"I don't want to see a video about ball cancer."

I am absolutely aware that no one but me gives a shit about potty training my kid, but it’s a big deal in this house so it’s getting shared. Also, maybe someone out there needs new ideas, or G will read this in 30 years and smile because there’s a record of her life before concrete memories were formed. Skip it if needed. ;)

We are now doing awesome on the potty training front, thank the fuck Christ. I made a few mistakes so let’s address them;
• I started training after the weekend of misery, where Little M’s due date, easter, and starting my period was all rolled up into one. I was overemotional and frantic, nowhere near where I needed to be for this to be successful. I kinda started it just to see, and she did so awesome the first day I thought, oh ok, we got this, and wasn’t prepared when it all went to hell on the 2nd and 3rd days. Then I gave up for 3 weeks, which I don’t regret one bit.

• I tried to bribe my kid with things she doesn’t care about. First up was food, hello? She is more likely to eat junk food than normal food, but as with the rest of it she could really take it or leave it. That was lame. Then stickers, she likes them, but did not want to put them on the chart in the little rows to look back and see how good she did. She wanted 5 at a time, and she wanted to put them on my shirt. Or her shirt, or the tablecloth, just not the allotted paper. She’s just not at the chart age, maybe it was for older potty trainers? Unknown.

I have been a party to training before, but I was a secondary character, the nanny. I seem to recall candy was used to bribe them, I don’t remember very many problems, but maybe they had a few days under their belt before coming to my house? I had a cartoon character insert for my very small standard apartment toilet, and a wide based chair that the back had broken off of for a stool. That was actually already around; apparently I had decent size bathrooms for that to fit in there fine. Not much fuss.

We have an Elmo potty, and a wooden stool that is pretty tall and heavy for hand washing. G’s cousin went Independent Toddler when he was potty trained and kicked his parents out while he was doing the deed, wanting to do it for himself. I was worried this might be an issue for G because our bathroom is NOT toddler friendly for pottying it turns out.

I LOVE my hall bathroom, I’m very proud of it, and it’s beautiful. My husband and I agreed on the toilet, for him because it’s very tall, and for me because it’s very streamlined so it doesn’t have all the crevices for stuff to catch in, I hate that. Turns out for G? It’s the Towering Toilet of Terror. The stool we have in there is too tall for her to use it to climb up to the toilet, and she can’t move it to the sink, the other stools in the house are too short to wash her hands. It was just all bad.

There is so much shit (figurative) in my beautiful bathroom it’s making me claustrophobic. I need to get rid of things, and figure out a way to accommodate G if she is going Independent Toddler. (That was a fun conversation with my husband. It's amazing what becomes important to you, but does not become important to the person who doesn't spend their day trying to convince a child to pee. Eyes were rolled, words were yelled.) We ordered a seat with a toddler insert, and a light weight stool that is in shorter than the wood one, taller than the other stools and that folds up. Elmo potty seat is getting the boot. Probably to the master bath which is huge and unfinished so I doubt I’ll get all twitchy about extra stuff in there, although J keeps putting plants in there which is making it crowded. I don’t like a bunch of stuff all over the place. I’m going to have to figure something out about the plants.

So here’s how it went.
She started off awesome, and then began throwing fits every time I tried to take her in to try to go. I did not want to have to put my kid on time out to get her to sit on the toilet, I mean come on here people, that is perfect fodder for her future therapist. I really felt she was ready, and that I was missing something. The candy and stickers had failed, and if I even brought up going to sit on the potty she started wailing, and then she would pee on my kitchen floor. Which is carpet. Multiple times.

Background info that I swear ties in; she gets into the parenting books on the bottom shelf of my bookcase (put there because I’ve skimmed them and moved on) because they have babies on them usually. She’s REALLY into sign language right now which I am SO excited about because unlike French I know more of it than “Hi. How are you today? I’m fine thank you.” and we can look up any sign she asks about that I don’t know on YouTube and pick the most common way to do it. Although I have yet to look up naked because I’m afraid of what it will give me. Anyway, at bath time she brings me the signing book that I’d received at my baby shower that I’d skimmed. She wanted me to read it to her so I was flipping to the back to the glossary to look at new signs when how to use sign to potty train caught my eye. I was like whaaat? Hells to the yes I need help, so I read that out loud to her because she doesn’t care what I’m reading, just that I’m reading. One of their suggestions was to “…make potty time a time your child looks forward to because it signals important one on one time with someone she loves…read books and sing songs…”

Oh snap. You mean, take my kid, the one who doesn’t touch her toys unless some other kid is over touching them, but reads books all day every day, and READ to her on the potty?! Forehead slap.

So. I stopped even using the word potty. I picked out books and put them by it and said let’s go read a story. I didn’t ask if she needed to go, I just said story time! And went to the bathroom. I don't care if she actually goes, just that she sits there nicely and makes an attempt. This has worked phenomenally. She’s thrown one minor fit since, and it was when she had a bunch of people to play with in the living room and I picked kind of a lame book, but she did agree to do it.

Tips;
• Don’t get distracted by her going potty and get all excited and forget to finish the book. She will then wait until the book is finished before going potty. Oops.
• Have the book waiting, when it’s semi-emergency you need to GO not look for a book.
• Don’t put a stack of books that you can use throughout the day, you will be required to read them ALL before pottying commences.
• SHORT BOOKS. See required to finish reason.

She is doing really well. And I’m much more comfortable with bribing my kid with stories than candy. I feel like a better mom just in general too, all this story reading makes her so happy and you can’t help but feel it too. Her diapers from bedtime and nap time are dry 99% of the time, and she’s even pooping in the potty. Unfortunately, we live in the middle of nowhere, and if you’re a mile away from the nearest potty on an “adventure” and she needs to go poop NOW, you figure out how to let your kid poop off a mountain. And she likes it. And has pooped that way more often than in the potty. Yay for country livin’. *embarrassed face* Hopefully this lasts and she won’t have anything to tell her therapist about with potty training. (Except the mountain pooping I guess.) Don’t worry though, I’m sure she’ll have plenty of other things to talk about.