The Potty Plan of God

It is with great joy that I write these words:

My children are officially completely potty-trained!! ALL OF THEM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I’m ecstatic! I’m giddy!

The potty-training chapter of our life is now over, and it was hands-down the hardest thing we’ve ever done. I know the future holds more challenges for us, but I can’t imagine another developmental stage that could even come close to matching this. It’s been AWFUL.

And because it’s been so awful, I have A LOT to say about it, so I’m warning you now. The rest of this (really long) post is pretty much going to detail the struggle we’ve had in potty-training Zachary and how it all finally turned out well, thanks to GOD! So if you don’t care about potty training, feel free to move on to the next blog on your reading list! BUT if you DO care about potty training, if you are struggling to train your own child(ren), read on and find hope!

My first attempt to potty train the kids began early November 2008 (2008!!!! That’s almost 2 whole years ago!!!!) It was a failure. As the months have passed by, training in its different incarnations has continued. You can read through the different posts here, if you want: April 2009, May 2009, July 2009, October 2009. By Feb 2010, Jonathan, Reagan, and Thomas were all fully trained both day and night.

But not Zachary.

At that point, when all the other kids had moved on to full-time underwear, he was still in Pull-ups, only using the potty if you MADE him, and mostly doing his business wherever he happened to be. I feel certain he was the only child in preschool who wasn’t potty trained, and every day that went by with him making no progress toward BECOMING potty trained, the more guilty I felt about him being in preschool at all.

But Zachary didn’t care. He didn’t care one bit, and I couldn’t find anything to make him care. None of the incentives that had enticed the other kids were good enough for Zachary. I mean, he loved getting stickers or candy or whatever for using the potty, but not enough to actually motivate him to do it on his own.

It was a very discouraging time, as friends and family with much younger children announced their pottying successes, while Z continued to make no progress at all.

I told myself it would be fine. No child starts Kindergarten without being potty trained, right? I just needed to get through preschool. When it was summer, we could stay home every day, all day, for lots of consistent potty training efforts, and Z would have it figured out in NO TIME!

Plan Z for Zachary began on June 8. My unofficial goal was a potty trained child by his 4th birthday on the 20th. My plan failed.

The first few days were promising. I let him wear underwear all the time if we were home which he LOVED. We only wore Pull-ups if we were going somewhere. I reminded him frequently to use the potty, and when he did he got candy and heaps of praise. Those first days I devoted nearly every waking minute to him and he had very few pee accidents. However, as soon as I didn’t devote every waking minute to him, the accidents began to increase.

On June 22, I lost it! After playing outside, Zachary came in the living room, laid down in the chair, and just peed all over himself and the chair, WITH A LITTLE POTTY SITTING RIGHT THERE IN THE SAME ROOM. I lost my ever-loving mind! All of my frustration with Z’s potty habits spilled out in a loud, angry tirade centered around how that was completely unacceptable behavior and it would not continue for a single minute more. I made him clean the chair and I sent him to his room. After calming down, we had a very firm discussion about the CHOICES he was making about pottying and how they were absolutely going to change or there would be consequences. And for the first time, I began punishing him for his accidents (the #1 ones). His punishment was that he had to clean it up, he got a 15-min time-out, and he was banned from all TV viewing for the rest of the day.

This worked for about 3 days, and then he didn’t care about missing TV anymore and went back to having accidents.

I was completely discouraged. I was a failure. I was failing my child. What was I doing wrong? What was wrong with my child? What else could I possibly do to help him learn to use the potty? It was all I could think about. I searched and searched the internet for answers, but could find NOTHING that I had not already tried with no success.

And then it hit me. All my plans had failed. MY plans.

“Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5-6

I had to face the truth and admit that I couldn’t do it. I WAS NOT CAPABLE OF POTTY TRAINING ZACHARY. I JUST WASN’T. I had to let God do it. That may sound ridiculous, but it isn’t.

And so I began to pray continuously for God to teach Zachary to use the potty, for Him to help Zachary want to use the potty, for Him to guide me to His plan so I could do what He needed me to do too.

And He did.

