Special Offer: 90% off Potty Training Power - Click Here to Buy! - Only $7!
Today’s guest post is the second in a series from writer and cartoonist, Blogger Dad (aka David Wright). While he drew all the art for Potty Training Power and designed this web site, this is his first experience with actual potty training.
He and his wife will be using the Potty Training Power System with their two year old son, E. All this week, he will share his potty training adventures right here. If you missed part one of this series, you can catch it here.
This post could have easily been titled, How Potty Training Led to My Divorce, if I was the kind of man who didn’t pay attention, but after Day One of our potty training adventure, it doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.
Things had not gone well.
Day One – Optimism Meet Reality
My wife bought nine pairs of training underwear for our son, E.
“This should be enough, she said. Those of you already potty training are probably laughing at the naïve hopefulness of that statement. We could have bought nine dozen and it still might not have been enough.
Before noon, my son had gone through almost all of the underwear and my wife had to throw them in the washing machine.
By 6 p.m. my wife looked as if she‘d been battling a dragon since sunrise. While I was sleeping (my schedule had me working through the night), she was attempting to get E to pee or poop in the toilet every 20-30 minutes. She was successful a few times. The other nine times, not so much.
I wasn’t having nearly as much luck. That evening, I relieved my wife from potty duty and gave it a shot.
“I don’t wanna go potty! E yelled (he rarely yells) at me repeatedly as I attempted to get him to pee.
I tried to calm him down. Eventually, I wound up bribing him with squares of toilet paper so he could pretend he was wiping himself (as he’s seen us do). However, he was more interested in playing with the toilet paper than using the potty. Just then, my wife walked by and nearly knocked me over with an eye roll.
“What’s the problem? I asked.
She told me I’m doing it all wrong and that we need to be on the same page and stay aware of sending mixed signals. Fine, I said, just tell me what to do and I’ll do it.
20 minutes later…
I was cleaning the kitchen while my wife was in another room. I had just taken E into the potty MINUTES BEFORE to no avail.
Without warning, he began to soak her office carpet with the pee he wasn’t putting in the potty. And somehow it was MY fault!
My wife was not happy with me.
I wasn’t happy that she wasn’t happy with me.
Words were passed. We rarely exchange cross words, so the rare times we do tend to get under my skin.
My wife was upset. We were both frustrated and running out of patience with E and even more so, with one another.
We NEEDED help!
I emailed Sean immediately. HELP! I said. Cindy called us and talked my wife down from the ledge. She told my wife to:
stay the course, don’t give up.
I was tempted to ask if they will just come out and potty train E for us. Unfortunately, that is not part of the Potty Training Power package.
Day two tested our resolve even more. I began to wonder if I would be the Platt’s first non-success story. I began to wonder if at two years old, E was ready for potty training. Or… worse, as parents, were WE ready for potty training?
Click here to see part three in the series.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Oh, this brings back memories! I’m not laughing at you, I’m laughing with you… well, okay, you’re not laughing yet, but you will, I promise!
Hang in there, E will get it… And you two will survive and (probably) still be talking to each other! (Just kidding!) Someday you’ll laugh about this experience and it will give you things to talk about at family reunions, wedding receptions and neighborhood barbecues…
I haven’t read about this system, since (Thank You God) my potty-training days are behind me…
But I’m sure it’s better than the things we did back in the days when there were no cool systems like this, just “tried and true ‘can’t miss’ methods that had been handed down generation to generation in our family… ideas such as letting my boys aim at cheerios in the toilet… Giving them a (big) glass of water or apple juice about 15 to 20 minutes before we were ready to “train”… And sitting in the bathroom with them, playing pattycake and singing songs while we waited for the “big moment”…
And then, eventually throwing the potty chair in the garbage in complete and utter frustration and teaching them to sit on the “big boy” toilet only facing the tank so they didn’t fall in…
And you know the funny thing? Both my boys ended up teaching themselves… (oh the shame, the shame! I was a potty-training failure, something that had never happened in our family before…)
I can’t wait until Monday to find out how things go… so to speak!