Adventures in Potty Training

(Also Known As, A Post in Which I Thoroughly Embarrass My Older Children)

Apparently we are potty training in earnest at our house now. S went to school today in underwear – and with four complete changes of clothes.

I have no idea if it will all click just yet. I feel fairly relaxed about it; I don’t care if she comes home in diapers and I’m not worried about giving her mixed messages - she’s going to figure this out at her own pace no matter what I do, so there’s no point in getting into a power struggle. We have some incentives for her, and when she is ready to work toward them, she will.

But S being to this point reminds me about how C and M potty trained. They were very different.

When C was thee years and not quite two months old (and I was pregnant with M), I had taken to asking him if he wanted diapers or underwear each morning. One morning he said, much to my surprise, “If I had baseball underpants, I’d wear underpants.”

Well, then.

I searched high and low that day for baseball underwear, but there were none to be found. None. I think I went to five stores and called several more. Nothing.

The next morning, I didn’t ask. But C said, as I tried to put on his diaper, “I don’t wear diapers anymore, I wear underpants.” Huh.

So I took him to school in underwear, with changes of clothes.

C had several accidents that day, a few less each of the following days, and we pretty well day trained within a week.

About a week or so after all of that, we had a trip north scheduled that included a plane ride. I was nervous about that part, but he did fine. Once at our destination, I was near a mall and looked in one last store for baseball underwear. Lo and behold, this company carried baseball underwear, though they had none in C’s size. They called around for me and located two packages in a store some distance away, but in the direction we were headed. We had them put on hold and promptly drove there, making ourselves late for our evening plans.

Once the baseball underwear were purchased, C had to be restrained from stripping right there in the store to put them on. Once we were back to the rental car in the parking lot we let him change, however, and he was so proud of his new baseball underwear. It was rather sweet.

I don’t remember too many accidents with C, but I am sure he had them. But overall, that was about it for him.

M’s potty training, however, shocked me. I just didn’t expect it.

When M was about a month shy of his third birthday, he asked to wear underwear over his diaper. I resisted and finally said that he could wear underwear or diapers, but not both. He opted for underwear. I chuckled, thinking he was no where near ready and this would last maybe 10 minutes, but said okay. I don’t think we’d even practiced having him pee in the potty at this point.

I took M to school that day with several changes of clothes and told his teachers that I fully expected him to come home in diapers. I was amazed when I picked him up at the end of the day wearing the very same underwear and clothing I’d dropped him off in.

Over the next week or so, M had maybe two accidents. We made him a chart that first night to track his progress and said that if he had seven days without an accident we’d get him this specific fire truck. Eight days later we went to buy the truck. And that was it. M is one determined boy.

My experience with my boys definitely taught me to not get too worked up about certain things, and potty training is among them.

Today at lunch I went out to a nearby mall to pick up extra sweatpants and leggings for S (surprisingly difficult to find when it's technically spring outside) and her first day’s incentive (pink socks, her request). When I arrived home tonight, I praised her efforts, reassured her that accidents do happen, and encouraged her to keep trying.

Then I gave her the pink ("pinky!") socks. S jumped around the family room, still in underwear, shouting, "Yippee! Yippee!"