Thu 13 Nov 2008
pottykampf
Posted by bon under milestone stuff
[35] Comments
Oscar is learning that his body is his own, these days. in corollary news, my house smells like urine.
we tried full-on potty boot camp last weekend, since Dave had a few extra days off and nothing says vacation like wiping piss off the floor. in hindsight, we should’ve just flown to Thailand for the full moon party, or something. our plan failed utterly. he was ready on paper: had successfully pooped in the potty with pride just a few days before, was learning to pull down his own pants, was keen on flushing, could stay dry for hours at a time. he wears cloth, so he knows full well when he’s wet. what we forgot to account for was will. his potty-readiness is coinciding with the realization that he is an entity unto himself, and this dictator-readiness is made of stronger stuff than his urge to pee in plastic.
when he was left to roam the house in underpants Sunday morning, he announced his need to pee precisely as he finished soaking through the first pair. with the second two, he got up off the potty after a prescheduled try and promptly pissed right through their Thomas the Tank Engine decals, gleeful grin on his face. oh, he said, both times. that’s MEIN pee!
it’s interesting, watching this sense of selfhood emerge. interesting, that is, if one can detach emotionally from the shouting and the whining and the refusals of all things that have formerly pleased Little Herr Happypants. a self-identifying toddler is a rather abusive creature, not overly concerned with the feelings of others, nor a mother’s attachment to little habits of affection or personal care. dose is MEIN toes! he howls, when i bend to kiss them. NO-OH! that’s MEIN hairs! he laments, when i try to run a brush near his tangly mane. i don’ WANNA pee in the potty! he announces, suddenly, when enticed to the throne at his usual longstanding times.
he wants control, this kid. control of his self, above all else…though control over everyone else in the house and vicinity wouldn’t be bad, either, if you’re offering. he’s suddenly caught on to the diabolical fact that until this point his father and i have made all significant decisions regarding his life and well being, and those “would you like to brush your teeth or wash your face first?” forays into agency are, in fact, decoys masking the horrible, awful truth that we force cleanliness onto his person, just as we force regular nutrition and sleep and make all the real decisions about where he goes and when. he is outraged, mad as hell, and he’s not gonna take it anymore.
so he’s peeing on my floor, people. i don’t think we’ll be training him any time soon.
what i do wonder is if, once engaged, this struggle for control will ever lessen. looking ahead, to sixteen or eighteen or – thinking of my own relationship with my mom, ahem – thirty-some more years of that’s MEIN thingamajiggit (insert any object of desire or personal attribute here), i get so very, very tired.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
Oh my. He is just 2 1/2 and he does have a new baby sister. I’d be slapping the diaper back on and singing “La, la, la, la” until spring. In spring, he can pee on the bushes and such. It adds a sense of adventure to the whole affair, if perhaps not a sense of propriety.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
Also, that independence gig? My kid never had it. Not once. She did, however, cling and cry a lot in infancy: KWIM. Could be that in 2 years, you’ll be able to kiss toes and tussle hair–even braid pig tails–all this and more for the stiff price that is now being exacted up front.
November 13th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
Ros was the same, both of them if I think about it.
Just step back and try again in a month or two. You’ll get there. :) Ros STILL pees a little in her pants if she gets distracted. She’ll be a joy at 15.
November 13th, 2008 at 3:00 pm
I agree on the spring/summer thing. Commando is much easier when it’s warm and you can park them outdoors. :) Just watch where you walk.
I have a clinger, and a little miss independant. Both were stubborn cheeky cows. Not much you can do against BOWEL POWER!
November 13th, 2008 at 3:46 pm
I haven’t started potty training yet because I am AFRAID. And this post isn’t helping!
November 13th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Had one “did everything she’s told” kid (#1) and one “if you say it, I’ll do the opposite” kid (#2, who feels like #2-#4 some days!).
I’m with Mad Hatter up there – slap a diaper back on him and wait him out. You’ve got to pick your battles and NO kid wants to wear diapers forever.
Interestingly, Kid #2 self-potty-trained at 18 months. Mentioned it to the doctor, who said that happens sometimes with younger kids, it was probably a phase, don’t get too used to it because shell probably regress, and don’t worry because she’ll get back around to it when she’s ready. It did, it was, she did, and yes, she did eventually!
I look at it this way – #2 will never do what someone else tells her to do just because someone else tells her to do it. So eventually, when that strong-willed streak turns against her peers instead of me, I’ll be GLAD it’s there!
November 13th, 2008 at 4:04 pm
MEIN. LOL!
Pie is well past three now, and she doesn’t want to be potty trained. And my approach is pretty much to just sit around and wait for that to change.
November 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Miss K only started training on her 3rd birthday. She was a quick study but often gets lazy and although some people may think I’m a horrible parent for this, I’ve been bribing her to keep her motivated… Santa Claus will bring her the “big kitchen” if she uses the potty every time! “Santa Claus doesn’t visit little girls and Boys if they don’t use the potty”…. I know, I know…I’m horrible!
