Will has been making huge strides in potty training recently, and while there are as many setbacks as there are successes, I sense we have turned a corner. He seems to be finally participating, as opposed to being a reluctant student of the discipline, and this participation has resulted in some SOLID successes. I think you know where I’m going with that.
Anyway, Will has a fetching collection of underpants purchased for him by kind relatives and desperate-for-inspiration parents, (When I have a blockbuster animated movie or TV show? I’m going right for the pull-ups-and-underpants franchise market, because that is some SERIOUS purchasing power there, let me tell you.) and he often takes them out of the drawer, and lays them out on the floor to admire. We’ve done a few stints at home with underpants, but trust me when I tell you it isn’t for the faint of heart, especially when the wearer would rather eat spinach AND clean up his toys than go to the potty.
But in light of his recent successes, we all agreed it was time to take this show on the road—Captain Underpants went off to school today adorned with diggers and cranes (and carrying a bag full of extra pants and extra underpants), and Dad reports Will was barely in the door before he broadcasted the news to one and all. I’m sure his teacher wept a little on the inside at what her day would be like, but she joined the throngs of high-fiving two-year-olds congratulating Will with gusto.
The only downside to all this is that Will has a new trick to the bedtime stalling repetoire. Once content to holler down, “I’m thirsty! I need some water!” he now unleashes his own personal Weapon of Bedtime Destruction, the battle cry, “I have to poop!” His “poopcrastinating,” as his father dubbed it, has yet to net any success from OUR point of view, but it gains him a good ten additional minutes of horsing around on the road to sleep. Pretty pooptastic, I think he would say.
Hank & Willie 
April 18, 2007 at 11:33 am |
When I worked at the daycare there was one girl who hated circle time. So every single day she would say she had to poop. Then she would proceed to sit on the toilet doing nothing but singing. And of course when she actually had to go, it would result in an accident. But we couldn’t say, “no, you don’t have to poop. Sit down for circle”, because that would be the one time she actually *had* to go. Wow…I don’t miss that. At all.
April 18, 2007 at 1:01 pm |
I’m so jealous. We’re a couple of weeks away from Aidan’s third birthday and still working on it. He’s gotten more into it though. Maybe it is a sign of things to come. He’s taken a liking to shooting at chex cereal in the toilet as opposed to cheerios (more of a target?). He announces his poop and runs behind the chair to do it, but getting on the toilet is not even in the realm of possibility. Patience, right?
April 18, 2007 at 3:36 pm |
Funny how once you have kids, it seems like every conversation you have ends up on the topic of poop and the processes thereof.
April 20, 2007 at 2:02 pm |
keep me posted on your poop progress. i’ll be looking for pointers soon. i bought Dec a potty training video at a consignment sale. it was from like the 70s, too funny. a line from one of the songs goes, “she’s a super dooper pooper, she’s the best pooper we know”. if i didn’t hear it for myself i would have thought it came from a south park movie.
December 21, 2007 at 12:02 am |
I found your post through a search for potty traing and bedtime battles. My daughter will be three at the end of the month and this has been such a struggle. First she was terrified and I mean terrified of panties. It was so very crazy! Then one day about a month ago she just ran up to me and said “Mommy, I have to go pee pee and I want to pee pee on the potty” No joke. Since that day she has been going on the potty and we still have not tried naptime, bedtime and when we are out in public. If we are not in the carseat she will tell me she has to go. If she is in the carseat she will go all over everything. So we still up pullups for that. And thank goodness I have found Target brand pullups they are great and not so expensive. I know and pray she will not be 5 going to kindergarten in pullups and a paci. I know this will pass. I have discovered she will do things when she is ready and not before so I have to put my ideas of what I want aside. It is amazing this parenting journey we are on…learn as you go and every second of the day they teach us something new.