Day 9 - Had it, lost it, A-ha, Potty Time!

I had some great idea for today's blog post up until about 30 minutes ago, but somewhere between packing up the leftover soup from dinner and putting away my produce delivery, I lost it. Guess I'll have to wing it.

Ooh, I remember!! I've read a few posts on potty training woes/successes lately, which took me back to my determined day when I decided I would potty train Evan. And it clearly shows what a horrible parent I am (okay, I'm not horrible, but I felt downright awful that day).

January 2006--Evan was 2 1/4 and I was 6 months pregnant with Eric. Evan's daycare had been working with him a little (they had potty time during the day where children were required to sit on the toilet, but if they didn't go, no big deal--still wore pull-ups). We had quite a collection of potty training books in the house, this one and this one and this one and this one. I felt I could do this in a day, after all, I've read books and blogs and message boards. That makes me an expert, right? Ethan had some all-day work-related class, so Evan and I canceled our Saturday social calendar and I executed my plan.

Big boy underwear - check
Salty foods - check
Water/juice - check
Sweet treats - check

We went through the first round of eating/drinking and sitting on the potty with no results. Repeat every 5 minutes. 15 minutes later Evan peed in his underwear and all over the floor, bawling his eyes out the entire time. I stayed strong, changed him and repeated the eating/drinking/sitting on the potty. every 5 minutes. 15 minutes later he repeated peeing/bawling. And then again 15 minutes later, except I was also bawling while hugging my pee-covered child to my pregnant belly. Ethan called an hour later to ask how it was going and laughed when I said I didn't want to talk about it. I added that if HE had been home, he would be at Toys R Us buying Evan a battery-powered Ferrari at this point in time. He didn't disagree.

Five months later, Evan put on underwear to go to daycare in the morning and that was it, he was potty-trained. Never had to lift a finger. Bless those women, because I don't think I could have gone through that again.

And for the picture...
a totally silly picture of Evan in the bathroom...
he seems to get sidetracked a lot...
can't imagine where he gets that from ;-)

Random sidetracks while writing this blog:

• There are 3200 "potty training" books on Amazon. And 226 are under the 'Business and Investing' category?
  

• After the potty-training boot camp ordeal, I purchased a box of Pampers size 5...Evan was 2 1/4 at the time. Eric has been in size SIX for a good couple of months now. And he was the little one at birth (7.5 vs 8.5 lbs)