Potty Training

Just the title of this post cracks me up; because only I know how it all went down.  Now I share with you the hilarity and insanity of our experience. 

    Hannah is 3, almost three and a half. My mom and grandmother are fairly vocal about their thoughts and opinions on their grand & great grandchildren.  The constant reminders that I was potty trained by age 2.5, I was starting to feel as if I was failing as a mom by not having Hannah in big girl undies.  Never mind the fact that Ben was a late bloomer in this department and Hannah looks and acts JUST like him, I was starting to have nightmares that she would attend kindergarten in diapers.

    I had tried lots of techniques: purchasing a potty that converts into a step stool and allowed it to take up permanent residence in our bathroom, with the hopes that one day she would want to sit on it…no such luck.  Tried pull-ups…she peed right through them, not giving two shits that she made the pretty blue jewels disappear.  I bribed her with M&M’s and ice cream and allowed her to come to the potty with me every time I had to pee- and with the amount of water I ingest per day…that’s a lot of trips!  To comply with the ‘go pee, receive an M&M’ tactic, I ended up gaining 5lbs from eating so many damn chocolate pieces.  Recently I tried a new technique and printed a princess reward chart with matching princess stickers, informing her they were from Cinderella and she would love to see Hannah at our trip in November wearing big girl panties!  Not even for “Cin-rella”, would she pee on the potty.  Hannah loves watching DVD’s in the car, so I bought Elmo’s Potty Time DVD from my cousin and left it in Hannah’s car seat.  Only knowing Elmo as a character on her diapers, Hannah requested to watch it.  I was excited.  She enjoyed Elmo’s antics and very descriptive words to describe ‘potty time’, but the interest in actually going on the potty ceased to exist. 

     One morning four weeks ago I was buzzing around the house preparing for our Tuesday trip up to AI.  Hannah had been up for maybe an hour, hour and a half at best, and I hear her screaming from the kitchen table.  As I make my way over to her, I see a puddle forming underneath her.  She had peed so much not only did she soak through an entire size 5 diaper, ENTIRE- as in front to back- she had soaked her shorts, shirt and shoes. 

I’m about to share something with you that I am NOT proud of…

  I lost it.  Yeah- tell me you honestly didn’t see that coming?!?

Me:  “HANNAH!  You peed through an entire freaking diaper.  How do you do that in an hour and a half?!?!  This is ridiculous!  I’m done!!  If I’m going to be cleaning your pee off the floor than you might as well be wearing panties!” ~ as I strip off her soaked clothes and clean up  the floor

Hannah: “NOOOOO!!!!!!”

Me: “YES!!!  This is obsurd”

Hannah: “No mommy!  I don’t want to wear panties.”

Me: “Well you’re gonna start wearing them today”- as I march her to the bathtub

Hannah: “Nah- I wear diapers!”

Me: “NOOOO MOOOOOORE DIAPERS!!!!!!” ~in my best mommy dearest voice.

From that moment on, she’s been wearing panties.  The best part?  By the end of that crazy day, she was excited about wearing panties!  Apparently all it took was a meltdown on my part. 

     That weekend my mom took Hannah on a tour of all the Marshalls & TJ maxx’s, hunting down every single pair of size 2-3 Princess panties, in the state of DE!   That evening Ben & I took her to Buy Buy Baby to purchase a Potette.  Let me tell you, this is the best invention, EVER!   It’s a potty seat that is small, designed for travel.  It comes with small, plastic (grocery like) bags that have an absorbent pad at the bottom.  You wrap the bag around the potty seat; your kid sits, takes a whiz and then you tie up the bag and toss it in the trash.  Granted this isn’t the best thing for the environment, even though the bags are recycled and biodegradable, but it’s not we are using this method every time she pees…just when we have limited access to a restroom.  It was a complete lifesaver when we were on our way home from New Jersey one evening.  Leave it to a newly potty training toddler to tell you she has to ‘pee-pee’ after you just passed a rest stop on the Jersey Turnpike. J

     Hannah now thinks very highly of herself.  Whenever Natalie requires a diaper change, Hannah informs me that Natalie really "needs to learn how to go pee-pee and poopy on the potty!"  She doesn't quite understand that Natalie is still a few years away from this training.  Plus my liver will need the time to recover!!