Come on Eli, It's Time to Potty...

Potty Training SUCKS! But then, so does changing diapers on a 3 1/2 year old. So, we must persevere - for now at least.

This past Sunday, we decided to start seriously potty training with Eli. We have been trying pull-ups for the past month or so, with no success. For those of you who remain lucky enough to not know what a pull-up is, it is essentially a diaper that works like underwear. It does not have tabs, so you have to pull it up like a pair of underwear. This means that every time you need to change the pull-up, everything else needs to come off. I guess the fact that it comes up and down like underwear is supposed to motivate the child to want to use the potty instead of the pull-up. If there is a parent out there that has actually had this experience I envy you.

Anyway, on Sunday, we decided to try putting Eli in underwear to see how that would go. I know a number of people who have had good success with this method. I am hoping that he wont like the feeling of being wet and that this will motivate him, along with a sticker chart and M&M rewards system, to use the bathroom, but I am not sure this will be the case for us. On day one, we had ok success - about 50%. Day two was better - about 70% success, but day three was a disaster. 0% success. I spent the whole day cleaning up messes and changing clothes. The last couple of days have been better, but being wet, or poopy for that matter, doesn't seem to bother Eli in the least. This might mean that he is not really ready and this attempt may be futile, but if nothing else, I think he is starting to become aware of when he does go to the bathroom and what that feels like. We will give it a couple weeks and see what happens. If it doesn't work, we will stop for now and try again in a month or so. I am trying not to stress out about it.

Sometimes, though, it is hard to keep the stress level down. First, it is not easy for me to remain calm when I am cleaning up puddles of pee all over my house. Sometimes I feel like my head might explode. Moreover, whenever we are struggling with something new, some new facet of parenthood, it seems that there is no shortage of superparents with magic children ready to tell me all about the ease of their experience with my latest struggle. Does this happen to you? Who are these parents out there that just breeze through child rearing? They are not people I know or who know me. Rather, they are the "well-meaning" (read annoying and self righteous) strangers who love to offer their advice when they happen upon me and my "insuperior" (read normal) parenting self. You know them, those people who approach you in the grocery store, or in the waiting room at the doctor's office, or any other random place. These superparents always happen to stumble across me just in time to discover my new parenting struggle and can't help but brag about how their children excelled at whatever issue I am now struggling with. Well, to you parents who have these magic children who have slept through the night at 6 days old, never cried, never whine, eats anything and everything, who are always well behaved and potty trained by 2 years old, in just a few days, I am sticking my tongue out at you the second you turn your back and walk away.

Fortunately, superparents, I can brush you off, because I have wonderful family and friend support who share their true experiences and offer supportive genuine advice. Who share stories of both their children's strengths and struggles and acknowledge the same in my children. And, I will meet a few strangers along the way who will reach out and do the same. So to those who share your stories of success and struggle, who offer advice not judgment, who lend a helping hand or a listening ear, who support us normal parents with normal children, I thank you. And to you, I smile as you walk away.

All of us parents have children who are good at some things and struggle with others (even the magic children of the superparents, I suspect). There are plenty of things Eli has been really good at, that he has picked up very quickly. I think learning to use the potty may not be one of them. But I have full confidence he will get it, even if not at a magically rapid rate. When I get really stressed out I try to take a deep breath, call on the strength and support of my normal parent brethren, and remember that this too shall pass. I will not have a 17 year old still in diapers, and if I do, god knows he will be changing his own!