Potty training
Today marks round five in a six-day potty training plan. It’s been rough.
Little Ones saved our sanity when training Graham to nap, so we’re 100% on-board with their potty training program. Broken into three sets of two days, we’ve nearly completed the round.
On days one and two, Graham went pantless and we follow him around, poised at any moment to catch him peeing. When he does, we immediately direct him to the nearby potty and celebrate like mad if the tiniest bit of pee lands in the pot. Then there’s the delivery of the pee to the toilet, flush, and pick out a star sticker to represent Graham’s ongoing success. If this sounds gross and exhausting, you’ve got the picture. We started Friday, so Amie went it alone the first day while I was working.
We’d done our best to prepare, but what can prepare you for this level of focus and disgust? Even with a week’s delay we still weren’t ready, but we began nonetheless. The first night’s poop nearly derailed us.
A night-time poopy diaper leaves a decent rash the next day, but night-time underwear turned his tush into a raw and angry welt. For a few hours it looked like Graham was permanently angry with his potty; as though it was the cause of his pain. It was a narrow call, but a couple rounds of messy Desitin and Graham returned to his busy, happy self.
Determined to learn from the first day’s poop rash, we changed Graham the second we discovered he’d pooped, about midnight. Even so, a second turd awaited when he woke us up the following morning. Clean and free, Graham laughed and played through the morning, but little progress was made. Perhaps day three would be better?
No. Not better. Day three was the pit of despair in our potty training marathon - a pit full of urine and gnashing of teeth. Graham’s resistance hit a peak and we questioned why we’d sold three days of our life to this hopeless endeavor. If Graham decided this wasn’t the right time, nothing we said or did would swerve him. He’s fiesty like that (like us).
By sheer endurance and no small amount of grace we completed the day. If we could make it just one more day, we could ship Graham off to school and see if the professionals might help us scale this mountain. So with swiftly drooping eyelids, we agreed to give it one more go.
Day four, the final day I’ll tell you about, was less intense than the last (thank God). Graham fought less vigorously and had considerably fewer accidents. By considerable, I mean he had two accidents, not ten-ish.
If you’ve read this far and wonder what happened next, just wait and see…