November 13th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Umm, I echo everyone else, leave til he’s older. Maybe next summer? Or the one after that?
My oldest didn’t have any need to until 3 3/4 and he did it himself and decided when. And then it just happened, overnight. Plus boys are always a little later than girls. It’s biological.
Relax and pour yourself some wine.
November 13th, 2008 at 5:30 pm
i’m with Mad on this.
November 13th, 2008 at 5:47 pm
What Debbie said. I had to resort to bribery with the Elder Daughter. The YD trained herself, mostly, early, mostly. Note the mostly. Urine scented house? Yep.
November 13th, 2008 at 7:14 pm
I so hope the relationship (insert defiance) I had with my mom won’t be passed on to the next generation. I hope having boys will save me.
R-man was tough to train. But like riding a bike, you’re never good at it the first time. As a teacher I mean. The defiance in him was there. He shit in his pants allll the time. Piss on my floor, go ahead. But don’t wipe your shit on my bathroom walls!
Owen was easy. Probably because we didn’t care any more. Nothing could be worse than the first. Plus we taught him to pee outside. What fun that is! Long after he’s trained however, while building the house (toilet not ready) he takes his training to the next level and I find a pile of shit next to the driveway….I kid you not, that boy would squat down anywhere. So I don’t encourage the outdoor thing anymore.
November 13th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
mein pee…sounds much more headstrong in another language. the claiming of self sounds pretty rough, especially when combined with the pervasive smell of pee. hang in there,mama.
November 13th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
ditto, ditto, ditto….
You can try at two and spend a year cleaning up pee, or try at three and spend a week/month cleaning up pee. That’s what they say.
In my experience, although it’s ridiculously simplified, it’s kinda true.
xo
November 13th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
I was told by a knowing older woman when frustrated by my O’s refusal to fully “get” the potty training that there’s no such thing as my time, only his, which is to say that when he’s good and ready he’ll do it and it’ll have so very little to do with you and all your persuasions and suggestions and methodology that you’ll feel altogether stupid. And she was right. So hang in there and just let it happen on his terms.
(The same goes for learning to read, I’m afraid.)
November 13th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
I would suggest that when Dave is home – thus messing with the usual schedule – might not be the best time, either.
Until Isaac decided he was ready to “weah big boy unnerweah” nothing we tried worked for long. It just frustrated us, bothered him, and generated freakin’ piles of pissy laundry. One day, he announced he wasn’t wearing diapers anymore – we sent him off to daycare with lots of spare clothes – and he stayed dry all day. The poop thing took longer and if I had a nickel for every beshitted pair of pants I washed, I could have hired someone to train him for me. :)
But he’s great now and you’d never know that he was still in diapers when we brought James home from the hospital only seven months ago.
You’ll get there. But as I mentioned on my blog just last week, the pee on the floor is forever.
November 13th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I will add my voice to the chorus. I too thought my guy was ready only to be proven wrong. Yes, slap back on the diapers and wait. When Ryan was truely ready ~3 (a little older) it was really quick. The messy week S&S Kate describes above.
Mind you after switched preschools and moving there have been a few accidents mostly from distraction/disruption of routine – but no gigantic power struggles (unusual for him) once I submitted to the need to bring extra pants and undies everywhere for a while b/c I had to trust him when he said he didn’t have to go…He was right (mostly).
November 14th, 2008 at 12:23 am
God, our kids really are the same age, huh? *Exactly* the same problem over here.
November 14th, 2008 at 1:38 am
ditto on the waiting. i tried my son when he was about the same age and he wasn’t having a bar of it and then about 6 months later he showed an inkling of interest and i resorted to bribery and corruption. he was thomas obsessed. i bought a heap of thomas stickers. drew a chart with 12 or so thomas trains on it. every hour took him to the loo regardless of whether he wanted to or not. when he peed he got to choose a thomas sticker and put it on the trains. when he had filled in the chart we went to the toy shop and he could buy the train of his choice. it took 3 days and by then he was pretty much going by himself. we only had to do the one chart. when he was ready he was ready i guess. and i never used pull ups. confuses them i think. my daughter was completely different. at 22 months one day she said she wanted to wear undies and from that day on she did. unbelievable. i’m with aurelia – relax and pour yourself another wine:)
November 14th, 2008 at 2:14 am
Sticker charts, candy bribes, underwear with his favorite movie character on it . . . nothing worked, until the little dude just decided he wanted to be done with diapers. So yeah, nothing new to add there!
November 14th, 2008 at 7:01 am
I have one of these little control freak dictators. They are tiring. We tried to potty train our son at 2 1/2 and it was exactly as you describe, an abysmal failure. He would piss anywhere with glee. Except the potty which caused convulsions of displeasure.
