I HATE Potty Training!!!

I completely suck at potty training. Or maybe it's that my kids suck at potty training. I don't know. But whoever is at fault here.. it's getting to me. I absolutely 150% cannot stand, abide and positively loathe potty training.

Some say boys are harder, some say girls are harder. I say it all sucks. Basically no matter what I did, the charts, the positive praise, the bribes, I mean treats, the freaking potty dance 100 times a day, in the end (hah) they basically chose what they wanted to do when they wanted to do it.

It doesn't matter what I do, when they want to go on the toilet, they will. I have come to the conclusion that nothing I say or do will change their little evil genius minds. Because hey, they gotta know they are driving mom crazy, right?

But it's when they fool you into thinking they are ready for this big step that really gets me. Oh yes. O has been taking off his diaper for weeks now wanting to sit on the toilet and I'd say 90 percent of the time he's been peeing on the toilet and even having a good ol BM on there too. He LOVES to go on the toilet. Of course, mainly during high stress times like when we're trying to get out the door or when mommy has her hands in raw meat trying to do supper prep.

So we think, okay let's get him pull ups. This will help make it easier to change him and help him learn to pull his pants up etc. So we buy him pullups. They have Disney Cars on them. I told him.. "no go pee pee in your car pants" over and over again we talked about how these were big boy pants and that he needs to go on the toilet etc. This is AFTER he stayed dry the entire 2 1/2 hours we were at the Superstore, AFTER he went pee on the toilet. Literally FIVE minutes after getting the pulls on, he comes and says... "I poo in my car" and giggles.

WTH????!!??!! Okay it is freaking funny but still.

So we have gone on to have this occur many times a day. Only he likes to poop in his pants, pull them down thus smearing the poo all over his legs, then he will sit down on my white bathmat (WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE A WHITE BATHMAT??????) and get poo on that. Then the girls will come and say look mommy you missed the poo over there. Have I mentioned before that I am seriously thinking of renaming my blog The Poop Diaries? Cause you know, poop holds a reocurring theme in this blog it seems.

Or then there is the morning when you hear the girls call out to us... "O took his diaper off and there's poop coming out of his bum" We sprint out of bed to be greeted by poo piles all over the bathroom floor and even some on the hall carpet. What were you doing son, marking your territory? How much poo at one time is normal?

Oh and he will also sit on the toilet with his poop smeared bum, squeeze out one more teeny weeny poop, cause yes he can control it, and then get all excited and want to high five me and ask for a "tweat" cause he went poo on the potty. You don't fool me buster. No, I did not give him the candy. That's right I'm a mean mom.

I have cried, I have begged, I have threatened punishment and pleaded for my wayward son not to take his poopy pants off, to come tell me first so I can help him. But no, being the stubborn 2 year old he is, he has to do it himself. Each time, I have to pause and take a deep breath and tell myself I am not going to freak out cause Mother Teresa I ain't.

It all fits my theory that pull ups are a big scam. Kids don't learn to potty train with them. It just gives us parents a break from cleaning up pee, saves our carpet and our homes from reeking of urine that's all. Cause the minute I put that pull up on him, he still pees in it, then he goes and sits on the toilet. So where is the learning in that? The pull ups are more expensive than diapers and don't hold as much pee so you have to be really on top of their diaper load. So you're not saving money either.

The dream was that O would be potty trained by the end of summer. Oh I had big dreams for the sudden influx of income saved on buying diapers. The plan was to set up the portable potty outside and let him run around naked and go from there. Yes, it sounds great and was a great theory. Only my MIL didn't like it. "Do you realize," she says "that our neighbour can see into our yard? I don't like the idea of someone watching O naked." So I put a long shirt on him to cover his penis but that only lasted so long cause he peed on the slide. No big deal right? Only my Inlaws are germaphobes remember? So I'd have to get out and sanitize everything he peed on so I kind of gave up that idea. Somehow I don't think a spray with the hose was gonna cut it.

Reality is, no matter how frustrated I was with each of the girls, they potty trained when they damn well wanted to. They had to decide they wanted to be dry. Let's face it, we are completely powerless in this.

So while you may have had luck with early potty training with your kids, it probably was because they were just that much more ready for it. Cause seriously, besides watching and tell my kid to go pee every 20 minutes, which I forget to do, hey I'm blogging here... I really don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Do you?

I just have to tell you something hilarious I stumbled across... It's called a Weeminder.. it reminds you kid to go WEE. *LOL* Seriously It's probably a great product, but I can't justify spending $20.00 on a watch for O that he'll use once. Cause hopefully you only have to potty train once..*L*