When we found out that we’d be having our third baby in less than two and a half years, one of the first things I thought of (other than my stretch mark gallery) was that this meant having three kids in diapers. Oh. My. That’s like twentyish diapers a day. Thankfully, we use cloth diapers about 80% of the time, so the cost is managable. But three? That’s a lot to handle.
To lighten my load, I decided to potty train my 2 1/2 year old Rafferty. He is a smart, eager to learn type, and true to my form I chose an all-in approach to potty training. I put him in big boy underwear (possibly the cutest thing ever) and told him no more diapers. For three days straight, I’d catch him having an accident, I’d run him to the potty and repeat the phrase, “make sure you tell mommy when you have to go potty, ok?”. Basically, I did nothing for three days but shadow my kid and pick up his messes. (oh yeah, and take care of an eighteen month old. And nurse a baby.)
The program I followed swears that any kid will get it by the end of the third day. And it kinda worked. He loved the praise for going in the potty, and loved the m&m rewards even more.
For the next three weeks or so he wore big boy pants. And then it started . . . the rebellion. The m&m’s must have lost their flavor or something, because suddenly the potty lost its appeal. Rafferty had nothing to do with it anymore. I mean, who has time to run to the potty when there is a train track that needs built or when Buzz needs to fly passed infinity?
I do what I’m told, and the program told me to stick it out whenever there was a regression. I tried my best to encourage him, sing his praises, and not gripe about the nasties covering every inch of my almost-off-white carpet. (who puts down this color of carpet, anyway?!)
We had had several back to back days of the potty rebellion, when it finally happened.
The incident.
Rafferty and Cosette were busy jumping on their mini trampoline on our back porch. I had the door open so I could hear Cosy scream whenever Rafferty jumped on her head. I peaked my head out the door and as usual, Rafferty was jumping and laughing as Cosy was on her rear, trying desperately to get on her feet. What wasn’t usual, though, was that Rafferty had taken off his pants.
I took a step closer and saw that he had completely filled his undies with poop. . . and he was jumping with all his might. I shouted something like, “BAH! STOP JUMPING!”, and grabbed him under the arms and ran him to the bathroom. His legs and feet were decorated with his artwork, and he smiled at me as if he was quite proud of his achievement. As I slid off his wasted undies and tossed them in the trash (yeah, I wasn’t going to even try to salvage the pair), I remembered my daughter.
Oh. No.
I shouted for Dustin to come put Rafferty in the bath (this is when I am so so so thankful my husband works from home!) and took off to the trampoline. There she sat, my precious little girl, hands full. Hands full of her brother’s poo. The world stopped spinning. I saw her waste-coated little hands go up to her face in slow motion. And then towards her mouth. I got to her in a fifth of a second and swept her to the bathroom to throw her into the tub with her brother. Gross.
That was the incident that made me cheerfully throw in the towel on potty training. Three kids in diapers? Easy. Scrubbing supernatural amounts of poop off of the trampoline? Horrific.
Big boy pants will make another appearance, once I’ve recovered from round one.