We just started again this week. He’s three and a few months. It’s the tropics, we figured why not, pee smells fabulous here after an hour or two. Success. In just a few days!!
So, stick with it if you want to, but don’t be afraid to slap a diaper back on him and try again in a few months.
November 14th, 2008 at 10:38 am
yes, there are 16 more years of “this,” if by it one means seeking agency.
but the form and shape of it changes so often that you’re fooled into believing it’s less than it was.
it isn’t, not really, but it’s fairly easy to delude yourself.
November 14th, 2008 at 2:38 pm
I had to wait until each of my kids were just hair-breaths away from turning 3 to potty train then and then I had to put up with everyone being kind of snotty about it because people around here toilet train their kids at 18 months. And then buy them a snowmobile. And potty training was REALLy the first thing to shake my parental self-confidence – but not one of my kids still wears diapers, so it DOES happen. Just slowly and horribly.
November 14th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
Ditto so many others. Wait! We tried several times with our first son, all the way through age 2, but no dice. He finally got it during Christmas break when he was 3 (+4 months), while we had a full week off with no obligations. Starting the morning after Christmas, we dropped the diapers cold turkey and let him run around the house bare-bummed, and he finally figured it out. (I think for him even wetting the undies was a little too obscure…He needed to see himself actually pee right out on the floor before he figured out how it all worked.) After the first couple days, he got the hang of it, and he rarely had an accident after that.
Our younger son is 2-3/4 now. We have a potty hanging around, and we read the potty book, but no pressure. My philosophy now is, you can spend a year+ torturing yourself (and the kid), or you can just let them wait until they’re good and ready and then it’s more likely to be quick and painless…although there’s really no avoiding some pee on your floor at some point, is there? Best of luck!
November 14th, 2008 at 9:31 pm
I didn’t even attempt with my boys until they were 3. (not worth the fight to me). #1 Son was 3 years, 3 months, took only two days, #2 son watched #1 son and was only a day or two around his 3rd birthday; I have heard again and again, if there is resistance from the child, they just aren’t ready. I was amazed at how painless it was. Boys need time, it seems.
November 14th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Sorry about the potty training adventures! I remember them all too well, since we are only recently out of that stage in our home. Best of luck with it!
November 15th, 2008 at 4:14 pm
You totally crack me up, and you sum it up amazingly well. Yep. 100% right on. YEP.
November 15th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
KayTar is still in diapers at nearly 4…not that I think O will hold off that long or that KayTar is any approximation of normal child development, but I’m just saying even this isn’t so bad and definitely preferable to pee on the floor. LOL.
He’ll get there. He’s just had his world shaken up with the arrival of his sister, I’m sure he’ll be asserting his control as much as possible for a while.
November 15th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
Ahhhh…. control battles… my least favorite part of mothering and it ain’t going away anytime soon. Or ever, more likely.
Good luck! I am keeping Eleanor in diapers another 3-6 months if I can…
November 16th, 2008 at 1:54 am
I have a few Funny stories about G, K and S potty training…I’ll tell you sometime. There howls of laughter here,as I read this, and I’m passing over my crunchie bar. I feel your pain and offer chocolate as solace. Beer for Dave. Love to you all
November 16th, 2008 at 1:58 am
ooh, as for advice? Cheerios to aim for in the big toilet and a step stool….then a smartie jar occasionally appearing as reward. It worked for the peeing…as for number 2? don’t be surprised if you hear something grunting from behind a chair for a while to come….and just hope that he doesn’t dump the evidence as company is arriving….
November 16th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
Our floors are aglow with girl pee, two-year-old-I-want-underwear-OOPS pee.
Sigh.
November 17th, 2008 at 12:58 am
Oh lord, the pee on the floor. How familiar and disgusting this is to me. I just cleaned up pee on the floor this morning for the 3rd time this week. And the strange thing is? It’s from my 5 year old daughter, NOT my toddler. Kill me now.
November 19th, 2008 at 7:40 pm
With Euey we waited for all the ‘signs’ and he still, by his reactions, was still not ready. He got to the stage where he went and hid to do a poo in his jocks, so we put the nappies back on. About 2 weeks later he said ‘I’m going to the toilet’, and he did. Easy peasy. Trained in about 2 days then, and a few weeks later was out of nappies at night too. I say wait ’til they absolutely refuse to wear a nappy. (Although, in saying that, Aoife refuses to wear a nappy some days and she’s definately NOT ready. I try to convince her that pull-ups are undies on those days!)
November 19th, 2008 at 11:34 pm
I’m in the middle of potty training my second son. The oldest LOVED pissing in the house. I mean, REALLY LOVED IT! I’ve steam cleaned his closet six times.
Now the littlest one has accidents, but he doesn’t seem to just get some odd kick out of wetting the carpet. However, when he pees in the potty, he gets on his stool and then props his right foot on the toilet rim. It looks like those Captain Morgan commercials. He has a little captain in him.