and not have a wet diaper. So when we started on the potty, she could go two or three times a day and stay dry. Except then she realized that she was not maximizing her M&M earning . . . and started going a tiny bit, eat an M&M. 10 minutes later, back on the potty for a tiny little pee. 10 minutes later, repeat. Mommy got tired of fastening the diaper back on very quickly, and now she is in pull-ups. Or just naked. Might have to bite the bullet and just put her in her underwear.
Speaking of naked pottytraining toddlers, did you know that it is necessary to take your shirt off to climb on the frog potty? Yup. Except then, "I'm cold." Off. On. Off. On. Repeat all day.
Sophia has learned the magic word, and "please" ain't it. It's actually the magic sentence, "I have to go potty." That sentence can make John and me leap to action, drop what we were doing, and jump to do her bidding. "Quick, get her to the potty!" "Move out of the way, we've got to get to the potty." "I don't care if you are getting ready for work, I'm nursing Jude and she has to pee!"
Somehow, getting Sophia to the pot before any pee leaks out of that little bladder has taken over our very existence. 'Cause the world will end if that happened? You'd think so if you were a fly on the wall in the Libby house!
And just in case you thought I had forgotten the poop? I haven't.
Sophia has this thing about going poop on the potty. She doesn't really like to do it. Therefore, pee is only worth one M&M, but she gets TWO for going poop on the potty.
Today Sophia came up to me while I was changing Jude's poopy diaper, and said "I need to go poop on the potty, Mama!"
Yay! Of course, she had already told me that four times today with no poop forthcoming, so I didn't take it too seriously and told her to go ahead. Down with the pants and pullup, and off she went to the potty in the kitchen. (We keep it downstairs during the day.) I put a diaper back on Jude, and snapped his clothes back on, settled him on the couch, and wandered into the kitchen.
BAHHHHHHH!!!! Disaster!
Sophia had been successful. I could see/smell that right away. Emphasis on the SEE.
The Snuggler has a habit that many young new pottytraining toddlers have, and that is to jump up off the potty every two seconds to see the results, then back on the potty she goes. Problem being that she must have jumped up just at the pivotal moment when the poop had yet to fall into the potty, and a substantial poop had landed right next to her potty, on the floor.
When I walked into the kitchen, she was rubbing at her hand, attempting to get poop off. It was not going well. There was also poop on her shirt, hand, sock, potty chair (on, not in), the floor of course, the high chair leg next to the potty chair, and her leg. It was one of those "DON'T MOVE!" and "Where do I start?!" moments.
Poor kid. She started crying . . . she may be only two, but she knew that poop should NOT be any of the million places that it was. I grabbed a facecloth out of the sink and started going to town, all the while simultaneously barking out instructions ("Don't move! Ok, stand up . . . no wait, sit down! Now stand up!") and trying to comfort her ("Yay, you went poopy, and it wasn't in your diaper! Now we just have to work on your aim . . . good job! Let's go get two treats!").
We did finally get it cleaned up, but I'll tell you, that facecloth is no more. Straight into the trash . . . it was on it's way out anyway, but that finished it for me. Can't clean mac 'n cheese off the Snuggler with the cloth that handled that disaster!
What's that, Sophia? You have to go pee?
GTG, see you next time!!!
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And now I'm back to tell you about the next drawing, coming up December 1st. All of my followers will have a chance to win a jar of homemade non-high fructose corn syrup strawberry jam. You just have to become a follower and you will automatically be entered in the drawing, yum!
3 comments:
1 week, bite the bullet, in regular undies. They will have accidents but it works...or at least that's the advice I was given, followed it and it works we have been accident free for 1 month. Poop is always more challenging. Good job momma, good job Sophia! :)
We're going to do that next week, Jen. We have all been sick so I've been waiting, and needed to buy more underwear (only bought one package of 5 before), but I bought some today just need to wash and then we'll be ready!
ROFL!
Love, Mom
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