Last week Chester turned two and this week I decided to give the potty a try. It is admitedly on the early side, as WebMD tells me that boys start potty training between 22 and 30 months, and are fully potty trained on average by 38 months. Pete tried at 24 months, but didn't really succeed until 30 months, so he was fully average. Chester has been asking to sit on the potty for months, but has no concept of the feeling or timing of holding or peeing, so I thought it would be a good time to try the three-day potty training method. With only three days invested,if there's no progress we can quit and revisit the situation again in a few months.
The concept is that your pump your child full of fluids because more peeing equals more opportunities to pee on the potty and give positive reinforcement. Then they run around in undies only, so that they notice the pee and associate it with a wet yucky feeling in their underpants. You watch very carefully and the minute they start peeing you whisk them away to the potty to finish peeing. Any amount of pee ends up in the potty and they get rewarded with very excited clapping and dancing, and in our family, CANDY! Then you put on clean undies, clean up the puddle and drink more to repeat the cycle. At no time do you put a diaper or pull up back on, this is do or die for three days straight.
The original instructions don't mention it, but I think it's extremely helpful for you to be drinking too. And not juice. Be sure to stock up on your favorite alcoholic beverage because you won't be leaving the house for several days. Unfortunately for my sanity, I'm trying to lose a few pounds to fit in a dress for a semi-formal event in two weeks, so beer is off my list of stress relief options.
A wise mother once told me to skip the potty chair and the potty seat and go straight to the real potty facing backwards. Then you can use any potty, anywhere, which can be a big stumbling block for toddlers leaving the house. It also helps when they are learning to poop on the potty. Besides those two obvious benefits, those little potty chairs don't sufficiently block little boys from peeing straight out into the middle of the room. Sitting backwards ensures all they hit is the toilet lid. There are even times (and this is more than I ever wanted to know about raising boys) that the pee will go straight up. Pete learned this the hard way, leaning over to see if he was peeing yet, only to get squirted straight in his face. Oh my!
We started Chester's potty adventure Thursday after nap, with white grape juice, apple juice, cranberry juice, chocolate milk and Valentines Day candy from the clearance shelf. It worked pretty much immediately, and we had quite a few puddles. Thank God for hardwood floors! The encouraging part was seeing his face as he felt and recognized the pee,which is something Pete didn't have the first time I tried the three day method with him. By bedtime, we had actual progress, with several intentional pees on the potty.
I do use diapers at night because I feel there's no point in torturing them, or me, with waking up every hour until they've demonstrated the ablity to take a nap without wetting the bed. After dinner, he took one last potty trip, put on a diaper and jammies and headed to bed. That's when disaster struck. Drinking juice and milk all afternoon did a number on his digestive tract and he had a liquid poosplosion sometime in the middle of the night. I smiled a little while Ryan had to deal with the cleanup, as I was in the middle of feeding Marek.
This morning was much more successful. We had a few full-on accidents, but mostly Chester would get his undies a little wet and run himself to the potty to finish peeing. A few times he even sat on the potty at my request, and peed on demand. I think we're doing great but I also don't want to think about another day like this, with the rug rolled up, watching Veggie Tales and playing cars on the bare wood floor, chugging heavily diluted juice and licking ice cubes all in the name of learning to pee in the potty. I pray for patience (for me) for enlightenment (for Chester) and for the strength to see this through so we can have just one baby in diapers. If we can get Chester fully potty trained, we'll actually be gaining two sets of diapers, because with one in diapers, I'll go back to our cloth diaper stash. I've been slightly overwhelmed just trying to live life with three boys under four and I haven't gone back to our cloth diapers since Marek's birth.
If there was any doubt that God has a sense of humor, late last night after Chester's poosplosion, Marek gave a very loud poosplosion as well. After he filled up his diaper, I turned on the light, and started changing him. For convenience, I keep a diaper changing kit with wipes, diaper and changing mat (actually it's just an old prefold diaper) on my bedside table so I can change his diaper without even moving from my warm and cozy bed. I was about halfway through changing him when he gave another loud poosplosion and it shot across the changing mat, splattering all over me. I'm pretty sure I heard Ryan chuckle in his sleep as I swore and started to clean up. Now today I have to finish cleaning the house during naptime for another showing, and the bed sheets, my jammies and the newly soiled twenty pairs of undies in the bathroom laundry will be a struggle to finish before 2:15pm! Guess I better stop blogging and head for the basement.