The very next day it struck me like lightning. All of the internet searching I had done looking for help, I had always searched for “potty training problems” and I found nothing that helped. What I needed to search for was “potty training OLDER CHILDREN”!! You can think whatever you want, but I know that God put that thought in my head as an answer to my prayers. I did the search and almost immediately I found this article:

“Toilet Training Problems” by Dr. Barton Schmitt, MD

It was a gift directly from heaven. The article is written specifically about older children who struggle to use the potty and outlined the plan that this pediatrician gives to his parents when their children struggle.

I put the plan into action that very day. Here’s the simple version: focus just on peeing in the potty at first, give the child full responsibility for using the potty (that meant I no longer reminded him constantly to do it), and use the perfect incentive, which turned out to be TV.

Every time Z peed in the potty, he got to watch a show. If he didn’t pee in the potty, he didn’t get to watch a show. It was that simple. After explaining the plan to him the first day, I only mentioned it when he would ask to watch TV. “Only if you pee in the potty!” And I never reminded him to go.

AND IT WORKED!

Zachary went 9 days straight without a pee accident, nights included. This also included our trip to IN to visit Uncle Clay and family, even the car ride! I was amazed!

Praise the Lord for He is good!

I decided it was time to add poop to the equation. I was anxious. VBS was coming, and I wanted him to be done before VBS. I,I,I.

I used the same plan as I had done with pee. If you poop in the potty, you get to watch TV. If you don’t, you don’t.

It didn’t work. Again, it was my plan, not God’s. And I will honestly admit that when I made the decision to do it, I really didn’t feel peace about it. God knew it was too soon. He tried to tell me, but I didn’t listen.

Zachary did not poop in the potty, and after a couple of days with no TV, he quit peeing in the potty too.

AAARRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!

“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10

Start over. Be patient. Trust in Me.

So I started over. I made a chart and hung it up in the playroom. The chart had 28 blank squares, 4 rows of 7. We went back to watching TV every time Z peed in the potty, and at the end of every accident-free day he got to write a letter of his name in a square. Luckily Zachary has 7 letters in his name! When his name was spelled, we had completed a week with no accidents. I wouldn’t even think about poop until we had completed 4 accident-free weeks IN A ROW. I felt that that was a decent amount of time for peeing in the potty to become a habit.

Of course, I couldn’t HELP thinking about poop. I talked to Z all the time about how he needed to put his poop in the potty. Jim talked to him. I tried not to get on him too much for his poop accidents, but some days my frustration was higher than I could handle. I was not always as encouraging as I should have been. But I did my very best and continued praying for God’s guidance (and deliverance!).

One Sat was one of those frustrating days. Z had gone 3 weeks straight with no pee accidents, but continued to poop in his underwear EVERY TIME. That morning when he pooped in his underwear AGAIN, that was it. I had had it! I reached my limit of poopy underwear! I WAS NOT GOING TO CLEAN ONE MORE PAIR OF POOPY UNDERWEAR!!!! So I took the underwear away.

Zachary was now half-naked. He went bare bottom the rest of the day and didn’t poop anymore. Sunday he wore a Pull-up to church, but we went back to bare bottom when we got home. No poop all day. I let him have some underwear to sleep in that night. He pooped in them.

GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!

Monday we went back to the bare bottom. Around 10:30 he told me he needed to poop. (He had said this before, but never actually pooped. He did, however, get to spend a lot of alone time with mom listening to stories while sitting on the potty) I didn’t really believe him. I told him to go ahead to the potty, and I’d “be right there.” You know, in a couple of minutes when it’s more convenient for me. He went, sat on the potty AND POOPED!!!!!!!!!!!

“Mom! Come and see!” he shouted from the bathroom. He was so excited! I was so excited! The other kids were so excited! I gave him back his underwear! We called Daddy at work! I gave him a present! I gave him another present! I gave him brand new underwear! Daddy left work and came home just to hug him and say how proud he was! We danced and cheered and gave him candy!

I was so excited I couldn’t stop giving him things!

That was Aug.16. He hasn’t had an accident of any kind since then! Yesterday I let him wear underwear to church AND HE POOPED IN THE POTTY AT CHURCH! That meant he actually had to SIT on the big potty which was another thing he had never done!

I’m just so proud of him I can hardly wipe the smile from my face! (Unless it’s cleaning time. I smile very little then) And I’m proud of me too! But not so proud that I don’t remember who really deserves the credit here. I fully believe that if I had not surrendered the responsibility of potty training Zachary to God, he would not be pooping in the potty today. And I’d be crying in a corner. Yes, I did it too. Yes, I found a plan that worked. But it was not without God’s guidance. Thank you, Lord, for potty training my son.

Whew! I know, that was horrendously long! Kudos to you if you read the whole thing! Now, get up and stretch and do a little victory dance with me!

When We Did Things

Okay, this post is mostly for me, so I can have a place to keep all the dates of when the kids hit their big milestones because I certainly can’t REMEMBER them! And it might entertain you readers too, especially if you have children who are younger than mine. Some milestones we hit early, some late, and some right on time. This is a post that will be updated as new milestones are hit, so I plan to put a link to it in the sidebar. Enjoy!

Slept all night: R at 2 months, J and Z at 3, and T at almost 6 months

Kicked the pacie habit: R at 4 months, the boys at 16 months

Sat up: R at 6 months, J and Z at 7 months, T at 8 months

Sat up on own: J at 9 months, the rest at 10 months

First tooth: J and R at 6 months, Z at 7, T at 8

Crawled: J and T at 9 months, Z and R at 10

Walked for real: R right after 12 months, Z at 13 months, J at 14 months, T at 15 months

Food: The kids started eating cereal at 4 months, table food at 9 months, sippy cups at 11 months, and had their very last bottles just after 12 months

Words: dada was the first word for each of them, they said the word long before they said it with purposeful meaning. I didn’t start keeping track of words with meaning until they were 16 months old, at which point they all got credit for dada as their first word with meaning. At 16 months their vocabulary was limited to 2-4 words depending on the child. They didn’t reach 50 words until they were 22 months old.

Potty trained: R was day trained by 3 years, 3 months and fully trained by 3 years, 8 months. T was day trained by 3 years, 4 months and fully trained by 3 years, 4 months. J was day trained by 3 years, 7 months.

Should I add any other milestones?

What the Potty Taught Me

Potty Update: Currently all four of my children are using the potty, at least part of the time!

Thomas is fully potty-trained, both day and night. Woohoo!

Reagan is daytime trained, but not night. Sometimes, she wakes up dry, but not always. Still a Woohoo!

Jonathan and Zachary are not quite there yet. They both use the potty most of the time, but still struggle with pooping accidents in particular. J is doing better than Z, as he will poop in the potty about half the time (Z almost never does) and will use the big potty when needed (Z refuses to sit on it). But that's okay. It will come in time. I keep reminding myself that Reagan has been using the potty for 7 months and Zachary only 2. These things take time!

Here are a few things I have learned from potty training so far:

1. If you are not a patient person, potty training will teach you to be patient. If it doesn't, you'll go to prison for killing your child. Lucky for my kids, I've discovered that my well of patience only runs that dry after extreme provocation, at which point it tends to refill with a reserve of despair rather than anger. Then I just give up and turn on the TV.

2. The right incentive can work a miracle! The trick is finding the right incentive. I started all the kids out with stickers and candy. The candy type has changed periodically, mostly because Jonathan won't eat M&Ms (he's picky about his chocolate). Currently, we're using Smarties. All the kids like them, and they're pretty cheap as candy goes. Zachary has been the hardest. So far, nothing has been a real great incentive for him, although I admit that I haven't tried as hard to find new and creative incentives for him. I think I'm just over it now.

3. When shopping for underwear, at least in the beginning, buy the cheap ones and get twice as much as you think you'll need. You won't believe how many pairs of underwear a child can go through in a single day. Laundry is my Sisyphean task. I keep doing it, but the baskets just keep filling up.

4. Did I mention patience?

5. If your child sits in a booster seat at the kitchen table, put a towel between the booster seat and the actual chair. This way, when your child has an accident while sitting in the booster seat, it will run through the strap hole and then soak up into the towel, rather than getting all over the actual seat and running off into the floor. It makes cleanup a WHOLE lot easier. I wish I had figured this out a whole lot earlier!

