Soph and I were sitting in the living room shortly after noon when she decided to go upstairs. I figured she was headed up to her room to play with her dollhouse or read books and didn’t think a thing of it.  But then about two minutes later I heard her yelling, “OH no! It’s TOO WET!”

Crap.  That can’t be good.

I raced upstairs and found Sophie standing in front of the toilet with her pants and panties pulled down. “It’s TOO WET!” she said again?  ”What’s too wet?” I said. “Did you go pee pee in your pants?”

“No it’s too wet on your (she’s still got pronoun confusion) SHIRT.”  She replied.

I moved in to investigate.  Her pants and panties were dry, but she was wearing a long tunic-style shirt, and sure enough there was a small water spot on the back.  It was oddly round, and about the diameter of a soup can.

I put her on the potty just in case, and noted that her lady parts were also dry.  There was no toilet paper anywhere and it didn’t look like she’d gone potty yet.  She told me she DID need to go pee pee and as she sat on the the pot, I began my interrogation.

“Did you already go pee pee?”

“No.”

“Do you need to go?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you get wet from? The sink or the potty?”

“The potty!”

And yet. There was no water splashed anywhere on the floor, her hands were dry, there was no water on the toilet seat.

She sat there a couple minutes but never did pee.  And I never could figure out how she got wet!  So we just changed her shirt and moved on.  But dangit if I wouldn’t like to know.  I was so curious I even SMELLED the shirt.  (I’m an ace sleuth after all.)  It didn’t really smell like pee.  Maybe there was just a little water on the bathroom floor?  I don’t know! The rest of that kiddo was bone dry!

So, Nancy and friends, where did the “mysterious wet” come from?

BUT.  Or should I say “BUTT”.

Sophie has, like her brother before her, developed a fear of going poop in the potty.  Why? I have no idea! What causes this?  She was really doing just FINE with poop in the beginning, albeit there were a couple of times that took her for-ev-er to squeeze the deuce out.  But then, about 10 days ago or so, she started trying to hide and sneak poops past us.  And to add to the fun, she’s made herself constipated. (Also just like her brother!)

Her most preferred pooping place is during her “rest time” or nap in her room.  I think she’s gone to sleep and then 10 minutes later she’s calling for me ’cause she’s got junk in her trunk.  Last night she did this for the first time at bedtime instead of nap time, and it was fun cleaning her up after I’d already gone to bed.  BUT(T) she wasn’t done yet.  This morning she woke up with a full load in her TRAINING PANTS and it was deees-gusting.  Yuck.  I forgot how gross cleaning all the poo out of girl parts is.

With Joshua, I found that the only thing to do was wait this out.  That, and sneak prune juice and flaxseed into anything I could to help him have to go.  And since I’m confident Sophie won’t feel relaxed enough to poop her pants at preschool, I’m not stressing about it. BUT(T) I’d appreciate any tips you all might have about scooting past this stage sooner rather later!

Anyhoo, a week later I am proud to report that we are ALL doing much better! Sophie is pretty much house-trained as far as the potty goes. And she even stays dry when we go out, she just doesn’t want to use any other potty but her little potty and she prefers that it be located in our living room. But THAT I can deal with! She goes when she needs to go, and I am sure by the time preschool starts she will be using potties other than ours. She has even been dry a couple times overnight! She hasn’t had an accident since Saturday. She is enjoying wearing big-girl panties and of course, flushing. I am SO proud of her!

(Like so many of us, Sophie enjoys a good read on the potty. Here she is playing with her VTech V.Reader. Have you entered to win one for your kids yet? We’re giving one away! Enter here!)

I hurt my back pretty badly last Friday, so I haven’t done much this week except keep the kids alive – take Joshua to swimming lessons, and make sure they eat a couple of times a day.  My house is still an atrocious mess but we are all much happier.

Progress is progress, and I’ll take it!

As I write this, it is Tuesday.  The day I published this post.  About the wonder of motherhood.

And of course it was a terrible day with my kids.

The morning was more potty training, a very cranky Sophie, some missed opportunities by me to teach her.  Discouragement.  At one point I yelled at her so loud to be heard over her yelling that pain instantly shot through my throat and instead of scolding her, I launched into a coughing fit.

In the afternoon I had made arrangements for Joshua to have a fun time with his Aunt Bethie and cousin James.  Special for Joshua, who has basically been prisoner in this house the past ten days due to potty training.  And I needed to have some alone time with Sophie do work on potty.  Because some of the missed opportunities I have with her, are because I am tending to my other child.

But not much was accomplished during our time together.  Then finally at 3, I put her down for a nap, because she was exhausted and cranky and I needed a break.  She went right to sleep. PERHAPS because she had gotten up at 6 am with wet pants.  She used to sleep til 7:30 before potty hell began.