Showing posts with label poop. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poop. Show all posts
Friday, February 17, 2012
Tuesday, September 13, 2011
The poop. Oh the poop.
Though I started this blog with a horrifying poop story, there have actually been relatively few blog-worthy poop events in the last few months. That was.... until last Sunday.
The day started innocently enough, but notably without the standard morning dirty pants from Chester. We went about our day, and after an early lunch, I thought briefly about the lack of poop. If for some reason Chester doesn't fill his pants immediately upon waking, he does it quite reliably after breakfast, and at the very latest, following lunch. But on this day, nothing, though I didn't have much time to linger on the child's lack of scheduled poop, as we had an exciting pirate birthday party to attend!
CR turned three this week, and his Mommy scheduled a party at Malltots, one of my favorite indoor playgrounds. We started the party in the private party room. Everyone loved the pirate cake and snacks, enjoyed taking turns with the pinata, and then headed out into the common play area to ride on Cozy Coupes, climb on the pirate ship and jump in the bouncy houses.
After focusing on Pete for a few minutes, I headed back over to Chester. I could see that he had fastened himself in the police car with the seatbelt. Buckling his own seatbelt is a new skill that can keep him occupied for hours, though he has yet to learn to un-buckle them and can get a little frustrated! You'll find all of the booster seatbelts clipped, which can be quite frustrating if you try to put him in the seat for dinner before un-clipping the straps. But I digress, back to the situation at hand. Chester was strapped into the police car and was headed for hysterical, bouncing in the seat as high as his seatbelt would let him, then sitting back down to wail before stretching against the seatbelt again.
Though it was highly amusing to watch him struggle against the seatbelt, I decided to free him and let him find another car to buckle himself into so we could repeat the catch and release process a few more times before he moved on to riding a tricycle down the slide or pushing a lawn mower up the plank of the pirate ship. I was probably 10 feet away when I smelled something. Hoping it was one of the other babies in the playground, and not mine, I was totally unprepared for what I saw when I got closer. Chester had pooped. And the repeated actions of straining against the seatbelt and then slamming back down to a sitting position had propelled the poop up and out of his diaper, out the top of his shorts, up his back, out of his shirt and on the police car. I'm not talking about just a little bit, either.
My first thought was to take him and leave, but as I picked him up from the police car, the poop spread all over me, and now Chester's hair, socks and arms too. I quickly determined that he could not go in his car seat like this. Holding him as far from me as possible, I pushed the car over to the attendant, alerted her to the fact that we had a situation, and headed for the bathrooms.
Two things dawned on me as I carried the stinker across the floor. First, thank God the party was at Malltots, where my other child is completely contained on age-appropriate toys, and the other parents at the party could keep an eye on him for me while I attended to the disaster. Second, thank God for friends like LW who saw us both covered in poop and instead of gagging, came with me to the bathroom to help. We removed his shoes, which was the only article of clothing that had escaped the poop, and put his shirt, shorts and socks into a ziplock baggie. Totally good luck that I had used the ziplock baggie to protect my purse from the sweat of the frozen water bottle I carried around hat day. It probably took 30 minutes and 50 wet and soapy paper towels to remove all the poop from the rest of Chester's body. Then we put a new diaper on him, replaced his shoes and turned him loose to play while I cleaned myself up too.
Here comes the super-mom moment, don't you wish you could be as well-prepared as me? I had long ago stopped carrying a separate diaper bag. I toss a diaper and some wipes in a travel case and tuck them into my purse. (I've given up cloth diapering when we leave the house, I'm only partially crunchy) But I do carry a spare change of clothes for the boys in the car, and clearly this time we needed it! Not only that, but a few days before we'd been to a friend's house and I had packed MYSELF a spare change of clothes, in case we decided to play in the water outside with the boys. I left the boys with our friends, and dashed out to the car, changed my shirt in the back of the van, and brought in clean clothes for Chester too. It may not have been the adorable black satin party top I was rocking originally at the party, but the grey wrinkled t-shirt was clean and free from the unmistakable odor of child-poop. Check that out: At nearly two years old, we survived a poosplosion at a birthday party and came away unscathed. Yes, I'm that good (I mean lucky and blessed with great friends).
