We just hit a major milestone at our house. No one is wearing diapers! (Okay, Ian is technically still wearing diapers at night, but he's had a few dry ones and I could care less about that right now.) For the last 7.5 years I have been changing diapers in one form or another, and I'm going to enjoy this break even though it's going to be short.
Poor Ian had a really rough week last week. He had a fever and felt lousy all week, but it was just a virus. He was really down and out and just walked around the house with his blanky asking to be held, saying "I hurt," waking up all the time, and asking for "messicine"--all very un-Ianlike behaviors. The Saturday before that we decided to start with the potty. He's been going on and off for months, but he got big boy undies for Christmas, so we put him in them. The result was accidents all day!
Monday when he was sick I was just going to give it a rest until he felt better, but he did not want anything to do with his diapers. He wanted the underwear. Amazingly he started holding it! I could not get the kid to go. I decided to push on with training, and we spent some sad times on the potty. He was holding it for hours anyway, so I figured he had to go. He loved the undies, but not the potty. I've learned a lot after doing this three times and managed to stay incredibly patient. After a few days we went without accidents and haven't had one since Sunday when he peed on the carpet before church. Yep, just stood there and peed through his clothes.
Training Ian has brought back a lot of mommy guilt about Luke's training days (Seth was a breeze). In my defense Luke was incredibly obstinate, difficult, infuriating...but I was no gem either. I felt so much pressure to get him trained and kind of felt like a failure that it went on for months with non stop accidents. I was not a very nice mom and if I knew then what I know now (and wasn't just a mean sleep deprived mom) I would have done things different. I kind of feel bad for the oldest kid sometimes. Most of my "mommy dearest" moments and major regrets have been at Luke's expense. It's sad that I am trying out my parenting on him and then in hindsight I am learning how to be more patient, calm, understanding....yikes. I've asked for forgiveness for some of my worst moments, but sometimes it's hardest to forgive yourself.
Anyway back to the present, potty training has been a family affair around here. Luke and Seth have been so cute and excited for Ian. On Monday when they were out of school all four of us were squashed in the half bath while they gave a play-by-play of Ian's bodily functions and cheered each one. Afterwards it was "potty dance," high fives, and bumps all around. Go Ian!
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