Then my nephew James came home with Joshua. MORE special fun for Joshua.  He was thrilled.

Until James left and daddy wasn’t coming home before bedtime because he had to fix his car, and then he threw a huge crying fit, and I lost it. And of course right before this, Sophie peed her pants.  Good times.

I marched him up to bed.  I threatened him.  He calmed down.  I read him his chapter of Chronicles of Narnia and I cried the whole time.  He asked me what was wrong and I told him I was sad because he had thrown a fit, and Sophie had peed her pants.  Then I finished reading and cried some more.  Then when it was time to pray, and I asked him what he was thankful for, he said, “Daddy, James, and Lucas.”  His dad, his cousin, his friend.  That’s it.

I tucked him in and went to get Sophie for bed.  She was less than cooperative.  I let her nap too long and now she’s up in her room running around at 10 pm and I’m starving because I haven’t been to the grocery because I’ve been chained to this house POTTY TRAINING and there’s not much to eat and I’m not going to cook a meal for myself at 10 pm especially when there is no husband to help me eat it.

I would like, for a week, for someone competent to come in and take over my life,  put it in order for me, and then I’ll come back, and maybe by some miracle, someone will have missed me.

But at this point, vacation and appreciation seem pretty far off.

UNTIL.  I realized that this now means I have a definite “drop dead date” on when I have to have to world’s must STUBBORN child potty trained, and then, I felt not just emotional, but SUICIDAL.

Potty training Joshua was horrible.  (Don’t believe me? Click here! or here! or here!)  So, I thought with Sophie, I deserved a break.  I didn’t push it.  I wasn’t going to spend 6 months trying to get her to go potty.

When she turned three, and started grossing me out, I decided it was time.

Then we tried some intense training with her, and it made all of us MISERABLE.

And today was another day in misery.  One poop on the floor, one pee in her undies during “rest time”, and now, at 7:52 PM, she’s been running around pantsless, spent more time on the potty than not, and has been holding it for FOUR HOURS at least. Update: we finally put her to bed at 9 PM, she still had not peed. So over 5 hours she held it.  And then we put her in a diaper for bed, because we have no mattress pad!  Guess what I’m going to get today!!!!!???

I’m not gonna make it.  She’s never going to preschool, or I will never see her go, because this is gonna kill me.

WHERE THE HELL IS MY BREAK????

“I poop!”

“You have to poop?” I said, dreading the undressing and redressing and general delay of bedtime that this was about to cause. “I poop!” he happily replied.

So off we went… and sure enough, he was right.

Last night, the exact same thing happened – as soon as he figured out that we were headed for the rocker, and therefore he was headed to bed, he shouted “I poop!”

Again, we undressed. I sat him on the potty and I sat on the floor. We read books. We talked. We waited. An nothing happened. Eventually, I bundled him back up – onesie and jammies and jammies #2, and we headed back to his room.

As soon as we sat down in the rocker again, he started struggling. “Noooooo… I pooooop,” he said, although this time it was with more whining and less excitement.

This time, though, I wasn’t going to go through it again. He had a diaper on, the worst that could happen is that he’d go in it. And, you know, completely regress in his potty training. But late last night, it was a risk I was willing to take. Fortunately, he woke up this morning clean and dry, but this only means one thing.

He has figured out the perfect way to stall the bedtime procedures, the little bugger.

We tried to do Potty Boot Camp with Sophie this weekend, and it was miserable. It exhausted her as well as Bobby and me. At the end of the day, when I was holding her on the potty while running her bath which she needed because she had peed all over herself like 897 times and she was screaming both for a diaper and asking to be put “straight to bed” instead of having to sit on the potty, I finally thought, “Gee, maybe Sophie’s not ready.”

Here’s what I learned from Potty Boot Camp:

1) Sophie would prefer to use our office chair as a toilet, rather than an actual toilet.
2) Sophie will hold her pee until you leave the room to make her lunch or get her a clean shirt or ironically, check to see that her brother wiped himself correctly after taking a poop.
3) Sophie does not care whether she wears training pants, big girl undies, or a diaper, so long as she can pee in them and not on the toilet.
4) Sophie will not answer questions that contain the word “potty”, “pee-pee”, “poop”, “wet”, or “dry”.
5) Sophie will take a four-hour nap if it means she can get a break from potty training.
6) I would rather give a raccoon a pedicure than potty train my kid.

It was that fun!

I was getting my bowling groove on when all of a sudden Sophie began to fuss. “Need help! Need HELP!” she cried frantically. I turned to look at her and she had her hand extended toward me, covered in peanut butter. Neither of my kids like it when their hands get messy while they’re eating so I am used to having to wipe her hands before she can finish her meal. But as I walked toward her to grab a napkin, I realized: She’s not eating peanut butter. That can’t be peanut butter.

