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Estee's Take: A Celebration Too Big For M&Ms Alone.
(13 comments, 188 views)
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Sunday, 30 January 2011
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Can we discuss one of those Mom Topics that make non-moms squirm uncomfortably and plan their respective getaways? Potty.Training. Ugh. Just the thought makes me squirm uncomfortably. I was fairly certain that Paizlee would be sent off to college with her Dora Pull-ups. And then I had a temper tantrum. A big one. One that sent Breuklyn and Maddux scampering and patting themselves on the back for their ability to successfully wear underwear.
Before I get the inevitable handslap on my meanness and general ridiculousness for having thrown a temper tantrum, let’s review, shall we? I have tried every potty training “method” with this child. Are you aware that there are ten million gazillion different methods? I wasn’t. I am now. We tried a sticker chart. We tried the candy reward method. We positive rewarded, reinforced and recognized. We tried the Dr. Phil method. We bribed, we encouraged and we thought about removing all carpeting and replacing it with hardwood floors. Or sod. We orchestrated Potty Parties that would rival any local Sweet 16 shindig.
This has been an ongoing process of, oh, 18 months or so. We would do the whole, “Yay! No more diapers! Let’s buy brand new big girl underwear!” charade. 24 hours later there would be puddles covering 75% of the square footage of my house and I would be eating all of the reward M&Ms myself since Paiz was over.it.big.time. Then we would wait 2 months. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
One morning when Paiz was watching television, there was a commercial for the Disney Princess Royal Enchanted Oven. She was instantly, “Mommymommymommy I neeeeeed that.” Oh yeah? One trip to Walmart and that thing was sitting in it’s happy box on the back of the toilet. Yes, that’s right. We should all strive to be as classy as I am.
Alright, Paiz, you want that amazing toy? Well, you know what you need to do. She pulled up her stepstool and settled in for an hour long conversation with the Enchanted Oven. Over the next 6 (SIX!) weeks, she would make daily visits to make sure that it was still there and to have a little chat about all the fun they would one day have. One day in the very, very distant future apparently. Brad was slightly alarmed by its appearance and then just plain baffled when it seemed to be a permanent fixture. “Not that I doubt your methods, dear, but you know it’s weird that it’s in here, right? I mean, you come in here to dust it.” Oh shut up.
Well, today, I was done. I told her that there would be no more big girl stuff if she was going to continue to fight me on this whole potty training thing. No more ballet classes. No more birthday parties. No swimming lessons. I meant business. I may or may not have stomped my foot. She raised an eyebrow at me to gauge just how serious I was. She thought about it. She said, “Can I wear the underwear with the kittens?” And then it was done. Literally. She has been cheerfully rocking it out all day.
Really, Paiz? Really? You couldn’t have given in, oh I don’t know, 18 months ago? Sigh. You know parents who say, “If she had been my first, she would have been my only?” I won’t deny having had that thought today. Repeatedly. And I still ate the reward M&Ms. They were delicious.
Brad is just happy that the Disney Princesses have moved out of the bathroom.
Since I just had to share this with my favorite people in the whole internet world, I thought that I would at least make it worth your while. :) Leave me a comment here telling me about your funniest moment from January and I will choose one winner to win a $20.00 Scrapbook.com Gift Certificate! I need some laughter because who knows what tomorrow will bring! If you want an extra chance to win, just send your friends in this direction and have them mention your name. I can't wait to read what you have to say! I would send some M&Ms, but they are long gone!!
You have until Saturday, February 4, 2011 at 11:59PM CST to leave a comment. I will announce the winner on Sunday, February 5, 2011. Good luck!
