To pee or not to pee?

My Mom has been telling me for a while now that she thinks Hailey is ready to start potty training. I would just kind of look at her and chuckle and think to myself that there was no way that my baby girl who doesn't even talk can communicate to me that she has to use the potty. Still, she does like to follow me into the bathroom and rip off the toilet paper and then use it to blow her nose. I was in the storage room hauling out Halloween decorations and I noticed the little potty sitting on the shelf. I figured I would bring it upstairs and see how ready she really was.



We played around with it in the living room for a bit. I sat her on it with her clothes on and told her that she goes potty in it and then we dump the pee pee out and wave "bye bye pee pee". She liked to pretend she was going potty, then shut the lid and wave bye bye. She also liked to put pretty much anything she could find into the potty and shut the lid and wave bye bye. The next day the potty was in the bathroom so we didn't really think about it at all. Later that afternoon we came in from outside and I had to use the bathroom. She followed me in like usual and this time, sat down on her potty. I asked her if she had to go and this time I stripped her pants (since she was about to nap anyway) and took off her diaper. At this point Evan started to scream about his computer game not working right and he needed me to fix it. I told him to come sit by Hailey on the potty and I would fix his game. He did and not thirty seconds later came to the door of the den and exclaimed "Mom! Hailey just peed on the potty!"



I ran to the bathroom and looked in the potty and sure enough there was some pee. Evan and I started clapping for her and doing the pee-pee dance. She was laughing and very proud that we seemed so proud. Evan could not wait to dump her pee into the big potty. Actually, he was so quick to do it that we didn't even get the chance to do the bye bye pee-pee wave.

At this point, I don't know what is going to happen. We have tried a few more times to get her to go on the potty and she doesn't seem that interested. She does try to yank her diaper off when she sees the potty like she wants to try, but then if you take it off for her she will sit for literally three seconds and is off and running. This morning she peed on the floor with the potty sitting literally two feet from her.

I can honestly say that I really don't know how to potty train a kid. I truly believe that the kid has to want to use the potty and there is nothing that any parent can do to make it happen sooner or later. I tried to train Spencer with every fiber of my being. I bought every book I could find. I searched every website out there for tips and tricks. I bribed. I yelled. (not my finest moment as a parent). I made charts for successes. I tried daily to have "potty school" time. Nothing worked with him. I remember feeling like such a failure as a parent. I mean my God, what kind of parent could I be if I couldn't even get my son to use a toilet? I imagine that in all of our attempts we probably made him feel like a failure as well and that is what I regret most about that whole time in our lives. The day it finally happened was a blizzardy night in January. He was three and a half years old. I told him that night that we had run out of diapers for him and we were not going to be able to go to the store so he would have to wear Baby Evan's diapers. He looked at me totally serious and said "But Mom, I can just wear my unders!". From that point on he was trained. He was dry day and night. We would still put pull ups on him at night but he never needed them. It was like he made up his mind and that was that. No more diapers.

The story with Evan is completely different. I actually don't even remember potty training with him being a big deal. The first time he started using the potty, he was a few months past his second birthday. I think that we just encouraged him to go on the potty and when he did we did the pee pee dance and when he didn't it just wasn't an issue. Hindsight, that is probably why he learned faster. He was completely day trained by the time he was three, I think he was more like two and a half but bad mommy did not write down the official age. Here is the kicker though. Day trained - two and a half, night trained - yet to be determined. Yes, the boy is four and a half and still has yet to wake up dry. We have not made a big issue out of it. I would like to be done with pull ups, that is an expense I would like to be without. We should limit his liquids more at night, but mostly he drinks water and I feel like a prison warden telling him that he can't have water - the boy is thirsty! So we keep waiting for the day that he decides that he no longer wants to wear a diaper to bed. Keep your fingers crossed that it's coming soon...

As far as Hailey is concerned, I still think she is too young. But I hear the rumor is that girl's are faster and easier to train than boys. I guess we shall soon see. I will keep the potty around for a little longer. If she is still interested, maybe we will try some consistency and see what happens. If the interest fades, I will put it back in the basement for a few months. I will try to be laid back and go with the flow...get it? If there is anything I have learned with my potty experiences with the boys the most important thing is to not stress about it. Besides, how weird will it be to be done with diapers? I have had diapers in my house for the last seven and a half years. I wonder how many diapers we have gone through? I probably don't want to know. Our family's carbon footprint must be pretty deep!