Friday, November 8, 2013

Self-Training: Wee or Whoa (or OH, NO!)?

In ten years (or less), Raegan may be less than pleased with me for writing this, but I'm currently working on focusing on my current season of life, and so here you have it: a post about potty training. And really, she can't get too mad at me for talking about this because she is totally the one who initiated it, so how could I not share this story?

Little Miss turned two all of four days ago. And apparently she decided that two is the new twelve (or at least the new three (which is when HD potty trained)), because out of nowhere, the day before her birthday, she told Ben she wanted to use the potty and then she used the potty. As in, she poo'ed in the potty! What the what? What kid does that?! Apparently mine because then she did it again the next day, too! And every day since she has either peed or poo'ed or both, all on her own. I shared these developments with some dear friends (who else besides dear friends would get excited about such news?!) and one of them said that maybe RL would self-train. I didn't realize that concept even really existed, but we're five days strong on this now and it seems like it really might be a thing.

Except, these efforts are clearly not done all on her own because she is far too little (in stature and age) to be making any of this happen independently. Oh, no. She requires a fair amount of adult assistance both to get her diaper off and to get her little bum up on the booster potty seat thing we bought and have had hanging in the bathroom for months. So I guess that also means her new potty trick didn't come out of nowhere - she's been asking about the potty for some time and watching her brother use it for ages - but this whole child-led training thing is very much new to all of us.

And really, I'd be all for it because then I'd be back to just one in diapers but that's just it - the other little peanut still in diapers makes it kind of challenging to drop everything and help Raegan when she hollers, "ME POTTY!" (which has been happening a LOT this week). I don't know if she thinks it is a game or what, but every time she heads for the bathroom, she wants to put the booster on and sit on the potty about five times before she's ready to leave. Even if she takes care of business during one of those initial attempts, she just keeps going through the process. Again and again and again. So you can imagine how this goes for me when I need to be nursing or changing or putting down Lincoln and Ben is not home - not so great!

Also, because I'm a "every story has two sides" kind of girl, I wonder how this whole self training business will be when she decides to take her diaper off on her own when I'm preoccupied with Baby or she's in her crib. And what if she doesn't make it to the potty? I'm loving this year's MOPS theme of a beautiful mess but those are not messes I think any of us would find very appealing....so how do I trust her on this? How do I follow her lead?

Ha! As if I choice. As my dad has been saying since the day I went into labor with Harrison, my kids are driving the bus, and apparently Raegan's decided to take us all on a little pit stop. I have a feeling this is just one of many times that she will make up her beautiful mind and then get something done. Messies or not, she's pretty awesome like that!

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