I took hold of her wrist and got a whiff and panicked. THAT’S NOT PEANUT BUTTER!

It was poop.

She had a chicken nugget in one hand, and a bunch of poop in the other.

I immediately did what I could with a napkin, then began jumping around screaming “NO touch! No touch!” while frantically trying to locate the wipes and wrestle the Wii controller that was strapped to me off of my arm. (I am very good in a panic situation. {Sarcasm sign!})

I found the wipes, got her hand cleaned up, washed it in soap and scalding water (just kidding, it was just really warm), managed not to VOMIT, and then went about changing her diaper. I quickly discovered that she’d had a bit of a blowout, and feeling poop on her lower back, had reached back to find out what the heck was going on back there. And found out. Eeeeeww.

I made it almost six years as a mother without having a kid stick his or her hand in their own poo, I guess that is pretty good. But YUCK. It was disgusting.

And it is time for Camp Potty to begin TODAY!

Unlike Emily’s motivated and much younger son, my dearest little Sophie is still really not interested in going to the potty. She’ll sit on the big potty with her potty seat, and she accidentally went poop on the potty on Christmas Eve (is there REALLY a Santa Claus!? It about made me believe.), but she has not. once. in. three. months. gone. PEE. Not once! Because she doesn’t WANT to! And this is something I can’t MAKE her do. Ugh.

And she won’t sit on her “little” potty at all. Only the big toilet with her Elmo seat.

So I think the time has come for me to put her in training pants and just let her start wetting herself. *Sigh*. So much maintenance, so much laziness to combat. It’s time for ME to put my big girl panties on and try to get Sophie excited about wearing hers.

I was hoping, since Joshua was difficult to train, that I’d have it easier with this one.

But over the last couple of months, those hopes have seriously gone down the crapper. Unfortunately none of Sophie’s pee went with them.

_______________________
PS my first post is up at the Ohio Moms Blog today! Go read it! Thanks.

Sam’s 21 months old now, and he’s very excited about the prospect of going in the potty. Not that he’s actually done it or anything, but it sure looks fun when Elmo does it. We’ve put him on the potty a few times to no avail, but that’s about as far as we’ve gotten.

This afternoon we all went out to play in the snow (I will post pictures of Sam dressed in a blanket sleeper, two pairs of his dad’s socks – his boots won’t fit anymore – and Kate’s old purple jacket and pink hat with pom poms as soon as I get them uploaded. Oh and he also had pink socks on his hands because I couldn’t find his gloves). In any case, when we got back in, he looked at me and said “poopy!” I said “Did you poop?” and he said no, but said yes when I asked him if he needed to. He said “Let’s go!” and off to the potty we ran. Again, nothing happened, but I had the bright idea to leave his diaper off for a while. I put some Baby Legs on him and let him run free.

Throughout the afternoon and into the evening, we tried the potty thing off and on, but he didn’t do anything. He hadn’t had any accidents either, so I thought he would surely have to do something soon. I wanted to give it one last try before putting him to bed, so I sat him on the potty and let him read “Elmo Goes Potty” for a while. As he was enjoying his reading time, I took his Baby Legs off since I was going to put him in his jammies. At that point, I realized the Baby Legs were wet. I had cleaned up (what I thought was) juice he spilled a little bit earlier, and I couldn’t tell if what was on them was juice or pee. (The sniff test was inconclusive, if you can believe that.) So I decided to ask him.

Me: Sammy, what is on your socks?
Sammy: Juice!
Me: Is it juice or pee pee?
Sammy: Pee pee!
Me: Did you pee pee on your socks?
Sammy: No! Juice!
Me: So is this juice or pee pee?
Sammy: Pee pee.
Me: Where is the rest of the pee pee?
Sammy: Socks.
Me: I know this is on your socks, but where is the rest? Where did you pee pee?
Sammy: In Daddy’s room.
Me: You pee peed in Daddy’s room?
Sammy: No. Pee pee in the potty.
Me: No, you didn’t pee pee in the potty. Can you show me where the pee pee is?
Sammy: Daddy’s room!

So we went to Daddy’s room (which incidentally is also my room). I looked at the carpet critically, but didn’t see anything. As I looked around the bathroom floor in our room, it occurred to me that I was searching my house for a pool of pee. Never thought I’d do that, but disturbingly it seemed perfectly normal. I guess I am officially fully entrenched in parenthood.

Eventually I found what I was looking for – on the floor next to Sammy’s chair at the kitchen table. The chair on which he likes to stand. Next to the table on which I had earlier cleaned up “spilled juice.”

Can someone pass the Lysol wipes?