Potty up in here

It's a miracle! After a year of stressing about it, my middle daughter has finally, FINALLY gone pee-pee on the potty. Oh yes, I am this excited about waste matter and I don't give a damn how lame I sound. Now sadly, I am not saying she is potty trained. Or should I say "potty taught" since the PC police tell us we can't call it training anymore lest we make our children sound like dogs. Well aren't they similar? Aren't they both mammals you have to teach not to pee on your rug? Anyway, all my kid did was actually evacuate on the potty, but once you know the back story you will see why I am so excited.

It all began last summer. I was heavily pregnant with my son and I decided it was time to tackle potty training with daughter #2 since she had already shown interest in the potty and was staying dry a fair amount of the day. Training had gone relatively easily for her older sister so I decided to use the same method. I waited until school was over so we could have an entire week during which to stay home and not worry about peeing on the floor in a public place. The plan was to ply her with juice all day and spend our time in the backyard wearing a dress with nothing underneath - her, not me - to facilitate potty usage. A note about this method, I simply refuse to use those ridiculously expensive and ineffective Pull-ups for training. Their only purpose is to make parents feel like they have some control in this scenario and that their child is technically no longer in "diapers". I'll take a diaper any day when my kid takes a massive shit (which is what it should be called at this point, let's not play around and call it a poop when it smells like something my husband could produce) in a Pull-up which has no side flaps and you have to tear both sides open trying to get it off your kid without smearing crap all over her, yourself and anyone within a five foot radius. If she's going to use it as a diaper, then I'm putting her in one to save myself some hassle.

So the first day of our no-more-diaper plan dawned. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed the plentitude of juice she was offered, since juice is sparingly-doled-out, golden nectar to my kids, as well as the no-pants aspect of our morning, feeling the cool summer breeze blowing on her toches. One hour and two cups of juice into our experiment and she had to go. She asked me for a diaper and I led her over to the potty where she gingerly sat and peed. Much shouting and excitement followed and then...crying. It seems she did not enjoy the hoopla and I vowed on her next attempt we would be quieter. Another hour passes and she starts to get squirmy. I ask her if she needs to go potty to which she emphatically replies, "NOOOO!" I lead her over to the potty at which time she begin to scream. I sit her down and the tears start. I gently try to coax her to go and she does, about a tablespoon's worth. Perplexed, I let her get up and she proceeds too stand there and cry because she has to pee. Which she does, on the grass. This is how the rest of our day and the next one went. Juice, scream, dribble of pee in the potty, cry, pee on the grass. Needless to say I gave up.

Fast forward six months and my stubborn second born is still refusing to pee on the potty despite my persistent bribing. "If you go on the potty I'll give you a sticker!" Nothing. I even stooped so low as to follow a former-similarly-desperate mother's advice and offer chocolate as a reward - because you can't give a girl food issues early enough! Her response to the full bowl of M&M's placed strategically next to the crapper? "No, fanks." Of course I had been consulting the pediatrician all the while who agreed with the bribery attempts and that I should keep trying every so often, but the take home message was that she would do it when she was ready and pushing her would only result in producing fear of the toilet and perhaps subsequent, chronic, constipation. I know a woman whose child "withholds" and it's not pretty having to give a four year old an enema.

So I abandoned my no-pants days and decided to save myself frustration and urine-soaked carpeting (let me tell you first hand, there is a reason homeless guys smell so bad, human urine stinks after a shockingly short amount of time) by keeping her in undies, but asking her if she'd like to use the potty whenever she asked for a diaper. This new method worked very well and she was consistently dry, and consistently disdainful of the potty, for three months. Until this weekend. I do not know what triggered it, but yesterday evening we did our usual ask for a diaper bit, and when I asked her if she'd like to use the potty SHE SAID YES! I alerted no one. I quietly slipped into the loo with her alone, helped her with her pants and asked her if she'd like some privacy which, of course, my strange little bird did. When she finished, she called me in and remembering our past, unpleasant experiences with the post-pee end-zone dance I kept it upbeat, but subdued and gave her some special stickers I had been hiding away. I was excited, but not ready to even entertain the thought that in a few weeks I might only have one child in diapers.

Then she did it again today! While it took a little coaxing the first time, she went on the potty each time she had to pee today with minimal leakage. There is a light at the end of the tunnel! I will soon no longer have to schlep around two sizes of diapers in my bag and try to read the ridiculously minuscule writing on them to decipher which one is hers and which is the baby's. I will no longer have to squeeze her diapered rear end into her pants because kids her age are usually trained by now and the pants are cut slimmer. And yes, I can stop changing her massive deuces.

While it has been a long road, I have learned how to be a better mother to my middle one. This whole experience brought to light a fact I had known, but not yet had to put into practice - my daughters are different people and will probably need to mothered a little differently. What works for one, may not work for the other. Potty training also gave me my first experience in learning how not to compare my girls. They each have their own strengths and one of my jobs is to help them make the best of them. Regardless of what I've learned though, I am so happy at the possibility of having one less ass to wipe.