After attending to the crisis, we actually ended up staying for another two hours. Pete found a friend with almost his exact birthday, and they played beautifully together. Chester played in another Cozy Coupe, the firetruck one this time, since the police car had been whisked away to be sanitized, or possibly burned. I haven't been back since, but I'm hoping that there's no pictures of my children at the entrance with big red Xs across them indicating we've been banned from Malltots, especially because I'd like to host our next birthday party there too!
Happy birthday C, we're glad you invited us to your pirate party!
The day started innocently enough, but notably without the standard morning dirty pants from Chester. We went about our day, and after an early lunch, I thought briefly about the lack of poop. If for some reason Chester doesn't fill his pants immediately upon waking, he does it quite reliably after breakfast, and at the very latest, following lunch. But on this day, nothing, though I didn't have much time to linger on the child's lack of scheduled poop, as we had an exciting pirate birthday party to attend!
CR turned three this week, and his Mommy scheduled a party at Malltots, one of my favorite indoor playgrounds. We started the party in the private party room. Everyone loved the pirate cake and snacks, enjoyed taking turns with the pinata, and then headed out into the common play area to ride on Cozy Coupes, climb on the pirate ship and jump in the bouncy houses.
After focusing on Pete for a few minutes, I headed back over to Chester. I could see that he had fastened himself in the police car with the seatbelt. Buckling his own seatbelt is a new skill that can keep him occupied for hours, though he has yet to learn to un-buckle them and can get a little frustrated! You'll find all of the booster seatbelts clipped, which can be quite frustrating if you try to put him in the seat for dinner before un-clipping the straps. But I digress, back to the situation at hand. Chester was strapped into the police car and was headed for hysterical, bouncing in the seat as high as his seatbelt would let him, then sitting back down to wail before stretching against the seatbelt again.
Though it was highly amusing to watch him struggle against the seatbelt, I decided to free him and let him find another car to buckle himself into so we could repeat the catch and release process a few more times before he moved on to riding a tricycle down the slide or pushing a lawn mower up the plank of the pirate ship. I was probably 10 feet away when I smelled something. Hoping it was one of the other babies in the playground, and not mine, I was totally unprepared for what I saw when I got closer. Chester had pooped. And the repeated actions of straining against the seatbelt and then slamming back down to a sitting position had propelled the poop up and out of his diaper, out the top of his shorts, up his back, out of his shirt and on the police car. I'm not talking about just a little bit, either.
My first thought was to take him and leave, but as I picked him up from the police car, the poop spread all over me, and now Chester's hair, socks and arms too. I quickly determined that he could not go in his car seat like this. Holding him as far from me as possible, I pushed the car over to the attendant, alerted her to the fact that we had a situation, and headed for the bathrooms.
Two things dawned on me as I carried the stinker across the floor. First, thank God the party was at Malltots, where my other child is completely contained on age-appropriate toys, and the other parents at the party could keep an eye on him for me while I attended to the disaster. Second, thank God for friends like LW who saw us both covered in poop and instead of gagging, came with me to the bathroom to help. We removed his shoes, which was the only article of clothing that had escaped the poop, and put his shirt, shorts and socks into a ziplock baggie. Totally good luck that I had used the ziplock baggie to protect my purse from the sweat of the frozen water bottle I carried around hat day. It probably took 30 minutes and 50 wet and soapy paper towels to remove all the poop from the rest of Chester's body. Then we put a new diaper on him, replaced his shoes and turned him loose to play while I cleaned myself up too.
Here comes the super-mom moment, don't you wish you could be as well-prepared as me? I had long ago stopped carrying a separate diaper bag. I toss a diaper and some wipes in a travel case and tuck them into my purse. (I've given up cloth diapering when we leave the house, I'm only partially crunchy) But I do carry a spare change of clothes for the boys in the car, and clearly this time we needed it! Not only that, but a few days before we'd been to a friend's house and I had packed MYSELF a spare change of clothes, in case we decided to play in the water outside with the boys. I left the boys with our friends, and dashed out to the car, changed my shirt in the back of the van, and brought in clean clothes for Chester too. It may not have been the adorable black satin party top I was rocking originally at the party, but the grey wrinkled t-shirt was clean and free from the unmistakable odor of child-poop. Check that out: At nearly two years old, we survived a poosplosion at a birthday party and came away unscathed. Yes, I'm that good (I mean lucky and blessed with great friends).
