This is a post about potty training. If you're the squeamish sort, bye bye.
After a few tinkles months ago, the magic stopped. She was no longer interested, and would answer queries with a quick and final "No!" and walk away, to color in her Kai-Lan coloring book or make another little pink play-doh ball with matching play-doh crumbs.
During her visit with her maternal grandparents in DC, I heard the expected, "She's so smart! She knows her ABC's, can count to 20 in English and 10 in French* and she's only 2? She should be potty trained by now. So'n'so's kid was trained by 18 months! Why isn't she trained yet?"
Yeah, like I haven't tried. Sigh.
So they tried, the questions, the incentives, the promises. And her response?
"No!"
Then this week, she refused to let me change her diaper. I was kicked, screamed at, cried on, hit, and just generally abused. Not fun. Even so, she'd begin crying suddenly, with an "I peed my big girl bed!" or "I peed my booster chair!" (while wearing a diaper, still.) Since her dad finally had a weekend where he didn't have to really do much (this is exceedingly rare--he never takes any time off, but he needed it), it became his job to deal with diapers and the like. Rowan needed Mom to take some distance.
She didn't fight him, but still had no interest in the potty. However, she did have an interest in the Hello, Kitty! panties.
So he tried it. She wet through a couple of times, but he said it seemed to make sense to her. She insisted on the panties over her diaper at bed time.
Today? No requests, and many refusals. (All the panties were dirty.) But tonight before bed, she acquiesced. She sat on the potty, happy, with Mom in the room, for a good 5 minutes.
And?
She FARTED. At least 5 times.
I call that a win.
*That would be Un, deux, trois, quatre, six. Un, deux, trois, quatre, six. Un, deux, trois, quatre, six. Close enough.
1 comment:
My neighbor took a shot at training her 2 1/2 yr old boy, "R", on the August holidays. When we all came back here for the rentrée, "R" was no longer wearing the diaper and she said it had been going pretty well, a few accidents but that's to be expected. We were having an apéro that night in our courtyard, all the neighbors, and while we were all there hanging out and the kids were playing, "R" decided he had to pee. So he did. Right in front of the gardienne's front door. His mommy went and cleaned it up with the help of big brother and a hose. And I'm not kidding you: 20 minutes later, I was sitting on the big cement step in front of our door with everyone else sitting nearby and I smelled a horrible smell. I turned around... and saw that little "R" had chosen THAT spot to pull down his pants and take a dump. His poor mother was horrified (of course I helped her clean it all up). Ever since then, the kid's been back in pull-ups. Clearly... just not ready.
I, of course, will have fun some day when that kid is an adult, embarrassing him by telling him about the time he did THAT in front of our house. Payback's a bitch.
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