Two big milestones.
With each milestone, just about the time I start to worry about whether and how to help you across, suddenly, unexpectedly, you just do it on your own. So it was with walking. And with weaning. With saying goodbye at school drop-off. And now with using the potty. And swimming. Both on the same weekend.
The potty was the big one. We decided to let it be a gradual transition. Which actually started a year ago, when Rose went through her potty training and you became “potty curious.” We introduced the potty in the shower, and you did actually use it a couple times as a potty before turning it into a swimming pool for your toys to dive into. Then we introduced a red downstairs potty along with a couple potty books. You were excited to have your own red potty just like in your book, but you pretty much just turned into a chair.
When we went to the open house for kindergarten, we got a bit anxious, because kids have to be potty trained to start school. It was still a ways off, but it made us think perhaps we should be trying harder anyway. Shena suggested that we take you to the store to pick out your own big boy pants (Thomas! of course), which you were more inclined to wear than the first set I bought. But still you cried for diapers. We tried to establish mornings and evenings as the time to wear big boy pants, but some days this worked better than others.
Then Sam and Ian transitioned to big boy pants full-time, and that helped encourage you to wear them at “the new house.” And then you didn’t mind so much wearing them at home. And you were pretty good about not wetting yourself. When you began to pee in your potty you were so excited each time that you’d run to get one of us shouting “I peepee in potty! Come on! Come on!” Leading us to the potty to dump into the toilet, which you then flush.
From there, we started venturing out in public, trusting that you would tell us when you needed to use the potty. Which you did for the first time at Stanley’s Farmhouse Pizza, where you got to use the big potty. There were a couple accidents – like at the zoo – when you got so excited you forgot that you weren’t wearing diapers. But mostly you’ve mastered knowing when “pee pee is coming,” as you say.
But even after mastering peeing in the potty, you held out on pooping. Which meant that frequently we discovered something in your pants. “What’s in your pants?” I would ask, to which you would reply with a sheepish grin, “poop!” You knew you weren’t supposed to be pooping in your big boy pants, but you weren’t quite ready for the next step. Sometimes I would ask you if you would be ready to try pooping in the potty tomorrow maybe? And you would, pausing to think a moment, and then answer with a thoughtful “no, not yet.”
You tend not to be very reward motivated, which I think is a good thing – your motivations are more internally driven. So it occurred to me one evening that perhaps we could try empathy. After confronting poop in your pants one evening, I said to you that when you poop in your pants it makes Mama sad, and that if you’d use your potty so we didn’t have to clean up your poopy pants, it would make Mama happy. You took this in thoughtfully, and the next morning as we sat outside on the porch, I was surprised to hear you play back our conversation, completely unprompted, you said: “when Ethan poops in my big boy pants, Mama gets sad. Can’t poop in big boy pants.” I thought we might be on to something. Except later, we found poop in your pants again.
And so we spent a couple months in this half potty-trained limbo. You wore big boy pants at daycare (sometimes), and at home (sometimes), but until you could at least say aloud when you needed to poop, you had to keep wearing diapers to school. Because, while Shena is willing to clean up your poopy big boy pants, the teachers at Starbright aren’t so keen on it.
But once you’d mastered peeing in the potty and were wearing your big boy pants at daycare, you no longer asked for diapers and wanted to wear them all the time. So we told you that as soon as you started using the potty for poop you could wear your big boy pants to school. “Okay!” you’d respond brightly.
Still, something was holding you back. Dada tried a different tack. He told you, “when you need to poop, just tell us.”
And then one at daycare you “made a little poop” in the potty. You were so excited, when I went to see you at lunch you told me all about it, and then again when you got home repeated the story to Dada. So we thought optimistically that we might be getting close.
Meanwhile, over this same period, swimming has been another challenge we’ve been working on. Swimming with Mama or Dada in the pool you love. But when we enrolled you in the swim class for your age – which is just kids and teachers, no parents in the water – you cried and cried and refused to participate. Week after week. We would talk about swim class, and you would agree to kick in the water for Mister Lester, but as soon as we pulled into the parking lot you began to get weepy. And as the other kids your age swam under water like dolphins, you would do little more than allow Mister Lester to hold you in the water. Though you brightened at the end of each class when you got to go down the slide.
But then one Saturday, Memorial Day weekend, something suddenly changed. And you were swimming under water like the other kids. You were jumping in and swimming back to the wall. Holding your breath under water for 7 seconds. Pulling yourself out of the pool. In the course of one class, you had mastered all the same swimming skills as the kids who had been happily participating for the entire 12 weeks.
You were so excited and pleased with yourself that while grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s (your treat following each swim class), you forgot that you were wearing your big boy pants and had an accident. Dada took you back to the car to get your wet clothes off, but you were inconsolable at not being allowed to go back in to finish grocery shopping (the highlight of your Saturday routine). Dada explained that when we soil ourselves, sometimes that means we aren’t able to do the things we want to do.
Seems that experience made an impression. Because later in the afternoon, when I returned home from running errands, as I got out of the car you called out to me from the open window upstairs: “Mama! I made poop in the potty!” Not just once, but twice Dada said.
And that was it. You’re potty trained. There were a couple more poops in the pants, but now they’re the exception. And, you’re also swimming under water by yourself. It’s as though you’ve grown into a whole new stage of kid in the course of a week.
Black and Sun 