Products mentioned in this entry:
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Lol!!! Estee, I hear ya!!! I tried to potty train my son at 2 years since he showed all the signs that he was ready. A year later and a million bucks spent on pull-ups (and here I thought I was going to save money!) and nothing! NOTHING! He watched the Elmo Potty Training DVD and I tried all those gazillion methods and still nothing! Nothing but puddles on my couch, on the carpet, and in my truck! (Boy, do I love my steam cleaner!) I wanted him to start Pre-K and he could not go if he was not potty trained so finally, I had a tantrum of my own and I forbade him to watch tv or play video games or pretty much do anything but sit in his room alone until he was ready to use the potty! And just like your miracle, he walked into the bathroom and used it!!! I was actually angry at myself for not trying that tactic before! Lol.
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30-Jan-2011 @ 10:00:59pm
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Really enjoyed your post today.....Our DD trained herself...I was really not ready to be done with those nice easy diapers. She was still 2 and she would come and say "Dump it" That meant tho that she had the Adventure of visiting every single,,,,and I mean EVERY single restroom in the city. EVERY time we went into a store, office, anything...even if she had just gone at home. Our DS on the other hand I was sure would not be trained in College. Our Pediatrition, a wise old guy, said "leave him alone...that is THE one thing he has TOTAL control over and you can not do a single thing about it...the more you fuss the more he enjoys showing you he's in charge" so I told him..."fine, soon you will be old enough to get a job and buy your own diapers." I started taking care of a little boy a year older than DS and he saw him go potty once and that was it....never an accident after that. (He was almost 4 by then)
Doc D had said those children who are potty trained realy early are not trained...their parents are.
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31-Jan-2011 @ 6:20:38am
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And, she's back!!! I missed your stories!! They always make me laugh! I don't that my stories are necessarily funny... but... potty training.. Ben FINALLY has quit messing in his pants. He has been peeing on the potty since he was 2. It's the other thing that we (or should I say I) struggled with. Greg really isn't home much. I got fed up about this time last year. I told him enough was enough. Big boys don't get to do... that whole speech. I think he had to see if I was serious. He should know better on that one!! LOL He is really into cars. We are talking Disney's Cars movie cars. So, I bought a few. When he went on the potty, he got one car. When he went in his pants, I took them all away.. all of them that he earned and he had to earn them back, one at a time again. It took several months. He is a stubborn child. But, I am happy to say, we are done with potty training!!! Finally!
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31-Jan-2011 @ 7:09:10am
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Oh I am so glad that I am not the only mom that throws temper tantrums every once in a while!!!!!! So my funny thing this month is not a frustrating thing. So my 5 year old daughter is a total tomboy. For Christmas she got spiderman underware (the boy kind). She also got the how to tame a dragon battle gear of a sheild, horned hat and hatchet. She decided that most dragon tamers do this in their underware which that day happened to be the spiderman ones. She also had not figured out what the heck that flap in the front was for. I told her but she either didn't believe me or just couldn't wrap her brain around it. So she decided that it was really just a holder for the hatchet. She then proceeded to call me into the room and told me to bring the camera. She said that I needed to get some "battle shots" so that we could scare the dragons away with them. She posed herself with one leg up in the air so it would look like she was running and the hatchet hanging out of the hole in the front of her underware. NICE!!! That is so going to be a picture that we save for her graduation party!!!
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31-Jan-2011 @ 12:19:42pm
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Well you know Brandon and Paizlee are only a month or two apart... He's just as hard headed as she is. LOL He refuses to go to the potty on his own. I have to remind him. He won't go just because he feels like he has to. So... Saturday we all went to the beach and my DH got to bring him to the bathroom. He hasn't been too involved with the potty training thing so far. When they went into the bathroom the stalls were taken and there was only a urinal. He had to help Brandon aim and Brandon did NOT do a good job. They both got sprinkled on. DH came out red faced and told me what happened and I just had to laugh.
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31-Jan-2011 @ 1:06:07pm
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So glad to see you're back!!!! How about potty training from the grandma's perspective. My daughter isn't quite ready to start the whole potty training thing yet. My grandson will be 3 in March and right now he's in total denial about poop. Friday the poor little guy was constipated and whever he felt "moved" he clenched his little buns together and grunted. When asked if he's pooping, a firm NOOOO is uttered. So catching him at the beginning and quickly scooping him up, bending him in half about 10 times finally resulted in getting our mission accomplished. whew!
