The joys of mothering....
Today we officially started potty training my son. He has been resistant and frankly the whole potty training thing is a little daunting to me. We had introduced him to the potty, bought a little potty, bought books, talked it up, etc to try to get him intrigued with no luck.
After considering it, we decided he just doesn't care when he's wet or messy. So the solution was...get him out of diapers and into underwear so he is more aware when he goes. Makes sense....right?
So I went and bought him underwear with his favorite movie characters on it. Starwars. He has Luke Skywalker and General Grevis plastered across his rear end. I'm getting excited about this tactic now. He's thrilled, I'm thrilled....and then we have our first experience with diaperless weeing.
First lesson....cover the couch with plastic trash bags covered with sheets. Explain to child we do not pee on Luke Skywalker or mommy's couch...we go in the potty.
We continue about our morning. Suddenly my son runs up to me in his fresh pair of undies and asks me for a diaper. hmmm.
Instead I suggest he sits on the potty. His response is "No". Ok...if you sit on the potty and go pee I will give you a marshmellow. He instantly complies. He pees in the potty no problem. Now I feel like he's been outsmarting us for awhile. I reluctantly give him a marshmellow.
I go back to cleaning when Haven runs back to the potty (not 3 minutes later) and pees again. This time he just sticks his hand out for his marshmellow. I tell him what a great job he is doing and give him another marshmellow. As I'm cleaning out his potty again he asks for it again. Sure enough he sits down pees AGAIN and asks for another marshmellow. I'm starting to think this reward system is faulty.
After the 5th time of peeing I try to explain he is doing so great, but cut it out for heaven's sake. I'm tired of emptying your pee can so you can have a marshmellow! I tell him to wait a little longer and we will go again when I'm done cleaning.
Ten minutes later he is pleading for a marshmellow. So being the clever mother that I am, I up the stakes. I tell him if he goes poop in the potty I will give him one of the big marshmellows. So he quickly agrees and sits down. I wait, expecting him to demand a big marshmellow any minute. Instead all I hear is grunting. I ask him if he is ok. He says "It's stuck Mom!".
And that is our first day of potty training. Tomorrow I will be sure to have orange slices on hand for rewards, plenty of clean underwear, couches covered in sheets and a hubby at home to clean up the messes. Now who's smarter?