6. Desperate times call for desperate measures. When I started focusing on Zachary, he would sit on the potty, do nothing, and then walk out of the bathroom and pee in the floor. Again and again and again! I put the potty in the living room and let him sit on it while watching TV, but he would do the same thing. He just would not use the potty. So I had to be mean. I sat him on the potty in the bathroom one midmorning and told him he couldn't get up until he put something in it. And I stuck to it. I didn't abandon him in there! I read him stories and sang songs. I brought him a snack with all the juice he could drink! But dadgummit, he was going to put something in that potty! I was prepared to make him eat lunch there, but luckily he finally peed. I really think he was afraid until that very moment. He peed in the potty and it was fine. After that, we made progress. Mean or not, it was worth it!

7. It's amazing what a little praise can do! Lately, one of my struggles is that the kids won't want to use the bathroom before a meal, but then in the middle of the meal they suddenly need to, and if one goes they all need to go, especially if they don't like what we're eating! What has helped the most is this: before a meal I suggest that everyone go use the potty, one child jumps up and actually does what I ask, I follow said child to the bathroom and declare that child the Winner of the Peepee prize! Then all the other kids come running because they want to win the Peepee Prize too. There is no actual prize, just bragging rights!

8. Best way to clean a potty: Put it in the bathtub, cover it in Scrubbing Bubbles, walk away, come back 10 minutes later and turn on the shower. Tada! The potty is clean, and you hardly had to do a thing! (Kudos to Jim for this brilliant idea!)

9. When training multiple children at the same time, resign yourself to having to give equal rewards regardless of individual skill levels. Just because Reagan quit getting candy every time she pottied months ago, when I started with the boys, we had to go right back to it. In her 3yo mind, it just wasn't fair any other way, and I didn't need that extra stress.

10. It's not fair to the fourth child that he doesn't get the same patience and attention that the first child got, so keep that in mind when it seems like he's going to start college in Pull-ups. He won't. Hopefully, he won't even start kindergarten in them.

Hopefully. I'll keep you posted.

Potty Progress

I started potty training the boys almost three weeks ago. Here's how it's going...

I started out with all three boys in underwear, but it wasn't long before I moved Zachary into Pull-ups. He just has zero interest in the potty. He also doesn't care one bit if he has an accident. I would discover a pee puddle in the floor and ask everyone, "who had an accident?" All children would respond, "not me!" so I'd go around feeling for wet underpants and it was always Zachary! he just didn't care and he didn't want to sit on the potty when everyone else did, so I have moved him to the back burner and given my attention to Jonathan and Thomas. I continue to put Zachary in Pull-ups for ease of use on the rare occasions he does want to sit on the potty, but he has yet to do anything.

Jonathan and Thomas, on the other hand, are doing great! They caught on much faster than Reagan did back when I started her! I made potty pages for the boys just like I did for Reagan and used the same reward system. It wasn't long before they were almost always doing #1 in the potty. They would have whole days with no accidents, as long as they didn't poop all day.

Pooping has been our issue. Jonathan always did his in his pants, and Thomas just wouldn't do it at all, until maybe at night in his diaper, and then he'd lose his mind needing to be changed. But we're starting to turn the corner there too as both boys have pooped in the potty in the last two days.

Overall, I have to say Jonathan and Thomas have been much easier than Reagan, but that probably has a lot to do with age since the kids just turned three. (I started Reagan back in March) It also helps that Reagan is already using the potty and almost never has an accident anymore. The boys wanted to be "big like Reagan." So cute!

Still, my potty journey isn't over yet. I still have Zachary to tackle. I don't know what I'm going to do about him yet. I tried to entice him with the option of peeing outside on a tree, but he wasn't interested in that either. Jonathan thought it was fun though! (Thanks, Jennifer!) So the Zachary chapter has yet to be written. I don't want to push him too much and make it impossibly hard on both of us. He's a pretty stubborn kid! I just keep reminding myself that nobody starts kindergarten in diapers. At least, that's what everyone keeps telling me! I'll keep you posted!