Now to the funny, I share babysitting with the other grandma, but at our house, we have a routine. After breakfast and a little play time, we retire to my bedroom for a bottle and a rest. Some days, I take the opportunity to get a shower. I make sure his favorite show is on and get a super fast shower. Since I pick up Ellie, my youngest, a senior from school, Dominic is always happy to get in the car to "go get Ellie". The other day we were headed to bed and he looked at me and said "mimi, jump shower, go get ellie?" He was ready to have his Aunt Ellie home and knows that Mimi gets a shower before going out.
A bonus for you re: Paizlee. This is one little chickie that isn't gonna let anyone make her do anything she isn't ready to. This is a good trait for when she's older!!! Now if you can only get to the older part without more drama :)
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31-Jan-2011 @ 2:01:34pm
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Is that what I have to look forward to in a couple years once my little guy is ready to potty train? Oh boy!
I'm not sure what my funniest moment from January was. I'm sure there were funnier, but the only thing I can think of is when I told me husband he needed to give me a foot massage (9 months pregnant and being on your feet for work all day is not comfortable!) and he asked me where I wanted to be massaged.
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31-Jan-2011 @ 4:52:55pm
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So, little Paizlee just wanted to assert her royal stubborness over the last 18 months, huh? I can't really think of too many January funnies. It's been a rather stressful time in my family and that tends to overshadow my reminiscing. Perhaps it was when I made these chocolate Ghirardelli brownies with fudge on top, designed to make you salivate with just the thought of them. I'm pretty good at brownies...I mean, mixes aren't all that hard, right? Um, epic fail this time around. Those suckers came out of the oven smelling heavenly. I ate one. Just one, because "heavenly" was NOT the word I thought of when I ate it. It wasn't bad...it just wasn't great. The fudge just tasted funky to me. Now, who's a better taste tester than the local kids, right? I mean, they're like Mikey. They'll try anything. So, I had three of the neighbor's kids hanging out in my kitchen, salivating on cue. I gave the youngest his brownie. He pronounced it good, "except that fudgy stuff on top." Middle child is next. She says essentially the same thing, but I get the distinct impression that if I turned my back, her portion would be in the trash faster than I could blink. The oldest...well, let's just say he's a boy who's 17, works out, and plays sports. In other words, bottomless pit. I take the handy dandy plastic spatula thingie to the brownie pan. As I am trying to rescue his brownie from the depths of the baking stone pan, the spatula breaks. The handle flies across the room. The flat part is stuck under the brownie. Amidst the peals of laughter from his brother and sister, my hollow legged neighbor just scoops brownie out with his hands and shoves it in his face. Then he eats another. And then the last one. I think you had to be there to find it funny, but trust me, it was.Ok, I need to think of another funny.
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31-Jan-2011 @ 6:49:32pm
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I have six grandsons and a couple of them were hard to train. The funniest story from January was when the 12 year old announced at dinner that he believed in reincarnation. He said, "When I come back I want to be a lizard or an armadillo. You know, something fancy." We all cracked up over his idea of fancy.
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31-Jan-2011 @ 8:13:32pm
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We all feel your pain! When my DD was potty-training she also refused and did not respond to any positive reinforcement. On her last attempt to rebel, she came out and pulled down her pants and peed on the kitchen floor on purpose to snub me.
Every morning I asked her, "Is this the day you're going to pee on the potty?" Every morning the answer was "No,I don't want to". Until one day out of the blue, the answer was Yes. From that day on, not one accident ever. In public or in her bed or anywhere. Amazing!
My son was somewhat the same. His problem was with going poop and wanting to sit. He had run around the house in circles since he could walk when he was doing his business on a serious mission. I used the same approach. "Is today the day you're going to poop on the potty? Finally one morning it was a Yes and only had a couple accidents outside when playing.
