Can I Poop Off The Deck?

I am not one to complain when it's hot. I detest winter and will complain and wish for heat. So when the heat comes, I do my best to suck it up. I tell you though, this heat is a bitch when you are in a hot ass bathroom with a sweaty hot 2 year old clinging to you while he tries to poop.

That's been my world these days. Potty training, I am not gonna lie is going exceedingly well. In the morning his diaper is dry and he asks to use the potty. He seems to actually be bothered by a pee pee diaper. The last few nights have been hot. Very, very hot. Kiki won't fall asleep and tonight Will joined her. James tried to put him down but after the second bottle of milk gave up. I played with the kids for an hour in our cooler room. Will was being very bizarre. He wanted to be held which means he is putting something off he has to do. I finally got it out of him. He did not like the pee in his diaper. I told him to just take it off. He did. Then peed in the toilet. I decided tonight was the night. If he pees the bed, so be it. I put a thick blanket under him. I told him if he wakes up from peeing to not cry. I let him know he was not going to be in trouble and to just come to Kikis room where he could find me. He agreed. Now, we wait and see. So, while we wait, let's talk about the huge poop he took off his grandmothers deck into her plants right after I sweated it out in his grandparents bathroom.

This whole pooping off the deck was never serious. He is a boy so he was taught to pee off the deck. Peeing naturally turned to wanting to poop off the deck. Everyone was horrified and he was told of course not to. He began threatening us. He would put his butt against the deck railings and announce he was pooping. After some panic and profuse explaining that we don't poop off the deck we all believed him less and less. He make the exclamations more for our reactions than really pooping off the deck. This has gone on for months. Then today he left the dinner table, walked out onto the deck, put his tiny butt between to railings and pooped into some plants. He leaves the dinner table a lot. He isn't a big eater and after a few bites, he is way over sitting down. He usually comes back for a bite when you call him back to do so. So when I told him to come have a bite and he responded that he was pooping off the deck no one believed him. I gave him a couple minutes, called him again and was once again told that he was pooping. I made a joke that he was taking too long and should come run to me to get his bowels going. That's when we saw it. The poop face. We saw the poop face then watched in horror as he looked over the deck to see his masterpiece. We knew it then. When he looked down we knew the deed had been done. I was stuck in my chair. I could not wrap my head around it. James got up to verify what we already knew. Sure enough, broken into 3 bits was a huge poop. WTF?! We had to then launch into a serious talk about no pooping off the deck. I told Bob to not mention it to Diana. She would have a fit whereas Bob stated he was proud. Oh Bob. Still, that leaves me a little miffed. I sat through 2 days of hot ass bathroom with Wills sweaty clingy body on mine as he told me over and over he didn't have to poop and then sure enough dropped the deuce.

Yesterday was truly the worst. He relentlessly picks at his butt so you know he has to go. He denies it the whole way. Then, he suddenly announces he has to poop and I shuttle him in to the bathroom. I get him pants less, prop his tiny boy body precariously on the toilet seat only to have him look me in the eye and say ever so sweetly "I don't have to poop". I have to stick it out. This part sucks balls. I have him leaning on me because he is scared of falling in. I have Keely crawling around the bathroom and Will is freaked out she's gonna climb into the toilet. Yesterday at Bob and Diana's I had to shut the bathroom door with all three of us in there because I needed to watch her. It got very hot, very quickly. Then James came in to tell me he and Will had done this trying to poop thing 20 times that day. He tried to convince me to quit. I persevered. I knew that poop was in there. It had to come out. I massaged his belly, looked deep into his eyes and after 10 wretched minutes of sitting on a bathroom floor with a sweaty boy and a crawling baby we got a tiny turd out. 

Today was much better. Will again wouldn't stop grabbing his butt. He begged for someone to go with him and I finally snapped and took him in. I knew that poop would come. Leaving the bathroom door open I got him on the seat, assured him he wouldn't fall, listened as he told me he didn't have to poop, explained to him that I knew he had to and why when suddenly his hand grasped my shoulder hard and I saw the poop face. I watched a fairly decent sized turd slowly emerge from his butt. It landed and he was quick to hop off and check it out. I told him it was the biggest poop of his life. I had no idea that within the hour the biggest poop of his life would be delivered off his grandmothers deck. Still, we got out of there in good time but I was hot. So stifling hot. I had a drink of water and tried to regain normalcy. 

So there you have it. More trials and tribulations surrounding potty training. A story of things you would never dream of preparing yourself for in the saga of potty training. It's not over yet though folks. I still don't know how tonight ends.

Potty Training Cold Turkey

Fuck you books and blogs and advice from parents who have succeeded. Fuck you parents who are doing it now. This is how I had to do it and I hated it.