It's Potty Time Once Again!

I don't have much time, but wanted to post this real quick...

I have my stickers. I have my candy. I have my potty pages, my potties, and stacks of little boy briefs.

It's time to potty train the boys.

YIKES!!!!!!

I'll keep you posted! Check out my Twitter posts in the sidebar for more frequent updates!

I hope everyone had a great Father's Day! And JonZReaTom turned THREE on Saturday! So much to post, so little time!

Catching Up

As time permits, this may be a marathon post of snippets, pictures, and who knows what! I'm sitting here with no idea of what is going to end up in this post. Oh, well! Enjoy!



First, here's an update on me...I've felt basically fine for about a week now. Yea! I had the HIDA scan Tuesday morning which revealed that my gall bladder seems to be perfectly fine. So the best guess now is that I had/have an ulcer that is being healed by the Nexium, and that's why I feel better. If the pain returns, we'll schedule an endoscopy, but as long as I continue to feel okay, no more tests or dr visits.



The HIDA scan was an interesting test. You lay on your back for an hour and a half with what looks like a tire-sized bullseye pointed at your abdomen to take pictures of your insides and track the progress of radioactive dye through your gall bladder. I kept falling asleep because it was so boring, and I'm pretty sure my own snoring woke me up more than once. After the scan I was radioactive for 24 hours. That's right, radioactive! I wasn't allowed to hold the kids or use the same bathroom as them, and I glowed in the dark.



Okay, I didn't really glow in the dark.

Enough about you, Mom! Isn't this blog supposed to be about us!

Okay, okay! Enough about me! Here are a bunch of pictures of the kids and a few stories to go with them.

Jim's birthday happened to fall on a day that I was out of the house and the kids stayed home with some wonderful and very brave ladies from church. The fun activity of the day? Finger painting! The kids had never painted before, but they evidently loved it and were so proud of the beautiful piece of art they made their daddy for his birthday.

Note: Dramatic re-enactment for photographic purposes. No wet paint was used in the making of this picture.

Vader's a scruffy-looking nerf herder!

The kids are introduced to the Dark Side

Zachary's recent adorable/annoying saying: In answer to a request, such as, "Zachary, would you take your dump truck and put it back in the playroom, please?" Zachary now likes to say "No, no, no" very seriously while wagging his finger back and forth. We're not exactly sure where he got it from. It's really cute except for the not-doing-what-he's-asked part.



When I was sick, I was constantly having to tell the kids they couldn't climb on me because Mommy's tummy hurt. Thomas and Reagan started coming up to me daily to ask with looks of such high anticipation, "Now I can climb on you?" Now that I'm better, they still ask, and get so excited when I say yes!




Reagan is doing great with her potty training! We keep her little potty seat on top of the big potty, and if she's in the right mood, she can climb up and sit on the potty all by herself, pull down her own pants, get her own paper, wipe herself, pull up her pants, and flush the potty. She'd probably wash her own hands if she could reach the faucet handle! If she's not in the right mood, she's claims she's can't do those things because they are too hard, but then when you try to help her she screams that she wants to do it herself! Oh, well. We actually left the house and went to a friend's to play today without trading the undies for a Pull-up beforehand. No accidents! I'm so proud of her! She's so big! I teared up a little today thinking about how big the kids are getting! I just can't believe they'll be three next month. It won't be long before there will be no more diapers in our house. No diapers! It hardly seems possible!


Recently, we've also enjoyed a few get-togethers with our good friends Josh and Cris. It's always fun to spend time with them because their oldest is just 3 months older than JonZReaTom. On one of their visits, probably the only one when it didn't rain, the boys had a trike race...

On your mark, get set, GO!!!

And the winner is...Carter!

They were so adorable! And they had such fun! The boys are getting really good at riding their tricycles. Reagan isn't so much. She just doesn't seem interested. But I'd say this summer, there will be more times when we take them out front to let them ride in our little cul-de-sac, a much larger space than the back patio. I imagine she'll get jealous pretty quick of the boys taking off and leaving her, and that may be all the incentive she needs to figure that whole pedalling/steering thing out!

