Bigger and Bigger

It’s not been a bad week, but it’s been a hard one. Things don’t feel at all right with Sid gone, and the Mommy has had herself at least one good cry each and every day – sometimes more. In the midst of this sadness, we’ve experienced more illness – Jay felt left out since everyone else in the family had a round with the flu, so he succumbed too. On Monday, when Josiah spiked a 104+ fever we figured he’d caught it for the second time, but a trip to the pediatrician’s nixed that theory. We’ve had great help, and everyone is on the mend now, but I feel tired and somewhat melancholy.

In the past several weeks, amidst the various ailments, Josiah has shown very obvious signs of wanting to potty train. I have purposely ignored them, hoping he’d just hold off, and wait till things got calmer. As I said to my sister earlier today, “I am in no mood to potty train right now!” But when your child gets out of bed each night because he’s wet his diaper, and is immensely bothered by every “soak-ey” as they are called around here, then I guess it’s time to go along with his wish to be a big boy.

So this afternoon, out came the Diego Pullups I’d stashed in his closet last time they were on a super sale. Josiah was so pleased with his “Dalago Unnerwear” and strutted around all afternoon proudly. My potty-training ritual, which has worked pretty well for three children, just consists of putting the child in a pullup and setting the kitchen timer to beep at short intervals at first to help him learn the drill. Those little bladders are tiny so I start out by taking them every 10 minutes at first, then 15 minutes, then 20 minutes, you get the idea. Rewards are given for having dry pants when it’s time to visit the potty. The idea being that we don’t just give a treat for every drop of tinkle the child can squeeze out over ten minute intervals, and that ultimately I want the trainee to learn to keep those pants dry!!

Josiah really liked the potty thing today, and got the knack of it reasonably well. After two accidents, he stayed dry the rest of the afternoon and evening. At one point, a few hours into it, while I was busy with supper prep, he heard the kitchen timer beep and on his own dutifully derobed, leaving his dry “Dalago unnerwear” on the kitchen floor, scaled the too-tall-for-him-potty, and performed perfectly. So cute.

I have never doubted he is ready to train, I just wanted to wait for warmer weather, and maybe a sense of more normalcy. But really in a household like ours, what is normal, exactly?? Here is a picture from back in September – as you can see, he’s been enjoying trying out the potty thing for quite some time now!!

img_8762.JPG

4 Replies to “Bigger and Bigger”

  1. Oh, I know that feeling of not wanting to potty train, and this will only be my second go! Sounds like a very successful day though.

  2. I am having a hard time training Isabelle our third! She has still never actually put anything in the potty and I don’t think she really understands – even though she will be four in April. With her speech delay (which you may not know about) it has made potty training a new experience! I would say that Isabelle officially started talking about four months ago. So our communication back and forth is very limited, as far as verbally. Praise the Lord because it is believed to only be a delay that she will triumph over in years to come. So I am learning new ways to do things such as potty train. I will give the timer thing a try and maybe I will catch her at the right moment and everything will click in her head 🙂
    -hope you don’t mind my LONG comment!!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *