House Arrest

No, this isn't the reason why I've been away from the blogging world for the past month. Life gets to take the blame for that. And there are more postings to come.

This confinement is actually self-imposed and began Sunday after church. It's also called...potty training. Or, as I refer to it...the "dreaded" training. I am not the happy mommy who thinks this milestone is "soooo fun." But it must be done. What's frustrating to me is that I've been trying to work with Karcyn (yes, Karcyn not Calvin) the past 11 months when she started showing interest. She was pooping and peeing in both her potty and the big potty last July. And then she up and stopped. I admit, having a newborn at the time, it wasn't the top priority in my life. However, in my defense, she stopped making it an issue too.

Both Jake and Coop trained themselves and they weren't much older than when Karcyn started last summer. Until now, my school of thought has been to just let the child decide when to do it. It proved successful with my boys. Both of them poop-trained first even. That's why I haven't been pushing the issue since last summer. She clearly wasn't ready. As a gentle reminder, I would ask her every once in a while if she wanted to go on the potty. 99% of the time it was a vehement, "NO!" So I backed off even more.

I think it was January when I thought we could give it the old college try again, knowing if I waited until she was ready, attending public school might be out of the question for her. We put the potty on some towels on the family room floor, pumped the DVD player with all her favorite movies and gave her treats and snacks. She sat on that thing for over 5 hours and went pee in it throughout the duration. Each time was a joyous moment. We celebrated. We danced. We hugged and gave each other high-fives. But it didn't last. And worse...she was afraid of pooping on the potty. It scared her. (Grreeat.)

A few months went by, including her 3rd birthday and I felt maybe it was worth a shot to try again. No luck. Even MORE frustrating is when, more recently and frequently, she stops what she's doing, poops in her diaper (refusing to go near the bathroom) and then announces loud enough for the entire house to hear, "I pooped!"

I feel like the time has come to more aggressively take this stubborn bull (child?) by its horns but I humbly recognize I'm still not completely in control. Yet I'm all out of ideas and approaches. I've tried everything every mom and friend could tell me. It doesn't make any difference, I've realized, because like everything else, every kid is different, even in potty training. Mentally tapped and pretty discouraged, I did the only other thing I could think of. I fasted. The way I see it, Heavenly Father knows Karcyn better than I do and if this is the right time for her to be potty training, he'll help me to help her make it happen.

I fasted a couple weeks ago. What I haven't had in the past year is ONE week of NOTHING on my schedule. The only thing I have to do this week is go to Jake's two baseball games (which is a miracle in and of itself). He had one last night and has another one tomorrow night. I figured we'll be outside for his games, so if Karcyn has an accident, it's not really going to hurt the grass. That's how the week of June 22, 2009 became the WINNER for the week-of-virtually-nothing contest and put me on house arrest so that we could say good-bye to diapers for Karcyn and put her in underwear without the stress of going anywhere.

After changing her clothes on Sunday, I put a large waterproof pad on top of Karcyn's bottom sheet so that she could sleep on top of that. I also let her pick which of the 9 pair of underwear she wanted to sleep in. I limited her liquid intake to nothing within the hour of bedtime and laid her down.

She woke up crying at 12:30AM. She had peed at her door, but not in bed. I was actually motivated by that. I helped her get into clean underwear and put her back in bed. She woke up one other time but was dry.

She had an accident outside my bathroom door when I was getting cleaned up Monday morning. I figured it was going to be one of many and told myself not get my own panties in a bunch over it. A couple months ago, my mom got Karcyn a pink "potty watch" that has an alarm. It goes off in 30, 60 or 90 minute increments. I chose every 30 minutes to give her as much potty awareness as possible and I wore the watch. I need the reminding more than she does! I've also come to realize that my life, in 30 minute snippets, is pretty boring and unproductive!

All told, from 7:30 to 3:30 Karcyn had 3 wet accidents and one super accident (pee and poop). My goal was to have her sit on the potty every time we went in, but it was clear after the fourth time she didn't want to do that. An impression came to me to just celebrate the fact that she's dry. So we went into the bathroom to get an M&M for an "I'm still dry" reward. If she wanted to sit on the potty, then that's what we'd do. She fell asleep around 3:30 for an unexpected late nap and I inwardly groaned at my inevitable task. What kid doesn't wake up wet from a nap? I roused her at 5:30 when we were heading out to Jake's baseball game and amazingly enough...she was dry! I slipped some pants on her (one of 4 pairs that I had packed) and put her in the van. We were at Jake's game until 8:45 and she only had one super accident and it was outside.

Because I'm on house confinement, I decided to go grocery shopping after the game, instead of this morning, like I usually do during the school year. Instead of passing the store on our way home, unloading the kids, putting them to bed and then turning around and going back to the store, Jared met me at Winco and we did a swap. He took the kids home, I went shopping. I had given Karcyn very little to drink at the game (in hopes of giving her more opportunities for staying dry). Before he laid her down to bed, Jared said Karcyn wouldn't go on the potty. Why am I not surprised? But her pee-proof pad was in place. And she slept all through the night this time.

As I gradually woke up this morning, I burrowed further under the covers when I thought of what I'd have to face in Karcyn's bed...like a urine saturated child if nothing else. Before leaving super early for work, Jared came in, holding Karcyn. Her legs were draped around his waist. He said, "Look at who I have." Once it dawned on me, I asked, "Is she wet?" He responded matter-of-factly, "Would I be holding her like this if she was?" I threw off the covers and jumped out of bed. She was dry all night long?! I couldn't believe it. Holy Schnikey!

She wouldn't go on the potty that morning though, of course, and wet her pants, but I didn't care. The fact that she remained dry all night was a true miracle to me.

At 8am, as I was unloading the dishwasher, Karcyn said "I poop." My heart sank and then leaped. Was she announcing a job done or one that needs to be done? I quickly checked her. When I found her completely clean and dry I persuaded her with all the careful excitement that I could to get her in there. Jake helped with brotherly encouragement. She went in and she even sat on the potty. We have a little "poop on the potty" chant we made up so we started singing that. Ironically Jake had to go to the bathroom too. I was about to send him to another bathroom and then I stopped. What would it hurt? So I left him and her to their business and went back to the dishes. Jake came running out 30 seconds later yelling that Karcyn pooped in her potty. We all paraded in there, practically tripping over each other, to witness "it" with our own eyes. It was a glorious little nugget to behold. I'm sure our neighbors two streets over heard the 4 of us jumping up and down, screaming, cheering, laughing as we shared our pride and joy with Karcyn. She loved dumping it in the potty, flushing the toilet and bidding farewell to the small brown chunk.

Since then, we ventured back into the bathroom 4 more times, each time she was dry. And at 10am, she peed on the potty. ANOTHER JOYOUS EXULTATION! She stayed dry til noon when she had an accident right before we were to head back in to the bathroom. (It seems like there is, without fail, 5 times more liquid that ends up on the floor as the product of an accident than there is when it goes into the potty. Maybe it's an illusion or maybe there's some mathematical equation for the volume divided by liquid dispersed and area to cover times 15, but I don't think so). I can't complain, though, about 1 accident in 4 hours in addition to two successful potty stops. I just need Karcyn to TELL me when she has to go.

And with that said, I know we have a looong way to go still. I can't even think about the fact that it's only been a day and a half that we've been doing this training. I really hope we make enough progress come Sunday. Otherwise, I don't know what we're going to do for our church meetings. Keep her with us, I guess. I'm NOT putting her back in diapers. Which is why I'm really hoping this will click with Karcyn. After Sunday, I don't get another day off let alone a week. Keep your fingers crossed!