Well, it's getting late. I have more pictures to share and more stories to tell, but they'll have to wait for another post. I hope you enjoyed this one! Have a great weekend everyone!

Potty Pain, Potty Pride

November 2008: Potty Plans A (Ambitious)and B (Back Off) are failures (See Potty Time Pain)

January 2009: Potty Plan C (Cautious) is a failure.

I never even told you about this one. It involved just Jonathan (because he truly is ready to use the potty, the stubborn little monkey!) and a bunch of Easy-ups. Three days of Easy-ups, LOTS of trips to the potty with an increasingly defiant child who could care less about any incentive I threw his way, and not one single successful potty usage. Conclusion: Jonathan will never do anything one moment before he is ready. One of these days, he will simply decide to use the potty and just will and never look back, but it will HAVE to be HIS decision!

March 2009: Potty Plan D (Determined, Dadgumit!) is a SUCCESS!!!!!

Here's what I did: I focused just on Reagan because she's a girl (doesn't EVERYONE say they're easier?) and she responds well to incentives! When she got up in the morning, she went into real underwear, and she stayed in real underwear all day, naptime included. No diapers until bedtime. I made her a Potty Page to hang on the wall in the bathroom. Every time she sat on the potty, regardless of actual pottying, she got 2 little stickers, one for her Potty Page and one for her shirt. If she actually DID something in the potty, she got 2 BIG stickers and two pieces of candy (M&Ms or Skittles). When she had an accident, we cleaned up, got dry clothes, and I told her it was okay and she'd remember next time. (Thanks, Gwen, for that last part!) I never MADE her sit on the potty, but I did ask her often if she wanted to, and she always did. She loved getting the stickers!

I based this plan on what I had read about the 3-day Potty Training Method. I don't have all the details about this method because I'm too cheap to pay for them, but I had a basic idea and was hoping for a breakthrough by the end of the third day.

The first day, we sat on the potty 18 times, had 5 accidents, and no success. The next day we sat on the potty 15 times, had 8 accidents, and 1 SUCCESS!!!! On day three, we sat on the potty 11 times, had only 2 accidents, but no success. It wasn't exactly the breakthrough I was anticipating. Nevertheless, I pressed on and continued with the plan since Reagan was still very excited about being "big" and wearing her underwear. She loves the underwear! All those pink and purple hearts and flowers! She has been in underwear all day ever since, with the exception of when we leave the house. I'm not ready to deal with accidents in public, so she has princess Pull-ups for outings, but honestly she doesn't like wearing them!

Obviously I expected to need lots of room for all the big stickers on Day 3. Alas.

She had her second success on day 4, and another on day 6, and THEN CAME THE BIG DAY!


On day 8, she successfully used the potty SIX TIMES!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it! Six! Since that breakthrough day she has never had more than 2 accidents in a day, she has quit wetting the bed at naptime, she is successful almost every time she sits on the potty, and we've even had 2 days with no accidents at all! I'm so proud of her!



Today is day 17. On Monday I changed the reward system to reflect her growing abilities. She has a new Potty Page. Every time she does #1 in the potty she gets 2 little stickers. If she does #2, she gets 2 big stickers. She gets candy before naptime and before bedtime only if she has completed that half of the day accident-free.



These potty days have gone by really fast! Actually I was surprised when I counted this week and realized we were on day 17! But I'll tell you I had no idea it would be so EXHAUSTING!!! Running to the potty every 2 seconds and cleaning up accidents and keeping up with stickers and potty pages and candy and being supportive in the bathroom while still trying to monitor the other three children running amuck and unattended, not to mention the additional laundry and the loss of some of my naptime because I need to rush in there as soon as the kids wake up to get Reagan to the potty before she has an accident and still trying to get done all the things I need to get done...it's exhausting to type it, imagine living it! I can't imagine trying to do this with more than one child at a time! What was I thinking in Plan A? I was crazy! One potty trainer at a time is PLENTY!


So that is where we are right now. I'll keep you posted on future developments! And good luck to all of you other potty trainers out there!

