The Potty Diary

I've never claimed to be really good at anything related to parenting...but one area where I'd surely be considered "slow" is in the potty training department. I suck. No really. I'm awful. I have no idea what I'm doing and I usually resort to doing all of the things that they tell you never, under any circumstances, to do.

So, with all that we have going on, I should have been thrilled when Sawyer went pee pee on the potty for the first time at school last week. Actually, I was thrilled. Was I really going to get away with not having anything to do with {screwing up} potty training? Was this why I was paying Sawyer's preschool enough money to put him through one year at private university? I've always said that I would pay big bucks to have someone come to our house and potty train my kids. I even googled it. This person doesn't exist.

So here we are, one week later, Sawyer only wants to wear underwear...he's peed on the potty numerous times. So I should be celebrating, right? I'm not. You know why? Because I'm on 24-hour poop watch.

See, with Rylan, she knew not to poop in her pants. I don't blame her. It's truly disgusting if you think about it {though I suppose going in a diaper is only slightly less repulsive}. Ry would just hold out long enough until we put her diaper on before nap or bed time. Genius! As a result, I never had to stalk her and play poo poo police...aka, give her a massive complex about pooping on the potty or in her pants.

And then there's Sawyer. Sweet #2 has a problem with, well, going #2. Actually, the problem is that he'll go anywhere but the potty. I don't get it. If you can sit and pee, what's so scary about sitting and pooping? And it's precisely the reason I {and by I, I mean, his teachers at school} didn't train him to pee standing up. I thought that would just further confuse the situation. If he pees standing up, will he poop standing up too? I've clearly given this a ton of thought.

We've known his "signs" now for a while. When he has to "go"...he hides. He's so certain of the "feeling" that now he just says "mommy, I'm hiding." So, this should be an easy transition, right? Wrong.

So we set out on mission. 1. Buy new underwear {the ones that I'd bought him a year ago for Christmas were so tight around his legs, they were cutting off the circulation. Wishful thinking that he'd be potty trained last Christmas I guess.} 2. Buy a "poo poo present." 3. And then come home, poop on the potty and sing kumbaya. Yeah, not so much.

Here's what actually happened. We picked out the underwear {Spiderman and Lightning McQueen, in case you're wondering.} Picked out the "poo poo present" {Buzz Lightyear gun}. Came home. Put the present on the shelf and waited. About 20 minutes later {and once I was in the middle of breast feeding Saxon and completely tied down} I heard, "Mommy, I'm gonna hide." {Fuuuuuuck!} I immediately de-latch #3, jump over the couch and make a bee-line for Sawyer. He immediately screamed in fear of mommy running full-force towards him and proceeded to run away from me, crying and literally shitting his pants in fear. Meanwhile, the baby is screaming and about to roll off the couch. Sawyer is crying and hiding on the other side of the dining room table and I'm yelling, "No, Sawyer, don't poop!" I'm pretty sure I did everything they tell you NOT to do in the "Everybody Poops" parent handbook.

After I settled him down, I was shocked that he actually had managed to hold it. So we sat back down. I started feeding the baby again and watched as Sawyer sat there in agony. Now I was concerned because, not only was he going to poop his pants, he was going to poop his pants on my couch. As I begged and pleaded for him to "just try and sit on the potty," he insisted that he no longer had to go. Yeah, ok. Sure buddy.

About five minutes later, he made a run for it. But not to the potty. He ran to the closet. I ran after him. Both of us screaming, I scooped him up and ran into the bathroom. It was too late. The Spiderman underwear were ruined after only 30 minutes of wear. Sawyer was crying. Saxon was crying. Mommy was crying. He sat on the potty devastated. I sat there with the tub of wipes and antibacterial hand soap and explained that accidents happen and that it was ok.

Sawyer called Eric on the phone and told him what happened and how he wasn't going to get the "poo poo present." Just as we were hanging up, I heard the slightest "plop." Sawyer's face lit up. "Mommy! poo poo came out." We looked. He was right. The smallest poop you'd ever seen had gone in the toilet.

"Dammit," I thought. Now I have to give him the damn present for a fluke poop. He was thrilled.

Fast forward to now and he's actually gone a few times, though, not every time. I'm still living in a constant state of poop anxiety. I need to let it go. It's freaking everyone out. And between hoping that Sawyer DOESN'T poop and making sure that Saxon DOES, it's all I'm freaking doing these days.

He did go at school and now school has deemed him "potty trained" so we save $50 a month on tuition. I guess I really was paying a potty training guru and just didn't know it. Now who can I pay to come clean it up when he has an accident?