Caden Goes Potty!!

(DISCLAIMER: CADEN CAN’T READ YET, SO THIS IS MEANT TO BE A FUNNY STORY FOR HIM TO LOOK BACK ON IN MANY YEARS....NOT SERVE TO EMBARRASS HIM IN ANY WAY RIGHT NOW)

Potty training is one of those quintessential parenting moments. To any of those other parents who had kids who just one day decided to use the potty and that was it and they were only 4 months old when it happened, well, first of all, you suck. Second, you really missed out on a character building experience that cannot be matched by anything else. And I don’t mean for the kid. I mean for us parents. If you are fortunate enough to have to think of imaginative ways to make pooping sound like the next best thing to Disneyland, if you ever had to change the bed 4 times before lunch, or change more underwear than you go through in a month, and have the chance to clean #2 off the shower curtain, then consider yourself lucky my friend. Because after that, nothing else in life will phase you and your sense of humor will be refined to that of a 4 year old again.

I kid of course (not really, all those things happened). We decided that we needed to do something more than our passive approach to potty training. Yes, we heard all the advice that when your kid is ready, they are ready and there is nothing you can do to speed it up. But let me tell you, that and every other piece of advice about parenting (like not allowing your child to play with the hair dryer in the bath-tub) is all crap. No one has ever raised your kid before so there is no manual to tell you how to do it right. So we signed up for a “self-help” potting training class that shall remained unnamed because it failed to live up to its name (which contains the amount of days that it would take [somewhere between 2 and 4]). It started off very well. There was some nervousness and resistance. But we threw away all the diapers and baby wipes and changers and presented Caden with the new reality of underwear. He took to it well and followed our instructions quite well through out the day. And this was a tough day or few. It required 24/7 surveillance of him to catch him in the “act” as they call it. The act often involves intrigue, deception, and action all wrapped into one made for TV movie. But it was better than we hoped. He got #1 down like it was his business, which, of course, it was. We were not too worried about #2, that would take more time, but he would get it (for those of you unfamiliar with the structure of good story telling, that was called foreshadowing). And we expected he would hold it for a bit, he was nervous after-all. Sure, we began to wonder if 72 hours of “holding it” would cause a bowel rupture, but surely someone would have warned us if that was a danger. Ugh, I could go on with the day by day of what followed, but to be honest, I don’t really remember. As I write this, we are on day 23 of the 3 day training plan (there, I said it) and we still haven’t had a #2 in the froggy pot. And it isn’t because he doesn’t get it. And it isn’t because he is that nervous about it (though he insists he is). It is because we want him to do it and Caden sees this as a challenge he must win. For every thing we teach Caden, he must respond with a new lesson for us. And the lesson this time is to not underestimate his resolve. We tried bribing to new lows; no go. We tried idle threats; yeah right. We tried peer pressure; Caden will always be his own person. We tried (currently trying) to make him clean up his own messes; he responded by telling us that cleaning up his own mess is “easy”. We have enough sugary promises floating around him that when he finally does it, he will be strung out for months...but no good. We are now in the unique position of being half way through a process that we can’t go back on and are now resorting to the first bit of advice that I publicly blew off of waiting until he is ready. But he will get it. I know he will. As soon as he recognizes he is doing this for himself and not to please us, it will happen.

All these horrible impossible character traits Caden is showing us now will turn him into a very effective and strong person when he grows up (which is good cause he is going to be having accidents in the boardroom...I kid, I kid!).

Caden, a note to you when you are able to read this and point at me and laugh. You are making us very proud right now as you continue to try everyday to master the potty. No matter how frustrated we get, we wouldn’t have it any other way. And yes, you can do everything now.

But I swear to God, Molly had better be out of diapers by 18 months without so much as us asking...

Caden showing real promise on day 1 of the three day potty training

The types of things Molly does when we are too busy to pay attention to her...

He can do everything now....just watch!