Potty Training Zane

After many months of failed lazy side efforts, the time has finally come.  The time for POTTY TRAINING.  Zane was ready.  Jed and Zoe were ready to help.  The potty and the treats were ready.  But mom... mom had a fairly significant enthusiasm gap.  But I know time is getting short before baby 4 makes his big appearance, and so I bit the bullet and put on a very convincing act of excitement and we went for it.  Jed was so excited he helped me get all the new undies and treats out and organized before Zane even woke up Monday morning.  He also volunteered to make this potty sticker chart, which he pointed out several times was WAY cooler than the one I was going to make.  Of course he is absolutely right.  This is the coolest potty chart ever.

Zane met his new "cool car unnerpants" with great enthusiasm and proceeded to spend Day 1 wetting through them with wild, messy male abandon. I had to go down and dig through clothing boxes in the basement to find an extra dozen undies when it quickly became clear that ten pair was NOT going to be enough.  Here is my fb post from about halfway through Day 1:

 We got some cool treats and they are out and ready... Everyone is enthusiastic (or at least pretending, in moms case)... But even though w have sat on the potty a dozen times and drank half a gallon of liquids... no success yet! Just one very impressive flood of an accident. Come on Zaners!!!

Several hours later, the enthusiasm had waned even further, but gritty determination set in.  I have wood floors. I can do this: Well, I think Zane's ready. I personally cannot wait any longer - he pees out of his diapers at least once, often several times a day, since he holds it for so long. He constantly has his man bits hanging out and has accidents on the floor, so I get the pleasure of changing diapers AND cleaning up pee! Nope, it's time. He's ready, I'm fed up. It's gonna take some time but we will get it done. No success yet today but he is still super happy and cheerful about it. We have done the naked thing (last time we trained) so I know he can do it. This time we are focusing on keeping undies on and figuring out how to keep them dry

Finally about 3 PM we finally had a success!  And when I say "we" I mean "Zoe" because she is a way better potty trainer than her momma, I'm afraid.  By that night, I think the score was Potty:3 vs Floor/Couch: 12.  This was a long day.

But Day 2 dawned with new hope and we spent a lot of the morning outside with a darling dry pants kiddo with his "cool fast car flag unnerpans" showing off his moves on the big bike.

And surprisingly, those pants stayed dry all morning long!   We did have a little poop incident at the park, but that's to be expected when mom and boy are both distracted.  But the whole day felt much, much more hopeful. I found a 2-minute Elmo potty song clip on youtube that has been very helpful.  He watches it over and over with wonder, marveling in breathy tones "Dat Elma have tiny potty just like ME!"

To my joyful surprise, though, the most motivating thing for Zane has been pleasing his mommy.  On the second day, after a successful "pee-pee" experience, he came running over to me and threw his arms around my neck.  With glowing eyes he turned his face up to mine. "I make you happy, Mommy?"  Yes, Zane, you have made me SO happy!  "I make you happy!" He gave me a huge hug and said "I love you, Mommy!"  Yes that will melt any mother's heart.  He only started saying "I love you" spontaneously about a week ago, so every utterance is so precious!  All week long, he has been asking again and again "I make you happy, Mommy?!"  He is the sweetest little man ever. He wants to potty train because he knows it is important to me.  Love this affectionate, earnest, cheerful child.

 Day 3 was even better, so we ventured out to the little library downtown and even had a successful public restroom experience there (wheeee!  Much cheering!  The librarians must have had raised eyebrows for that one.)

By day 4 he was waking up with a dry diaper every day and only having very occasional (<1 a="" accidents.="" and="" been="" bonding="" day="" experience="" first="" from="" great="" guy.="" has="" it="" little="" long="" my="" nbsp="" p="" painless="" per="" really="" side="" spending="" the="" time="" virtually="" with="" zaners="">