I would characterize myself as a bit of a “psycho” about respecting and understanding the appropriate developmental stages that Noah is stumbling through as I don’t want to be the person that screws him up by forcing him into something that he’s not quite ready for. As a result, we have waited on him to tell us when he is ready to start potty training. Well, apparently, he made that very clear at preschool because, a week ago, his teachers told us, “He’s ready. Bring lots of extra clothes and put that boy in underwear.”

Well, we were excited. We spent that weekend picking out big boy underwear, practiced asking to go to the potty, talked about what it feels like to be a big boy. You name it. We were ready.

Adventure #1

We have a little children’s potty that looks like a frog. We set it up in the bathroom and made sure it was where Noah wanted it. Saturday morning, first thing when I got him up out of bed, he tells me, “Mommy, I need to pee.” I pick him up, I rush him downstairs, he stands in front of the potty, and his pee shoots completely past the potty, over the frog, and lands about 4 feet beyond where it is supposed to land. It shocked me to the point that I squealed a bit, which caused him to turn and look at me, causing the pee to cover the walls and floor of the bathroom. I then had to get past the fact that my bathroom is covered in pee (and it was that first-thing-in-the-morning really pungent smelling pee too) and celebrate and high-five and make a huge deal about how proud I am of him. And, don’t get me wrong, I am unbelievably proud of his amazingly quick processing of the idea of potty training. And I know he is so proud of himself too. I just don’t quite understand how a 3 foot tall human being can pee 4 feet past the potty.

Adventure #2

He had done so well throughout the week and his teachers were so proud of him. Every day they sent home notes about how great he had done. We had 2 days where he only had 1 accident and 1 day where he actually came home in the same outfit that I sent him to school in. Amazing! Well, by Friday, laundry hadn’t gotten done and he hadn’t been wearing his extra clothes all that much anyways, so I only sent 3 extra pairs of shorts and 3 extra pairs of underwear to school. (Previously, I had been sending 5 shirts, 5 shorts, 5 underwear, and 3 pairs of socks.)

I am on my way home from work on Friday and Matt texts me, “You won’t believe what your son is wearing.” Well, I know it is going to either be really bad or really funny. I pull up to the house and go to open the door from the garage into our laundry room, and the door won’t budge. I hear Noah scream on the other side. He has pinned himself up against the door, screaming in a tantrum because Daddy wants him to change his clothes. During the day, he had had several accidents and had gone through all of his extra clothes. His last accident involved pooping some on the playground and pooping a little bit more on himself while his teacher tried to rush him inside to the potty. Since he had gone through all of his clothes, they had to rummage through their stash of extra clothing. He was wearing bright pink and white checked shorts, size 5T. They were huge and baggy and he loved them! He finally let us change him out of them at bath time.

Adventure #3

Noah has always liked to take his sweet time when it came to pooping (as many men do). He requires that everyone else leave the room to give him some privacy. He doesn’t want anyone to watch him and he likes to stop gradually throughout the process to play with some toys or watch TV. Well, this has made the pooping-portion of the potty training rather difficult. He absolutely refuses to sit on the potty to poop. He makes us take his big boy underwear off, put his diaper on, leave him alone to poop, and then put his underwear back on after he’s done.

His teachers suggested to us that we either force him on to the potty or buy cheap underwear and throw them away (but be sure to point out that he is making us throw his bog boy underwear in the trash). Well, he screams bloody-murder if you try to put him on the potty and I don’t like the idea of shaming him when we throw away his underwear so I am a bit stuck. I have resigned myself to just deal with it until he has mastered the peeing portion.

However, this weekend, we went with some friends to a spring football game. Before the game, we all met at an outside cookout that had very sub-par bathrooms. Well, of course, Noah announces that he has to poop. So, I leave the cookout and walk to the Caribou Coffee next door. I had to get the key to use the bathroom. I try to get Noah to sit on the potty but, of course, he screams. I don’t want to get arrested for child abuse so I put a diaper on him. He makes me leave the bathroom. I stand outside the bathroom door (checking on him about every 3 minutes), a line of college girls is forming outside the door as I apologize profusely. These 19 year old girls don’t understand and don’t give a crap about my 2 year old’s pooping issues.

Finally, he handles his business. Matt and I later discussed how many more fun things he and I are going to miss out on because we are hanging out in the bathroom while Noah is pooping.

Adventure #4

Well, by yesterday (10 days in to potty training), we could finally tell that Noah was doing really well and he was starting to figure out how to manipulate mommy and daddy throughout this potty training process. He had been doing so well and we weren’t constantly asking him if he needed to pee. Well, the minute we let our guard down, he comes in to the kitchen while I’m cooking supper, with a huge smile on his face and says, “Mommy, I peed in my shoes!”

At some point in the evening, he had taken his socks off and put his shoes back on without socks. When he peed in his pants, the pee ran down his legs and filled his sneakers up with pee. Now, if you have read my posts in the past, you know that Noah is very picky about shoes and, therefore, only has one pair of sneakers that he will wear. That pair of sneakers was currently swimming in pee.

I immediately try to figure out what the heck I am supposed to do with these shoes that will get them clean and ready for school the next day. As cleaning is not an innate thing for me, I do the only thing I know how to do, I scrub them in the sink with Dawn dish soap (it cleans everything, right?) and throw them in the dryer. This morning, the shoes are clean, the shoes are dry, and the shoes don’t smell anymore. Problem solved, right? Noah puts the shoes on and immediately starts complaining, “These shoes are too tight!!”

The damn shoes shrunk!!  He went to school in crocs today and I will figure it out later.