After attending to the crisis, we actually ended up staying for another two hours. Pete found a friend with almost his exact birthday, and they played beautifully together. Chester played in another Cozy Coupe, the firetruck one this time, since the police car had been whisked away to be sanitized, or possibly burned. I haven't been back since, but I'm hoping that there's no pictures of my children at the entrance with big red Xs across them indicating we've been banned from Malltots, especially because I'd like to host our next birthday party there too!
Happy birthday C, we're glad you invited us to your pirate party!
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
I laughed, but I kind of felt bad too.
I went to Zumba alone tonight. It was probably the best decision I've made all week.
Pete woke up from his nap with a fever over 102, so he was excluded from YMCA Playcare, and stayed home with Ryan. Chester goes to sleep at 7:30pm and though possible for me to take him to a 6-7pm class, it's better for all involved (especially the playcare workers!) if he stays home with Ryan too.
I enjoyed the class, though I'm sure the look on my face said otherwise. I'm not a natural dancer, so it takes a lot of concentration for me to even come close to the proper steps in Zumba. The grace and flair of the Latin rhythm is totally lost on me but I still get a good workout doing my best. KJ smiles all through class, bouncing around with all the steps memorized and encouraged me to try smiling too (as if smiling would make the class easier perhaps?). Unfortunately, the end result was a look of concentration, pain and confusion mixed with a smirk. Let's just say I'm not headed for instructor status anytime soon.
Back to the kids: They stayed with Ryan, had dinner and I imagine they played some trucks and watched some hockey.
The following is just heresay and I'm glad I missed it: At some point Pete told Ryan he needed to poop on the potty. Ryan asked if Pete needed any help, and Pete said he didn't need any help. In all fairness, it's the same reaction I would have had because Pete is pretty self-sufficient when it comes to the potty, unless he's wearing a pair of pants that he can't get unbuttoned by himself. When enough time had passed, Ryan went in to check on Pete to find him, pants around ankles, wiping up the floor with one of my bath towels. He said "I'm sorry I peed on the floor Daddy". No problem, Ryan thinks, it happens, and helps him wipe it up. Then Pete uttered the words that no one ever wants to hear from their three year old: "Daddy, I'm sorry I pooped on the floor, it was an accident." Thinking Pete had just misspoken, Ryan continued to clean up the pee, and asked Pete what he meant, he didn't see any poop? Then Pete turned over the bath towel, and showed Daddy the poop.
I am so glad I went to Zumba alone tonight!
Pete woke up from his nap with a fever over 102, so he was excluded from YMCA Playcare, and stayed home with Ryan. Chester goes to sleep at 7:30pm and though possible for me to take him to a 6-7pm class, it's better for all involved (especially the playcare workers!) if he stays home with Ryan too.
I enjoyed the class, though I'm sure the look on my face said otherwise. I'm not a natural dancer, so it takes a lot of concentration for me to even come close to the proper steps in Zumba. The grace and flair of the Latin rhythm is totally lost on me but I still get a good workout doing my best. KJ smiles all through class, bouncing around with all the steps memorized and encouraged me to try smiling too (as if smiling would make the class easier perhaps?). Unfortunately, the end result was a look of concentration, pain and confusion mixed with a smirk. Let's just say I'm not headed for instructor status anytime soon.
Back to the kids: They stayed with Ryan, had dinner and I imagine they played some trucks and watched some hockey.
The following is just heresay and I'm glad I missed it: At some point Pete told Ryan he needed to poop on the potty. Ryan asked if Pete needed any help, and Pete said he didn't need any help. In all fairness, it's the same reaction I would have had because Pete is pretty self-sufficient when it comes to the potty, unless he's wearing a pair of pants that he can't get unbuttoned by himself. When enough time had passed, Ryan went in to check on Pete to find him, pants around ankles, wiping up the floor with one of my bath towels. He said "I'm sorry I peed on the floor Daddy". No problem, Ryan thinks, it happens, and helps him wipe it up. Then Pete uttered the words that no one ever wants to hear from their three year old: "Daddy, I'm sorry I pooped on the floor, it was an accident." Thinking Pete had just misspoken, Ryan continued to clean up the pee, and asked Pete what he meant, he didn't see any poop? Then Pete turned over the bath towel, and showed Daddy the poop.
I am so glad I went to Zumba alone tonight!
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