I have tried several times to potty train Will. All to no avail. It's flat out not easy. Be prepared for lots of tears, fits, hitting, piss and shit all over your floor. No book is gonna teach you, no blog post is going to give you the magic clue and no friend is going to light your way. Our training is not over but we are officially on the road. 

For me it was difficult because we had our second before our first was remotely close to being trained. Having a new baby is hard work. They are demanding and they win the attention. Potty training a child has to be like a newborn babe on the tit, constant. So when you have two demanding things one usually wins out over the other. Potty training took a backseat. We got Will a potty, we got him books, we got him underwear and I bought him a special seat that rests on the big potty. Over the course of a year these were introduced, talked about, mildly used but never firmly grasped. Four days ago I said Fuck It. This is how it's going to be now.

Will is a huge juice drinker. He is an addict. He wakes up and literally asks for juice. He insists on a bottle. This bottle business will be my next battle. So the boy pees. A lot. His disposable diapers hold it but one pee and they are through. I was exhausted changing diapers all day. Plus, they are not cheap. I thought about it. It's cheaper to wash his pee clothes than buy his diapers. Also, I have like 3 seconds to change him when I get the chance and he loves to fight me. He won't lay down, he flails his legs and he rolls all over. No, no, no. Fuck That. You go pee in the toilet. I am done son. 

The first day he peed his pants every single time he had to pee. He then sobbed and demanded/pleaded for a diaper. I just told him his diapers no longer fit him. I told him he peed to much for the diaper and they couldn't hold it anymore. That night i put him in his diaper to sleep and he pooped. We changed him and sent him off to sleep. The second day we stayed on him. We asked him every five minutes if he had to pee. He peed his pants a couple times and used to potty a couple times. He threw a huge fit where he hit me repeatedly. Through swats I had to just say to him he wasn't in trouble. I just said I expected this and it was okay. He did go in time out but my words stayed with him. He did not poop that day. The third day he was better and so were we. We started learning his signs for needing to pee. We turned him on to peeing on things like Cheerios in the toilet. In the early afternoon he tricked me. I was busy making him lunch and he asked if he could poop. I of course said yes only to realize that he wasn't going off to poop, he was pooping in his underwear. My realization was too late. I calmly stopped what I was doing and we went to clean him up. He was quite upset but I remained calm and cool. We plopped the turd in the toilet and he loved wiping his butt with TP. 

Today was day 4. He would either tell me straight up he had to pee or I would see he had to go and tell him to go try. Every time I say go try he refuses. A few minutes later he would tell me he has to go. Now, mind you, I have to go with him every time. He is too small to operate flawlessly. He has trouble getting the pants down, he has to be reminded to go all the way to the potty with his feet on the stool, sometimes he needs a hand to get up on the stool, he has to be reminded to wipe his wiener, he needs help tearing the TP off, he needs help pulling his pants up and he has trouble getting the handle far enough to flush. Sometimes I have a 10 month old crawling all over us and the toilet while this is going on. Today though he pooped in the potty. He actually did it. He told me he needed to and he did it. It took a lot of asking but he finally caved. Usually he just sits on the potty for an hour if you let him. He is freaked out by pooping in the toilet. When he saw my excitement after we heard that plop he got jazzed. He knew he pleased me and he liked it. He flushed for the first time by using both hands. Call me a freak but I took a picture. He smiled for me. He never does that for pictures anymore. He loved it so much he talked about it several times during the day and told his dad when he got home. Tonight, we put his diaper on. He questions us why he gets put in a diaper then and not the rest of the day. I told him it was because he doesn't pee much at night and we will stop once he learns he needs to pee in the middle of the night and goes by himself. He was playing and I was about to say goodnight to him so I could put his sister down when I saw the face. The pooping face. I should have known. I saw it moments earlier and maybe I could have saved it but again, I was distracted. I asked him if he was pooping. He started to cry. He told me he wanted to poop in his potty. It was so so sweet. I took him crying and his fussy crying exhausted sister to the bathroom. We got him out of his zipped up jammies, pulled of the poopy diaper and had him try to poop some more. He wanted to put the diaper poop in the toilet to flush it. I love that boy.

I would now like to share some secrets and explain that the stars aligned to make this happen. This process did start during the summer. It also started on Saturday morning over a weekend my husband was home. Monday and Tuesday my mom was helping me. I give him grape juice so he has to poop. A super bonus was his girl crush neighbor friend who is 9 months older and trained left a surprise poop in our potty when I was encouraging trying to go potty. She jumped at the chance to potty, explained to Will that she loved his Cars themed toilet seat and unbeknownst to us pooped. Either she didn't flush or it didn't go down but it helped telling Will that his favorite person pooped in his potty. Also, I haven't left the house. Tomorrow I will and I will leave with my purse containing a towel.