3-7: number of days the book told us it would take
8: number of days we’ve been at it
2: average number of times per day my son asks to go potty and produces something
8: average number of times per day my son asks to go potty and then immediately screams when put on the toilet
1: number of times per day he pees in his chair at breakfast
1: total number of times he’s asked to go—only to fart in the toilet and then get right down
1: average number of times a day he poops in the potty at school
1: average number of times per day he asks to get on the potty and doesn’t scream to get down
9: average number of times per day I take his seat off the toilet to relieve myself
5: average number of times per hour we say “tell me when you have to go potty”
0.5: average number of times per hour he actually has to go potty
8: number of new pairs of sweatpants we bought just for accidents
2: number of pairs of peed-in pants that get sent home from school
85: approximate loads of laundry we have done this past week
2: number of diapers we are down to a day (one for nap, one for bed)
3: average number of times he says “all clean!” after he cleans up his own pee and throws away the paper towel
15: average number of times per day we parents say “I love this kid”
A few weeks ago I wrote that we were planning to potty train. I even said “we’ll all be happier.”
Let me revise that. We’ll all be happier when it’s over.
This is one of the hardest things I’ll ever do. Fishy will learn how to do it, and he will go on to much more difficult things in his life. But me? I’m having a tough time.
I didn’t read the book. Maybe that’s part of it. But mostly, it’s because I’m very much a product of my childhood. In my childhood, there was a right way and a wrong way to do everything. If you weren’t able to learn something quickly, you were probably going about it the wrong way.
But potty training isn’t about me. I can’t feel the urge to go potty for my son. That screaming I mentioned in the statistics? I think a little bit of it is his need to have autonomy in this. He needs to be the one to decide that he has to go, otherwise he pitches a fit.
He’s going about this the right way—for him. I feel all sort of guilt, because I’m trying to do it for him. I somehow think this is all about me: I’m not teaching him well enough, I’m not catching him at the right moment, I’m not seeing his signs well enough.
But that’s not what’s happening. He’s learning. He’s doing it on his own. I’m comforted by the fact that he seems to be doing much better at this at daycare than he is at home.
He’s becoming his own person. A little person who sometimes pees on the floor but often pees on the potty. He’ll get better at it. Until then, I’ll keep reminding myself that this isn’t about me.