The Potty Monkey

So, our pediatrician (OK the NP) reminded me today of what a bad mother I am for making my now 3 year old daughter NOT be potty trained.

Ummm - okaaaaaaaaaay? She spent about 20 minutes giving me advice on how to potty train... like have you heard of this new fangled thing called a STICKER CHART? I know - revolutionary stuff here.

On and on went the suggestions. I did point out at one time that both of her older sisters were potty trained. This point is of no matter to the 24 year old NP - with no children of her own.

Then she starts going on about the monkey. MONKEY. She says she just saw it online and it looked good and it had a timer to remind the kids when to pee and all that fun stuff. It sounded interesting - but I had to listen to another 20 minute lesson on why this was the BEST thing ever.

BEST THING EVER.

So - tonight while watching the Drake and Josh Christmas Special (don't look at the calendar - I'm aware of the fact it's March.. not exactly sure what calendar Nick is using but I digress...) and there is a monkey ... and so I think "ooooh lets look up this potty monkey thing."

Turns out it's actually kind of interesting. I don't think I'll be dropping $25-30 for it anytime soon, but it seems to be pretty sound reasoning. It arrives in a diaper and you do this whole ceremonious throwing away of the diaper... and put little monkey undies on the thing. Now apparently it is ready for the big show. The monkey talks and sings while it's on the potty, and then you can set a timer for 30 or 90 minutes and then at every time interval the monkey starts talking about having to go to the bathroom and how maybe the child could please take them to the potty? and OH why you are in here - you may as well sit those cute cheeks down and try and pee too... K?

Anyway - without further ado... I present... The Potty Monkey!

Update on the Potty Olympics...

Anna has now been in underwear for 10 days!! We're not turning back to diapers now. We haven't had an accident free day (she's still in Pull ups at night) yet, but she's only having 1 or 2 a day. It seems she suffers the same little kid-itis as other 3 year olds. She gets busy, forgets she doesn't have a pull up and then has to make a mad dash for the bathroom. I'm OK with this. I know that it takes time, and I'm ok with actual accidents - the purposeful accidents I'm not as OK with.

So. Anna's doing great! YEAH ANNA!

So - here is some joy...

Yesterday Anna was having some POOP issues. I say POOP in all caps because I know how much you like to hear about the bowels of my kids. Isn't that what a mommy blog is all about? Telling you how amazing my kids are and talking about their bodily functions.

POOP

PEE

SNOT

Yes. I have it covered.

So - back to our program already in progress...

Anna - POOP issues - now you are all caught up.

She was trying to poop on the potty on and off all morning. Each time only a little pea sized poop would come out.

Yet. Each little pea sized poop was cause for celebration in Anna's eyes.

"YOOOOOK Mommy. I pooped. Come with me, close your eyes!"

Sure enough. POOP. Pea sized POOP.

Then 5 minutes later she'd have to go again. Same routine.

She did say her belly ached. ACHED. Not hurt. Not has an owie. Her belly ACHED.

Eventually all the potty visits paid off and we hit the motherload of poop.

Boy was she proud.

Potty training - again

So - as I mentioned, Anna is potty training. She does great if I ask her if she needs to go, or take her to go. She's pretty much self sufficient. She can take her pants and pull up/underwear off, climb up on the potty, go, wipe, get down, flush and then wash her hands and get dressed again. What we're lacking is the interest. She's perfectly content to be wet or dirty.

We tried the 'bare it all' method but considering we're in a rental house, we gave up after a couple of accidents. It made no difference to her. We're even rewarding her with a peice of candy and sticker each time. She really is doing great if we initiate, but at this point I feel like I'm the one who is potty training. She never puts up a fight, but it never crosses her mind - "hey, I need to pee".

We are putting new meaning to the term "potty TRAINing" though, we set it up so she has a sticker chart and each time she reaches one of the stars (every 8 times she goes) on the chart she gets to pick out a small toy and then when she fills the chart (about a weeks worth of going) she gets a new train. She LOVES Thomas trains. I was thinking along the lines of a dollar store type of thing for the small toy. Dan ruined this for me, in front of Anna, when he suggested that she get a train each time she gets a star. He had no idea that a little train runs $10-20. That's my guy!

So now when Anna gets to a star - she gets a train, and when she fills the chart she will now get Thomas undies. She really wants Thomas undies (Dora is so passe'). Once she fills up her sticker chart we're going to move from "using the potty" method to "not having accidents". Hopefully the stress of possibly peeing on Thomas will be enough to make the move towards self motivation in going to the bathroom.

Funny story though. Anna has two funny quirks about going to the bathroom. When she's about to pee she'll say to whoever is in the room, "are you ready? huh??? are you ready?" and then she pees. She STILL thinks it's funny to hear the sound. Then - every time she poops - she demands the fan be turned on. Funny kid.

Enough about the potty right now...

I think it's time...

When Anna was 16 months old we began a farcical journey in potty training. For 2 weeks she regularly peed and pooped on the potty. She asked to go and then went. I secretly held out hope that it would indeed be that easy - but I was skeptical. After those two weeks, Anna decided that she had zero interest in the potty and well, that was that.

We've had a couple of fleeting moments of interest in using the potty, but they were just that... fleeting.

I readily admit I've been lazy with Anna's potty training. With Emma being newly mobile in addition to her marathon nursing sessions - sitting in the bathroom with Anna for long periods of time as we wait for, umm, product, is more difficult than I care to admit. We tried the same thing we did with Julia, which was moving the little potty into the living room and letting her just use it in there, but Anna hates the little potty. She only wants to use the real deal. I guess that will help when it's time for the dreaded public potty times.

Santa brought Anna some Dora underwear in her stocking. She was not interested. That's when we stumbled across the potty training marvel that is the potty song and dance. This little bit of potty training wisdom was originally imparted to me by my father who cut out an article back when Julia was potty training about the success of a potty song and dance on someones child. We tried it with Julia and it worked better than stickers, candy and bribes combined. Apparently the same is true for Anna.

Julia's potty song was an upbeat, happy little ditty that resulted in dancing and prancing around. Anna's is a swashbuckling merry tune that is a peppy song sung to the tune of a "Sailor's life for me". It involves lots of "Ahoy matey" and "Argh"'s with our best pirate voices. Perfect for Anna. I think she's definitely catching on, as at least 2-3 times a day she asks to go to the bathroom. I think this weekend we'll begin the pull-up (the kind with the wet liner) full blown potty training with a diaper only for night.

oh - and a funny poop story...

Yesterday I sat down to nurse Emma who is sick with an ear infection. She had finally settled in to actually nurse when I heard that terrifying Velcro sound of the tape tab being pulled free from the diaper. Anna announced she had to poop. I asked her if she could wait for a minute. She said no. I told her to just poop in her diaper then. She then followed my instructions to the T. She had taken off her diaper, so she squatted over it and pooped.

I think she's ready...