Potty Time Pain

Okay, about the potties...I know you've all been desperate to hear about the experience so far. Well, here goes...

Let me start with Plan A. A is for Ambitious. Here are the thoughts that formed the framework for Plan A: 1. I want to train them all at the same time so peer pressure can work in my favor. 2. I want to go straight to underwear so when they go they know it, they don't like it, and they'll want to use the potty next time. Pull-ups are just going to slow the whole process down! 3. I want to reward them for success, but not scold them for failure. I expect a lot of accidents, and that's okay! Doesn't it sound like a great plan?

So I acquired 4 potties (We borrowed 2 of them. Thank you kind friends!) and I set a date. I picked the first Monday of November. Halloween was over. There was no Ladies Bible Class that week. I could stay home the whole week and devote all my time to potty training! Genius, right?

Now, I had been talking to the kids about the potties forever, and everyone but Zachary seemed pretty pumped about the idea. So Monday morning, we got up, we ate breakfast, and then I said, "Who wants to wear big underwear today and go in the potty?!?" Everyone was excited! I let each child pick out a pair of undies, and we shucked the diapers and put them on. I did not give them any pants to wear.

Then I said, "Who wants to go sit on the potty?!?" We ran to the bathroom, and I helped them pull their undies down. None of them liked having them around their ankles, so they kicked them all off in the floor. They sat on the potties. Nothing happened. "Nobody needs to go potty? No? Okay, we'll try again later." At that point the boys decided they'd rather not put the undies back on. Naked is much better! Reagan really wanted hers though, at least for a little while.

The rest of the morning passed in a blur of accidents that couldn't always be matched with a corresponding child, lots of trips to the potty, many encouraging words, and two successful pottiers (Jonathan and Thomas), but ended with one of my success stories in tears and begging me to get him a diaper, please! Heartbreaking!

By naptime, all four children were back in diapers. And they have been ever since. Here's what I learned from my Ambitious morning:

1. Some kids can have accidents all day long and hardly notice. They just don't care. At least not yet. For these kids, nudity is useless.

2. For other kids, having an accident on yourself can be more than just yucky. It can be terrifying if you're 2 and new to this whole new big kid potty world.

3. A terrified toddler who delightedly sat on the potty this morning, doesn't want to go anywhere near it in the afternoon, even if he got M&M's and stickers for his morning success and knows he could get more.

4. Perhaps Pull-ups are not such a bad idea after all.

5. Perhaps it's time for a new plan.

So I have since instituted Plan B. B is for Back Off. We are staying in our diapers for awhile. The potties are still there in the bathroom. The bathroom door is always open, so the kids can see them anytime they want. Occasionally I bring them up to see if anyone is interested. Occasionally they mention wanting to sit on the potty and I happily assist in that process. I'm not pushing anything, for now. I have gotten Thomas to sit on the potty with his clothes on. That's a step in the right direction. I don't think Zachary has sat on it once since the very first time Monday morning. He simply doesn't care one bit about it. We'll do this a little while longer, and then move on to Plan C. C is for Cautious. It involves Pull-ups. I'm considering moving just one child to plan C, maybe Jonathan or Reagan, and leaving the others in Plan B land a little longer. They will be allowed to enter Plan C land whenever they want, but right now I'm thinking that once you enter the land of Plan C, there's no going back to the land of Plan B.

Disclaimer: All plans are subject to change at any moment and without warning. All changes will be related to the reader after the change is already in affect.

Coming Soon

Okay, I know I've been absent lately. I've been really busy and I'm not done yet, but I wanted to pop in real quick to at least let you all know that we are not deathly ill or anything. We've been fighting some colds which have kept us out of church nurseries but not out of the pumpkin patch, nor did they keep us from the Fall Festival or trick-or-treating. So we've had a lot going on and all the things that didn't get done because those things were going on have just piled up and piled up and now I have a lot of catching up to do and I don' just mean on the blog! I'm way behind in several areas right now! And there's so much to tell you about! But I just don't have time right now, so I'll leave you with a few pics to give you a glimpse of what we've been up to and will post as soon as I can!

 

Picking a good one

A pretty hefty Halloween clue!

 

The time has finally come...