Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Eli's First Completed Potty Chart

 WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS ANECDOTAL INFORMATION ABOUT POTTY TRAINING. WALK AWAY IF YOU CAN FEEL YOUR EYES STARTING TO ROLL.

If you've talked with me in the past 6 or 7 months, you've no doubt been tortured by my laments over Eli's lack of potty training.  I've been the parent who, honestly, has waited until Eli appeared interested to use the potty.  Lazy? Maybe.  But the way I looked at it is that I wasn't going to force potty training and then have to spend a year or more fighting with him to use the potty.  And if you've met my son, you know those fights would have been super fun.  They would have probably ended with me dead.  And, like my mama always says, "he ain't gonna start kindergarten wearing a diaper." (her speech is actually more refined than that, but I find hillbilly talk to be more humorous.)

So, we've waited and waited and prayed and waited some more and prodded and suggested and bribed and cried and prayed some more and made a virgin sacrifice to the potty gods and cried some more.  Then my brilliant husband (who should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Potty Training) bought him an Elmo potty video (Eli's very visual).  And then he wanted to do it.  That Elmo is a freaking mind manipulator.   I made a sticker chart that would allow him to essentially pee for a prize every five successful attempts (coming to a carnival near you). And now he just....goes to the potty.  

I should clarify that he goes #1 with ease; the deuce has yet to be dropped.  Which means this potty story is TO BE CONTINUED...





4 comments:

rachel said...

you have no idea how excited i get when i see that your blog has been recently updated. and then when i click and see that it's a post about bodily functions?! be still my heart... we were born to be friends.

jkluke said...

Okay, you don't know me but I read you via Sara. I'm with Rachel, I love your posts. I hope you write a book someday:) Anyways, my first born was just like Eli with potty training, and I was like you. "Whenever you're ready, dear, but please come on!" The "deuce" happened when we put a fresh package of markers on top of the fridge and she received a new one for each drop. By the end of the package, we were done:)

CJR said...

Rece was the same with pooping. He would demand a pull up to poop in. Which we did b/c I didn't want him to get a complex and hold it. Then one day he says " I have to poop... How about I poop on the potty?" It was all I could do to move slowly and act cool, calm and collected while I said okay and took him to the bathroom. He did it, we made a huge deal, and we then got 2 stickers for each poop for about a week and then dropped the potty chart all together.

Jeanette said...

Yeah, Chass...we aren't really giving stickers for #1 anymore...but he gets 2 if he goes #2...we'll see. We had a pretty big accident yesterday, but he knows what it feels like to have it in his underroos. With him, he just has to do it, then he knows he can...that's it was with #1.