The Princess and the Potty

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

OR:

"The Princess and the Pee"

OR:

"The Princess and Her Throne"

OR:

"It All Comes Out in the End"

Gee, these punny titles could go on and on and on . . .but I'll stop now (you're welcome).

June was a big month for us! Bethany turned three on June 1st, and I knew. I knew it was time to take a stand on the potty issue once and for all. We kinda half-heartedly tried potty training throughout the year last year, but with trying to sell our house and moving and all of life's happenings, I just put it off. I was lazy, I admit it. But everyone has their limits, and my limit was age three.

Somehow, potty training had become just a mountain of a task to me. Seriously, it ranked right up there with Driver's Ed in "not-looking-forward-to-that-phase-of-life" ness. The whole thing was just HUGE to me! But procrastinating can only be done for so long, and as I refused to send Bethie to first grade in a Pull-up . . .it was time to bite the bullet and just do it.

But where to start? Seriously, where to start? I turned to the Internet for answers (seriously, what did people do before Google?) and I found a book called "3-Day Potty Training" by the self-proclaimed "Queen of Potty Training." Help me, oh queen!!! And after reading screen after screen of testimonials from grateful, diaper-free parents, I bought the e-book for $24. I figured I had nothing to lose, as that was roughly the price of a box of diapers. After buying the e-book, downloading it and printing it out, I was glad to find that I liked her philosophy and thought, "Hey, I could maybe kinda sorta do this."

So the week before Bethany's third birthday, I started to prepare her. I told her many times a day about how lucky she was to be turning three, because three-year-olds use the potty! I told her how on Monday, we'd be potty training and really, really built up the anticipation. You'd have thought we were going to Disneyland with all of the excitement around here (and as you'll recall, Disneyland is a very wet place, and therefore appropriate). Anyway, the method calls for three consecutive days of intense potty training, where you play all day and are joint at the hip. At the beginning of the three days, you throw away all of the diapers. No crutches. And when you see little accidents right at the start, you whisk the child away to the bathroom so they can finish their business in the toilet and then reward, reward, reward! And you just tell the kid all day, "Let me know when you have to use the potty!" So they take ownership of wanting to go--no timers every hour.

Anyway, we got all geared up. We had lots of rewards and sticker charts on hand. (And I prayed like crazy!) And you know what????

IT WORKED.

I followed the book to a "T", and it worked! We've been diaper-free for the last five weeks and man, this is heaven! And the other day, when we were playing with a little boy who is eight months older than she is and still in a diaper, Bethany was so confused. She was like, "But he's three, Mom. Why isn't he potty-trained?" So I had to do some fast thinking there--I had to excuse the boy while keeping Bethany firmly planted in the "all three-year-olds-must-be-potty-trained" mentality. So I told her, quite simply, that boys sometimes take a little longer and I'm sure he'd be trained soon. Let's hope I didn't go too far with the "girl power" speech and plant the seeds of feminism? Hmmmmm.

Anyway, why was I so afraid? Potty training was actually kind of fun! Why didn't I do this before? Why do I build things up so much until they become mammoth, giant problems to solve? Potty training Bethie was a piece of cake!

Now, if we can only get through Driver's Ed . . .