The funniest thing in January? Probably just tonight when my kids dressed my husband up like a baby in a variety of accessories and made him pose. Quite silly. 2nd runner up moment was my 3 yr.old son asked me "Where does Santa get the video games for children to put under the tree? I'm sure he doesn't make them, he must buy them at Toys r us".
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31-Jan-2011 @ 10:02:54pm
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ROFL!!!! I only have one and I snapped last Summer. We were walking down the street and he was telling me how badly he wanted his very own Jessie, the Yodeling Cowgirl (of Toy Story fame). I snapped and informed him that the only way he'd get Jessie is if he actually pooped in the potty. He then tried with great purpose for a week, then succeeded. Of course, in order to succeed I had to rush him down a flight of stairs, while groggy (I crash at his naptime) to sit on the potty to get the job done. THEN he began crying because, in his words, the poop was all melted in the potty. But above all else, he got his beloved Jessie after nap and even several months later, he still recalls why he got her.
This January.... It would be one of DS's one-liners. When he gets a boo boo, I usually kiss it and he goes off to play. No big deal. Last week, I wasn't immediately available, so DS asked DH to kiss his boo boo... on his butt. For five minutes I got to hear the two debate whether or not a butt would be kissed that day.
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1-Feb-2011 @ 12:31:44pm
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Potty training is the WORST! I'm so glad it's behind me. Fortunately, it wasn't all that bad. We went cold turkey the day he turned 3 and after two weeks of torture, he had it down pat. Another 6 months later, he was out of night pull-ups and we've been accident-free ever since.
I'm trying to think of funny stuff that's happened in January. Nothing is coming to mind. Plenty of FUN stuff, but nothing especially FUNNY.
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2-Feb-2011 @ 5:46:41pm
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Great story!!! I am thankful that I have no potty training stories from January as we nipped that in the bud the end of last year. However, my funny January story is not one from something silly or crazy that my kids had done but one that my husband had done. So here goes.....
So to give you a little back story my husband works for a lawn care company and therefore in the winter they plow snow. Now when we first started dating this was no issue. He loved snow and would plow all night come home take a nap and then take my daughter out sledding or to have a snowball fight. As he has got older, and the more snow we seem to be getting the last few years, the more he hates the snow. He would just flat refuse to get out in it after coming home from work. So the other day I told him that it was not fair to our two younger children that he does not taking them sledding like he use to do with Connor, my oldest daughter. So after the grumbling he agreed to take them one Sunday after work. Now I had already taken them twice that week and did not really want to go but since he was making the effort I put a smile on my face grabbed the camera and jumped in the car with them. After driving for an hour "to find that perfect hill" (because apparently the one I had been going to was just not good enough for him) we found it. Guess what.....it was the same hill I had been going to :). He climbed to the top of the hill with the little ones (Logan age 6 and Shelby age 4) and sent them down with smiles on their faces and giggles filling the air. Apparently he thought it looked like fun so he grabbed his sled and headed down......laughing.....until he hit a mound of snow which launched him in the air and he crash landed on his back. Slowly getting up he goes over and kicks the mound of frozen snow and says well that's just not safe. Then he climbs back up the hill helped Logan down again since Shelby has now started making snow angels. Again Logan flies down the hill giggling all the way. John then attempts it again and managed a good run that time. So after about thirty minutes of watching the kids have fun we decided it was time to head home for hot cocoa and s'mores by the fire. John sends Logan down one last time and then follows on his sled. This time Connor is out recording his decent down the hill on her phone. Again he hits another mound of snow and goes airborne. Only this time he lands slides a few feet more hits another mound, goes airborne and lands in the parking lot and slide on the pavement the whole time he is awkwardly yelling "I'm done! I'm done!” I could not do anything but laugh until I cried as he just lay on the concrete laughing trying not to cry. He finally managed to get up off the ground and got in the car. On the way home Connor showed him the video. Good thing he has a sense of humor because he laughed at his self and requested she put it up on Facebook so he could show his friends.
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4-Feb-2011 @ 2:06:50pm
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