False Start: It’s Not Just a Football Foul

It’s also how I’m going to refer to our attempt at potty training last week.

Honor has been asking to use the potty since February. February, people. I knew she wasn’t ready then. And I thought she might forget about it.

Wait, did I really just say that?

My children forget nothing. Nothing. So of course she hasn’t forgotten about it.

She asks to sit on the potty all the time. So I let her. And she’s been figuring things out. But the best part? She randomly takes her diaper off. The other day, it was just after she, um, well, let’s just say it was a good thing that Caedmon tattled on her that time.

So, I figured we’d give it a shot. Like, for real. We bought undies, juice, and M&Ms. I’ve got nothing to lose. Except my sanity. And a brand new-ish rug. 

For some idiotic reason, I chose to work on it while Husband was out of town on a business trip. Maybe I thought that since he’d be gone, I wouldn’t feel guilty about doing nothing but hovering around Honor all day and not getting anything else done. What I should’ve realized is that I would be near the point of insanity by the end of the day and might need to bust out of the house alone. Which I couldn’t do with him gone.

Anyway, we tried for a couple of days. And she did ok, but not great. I think she’s mentally ready, but the physical part isn’t quite there yet. So instead of beating our heads against the wall (and cleaning up the floor over and over), I decided to just put her back in diapers/pull-ups and take her to the potty when she asks to go.

After we’d worked on it for a couple of days and I realized we weren’t really getting anywhere, I sat Honor on my lap before bed and had a chat. I told her that I was going to put diapers back on her and she could still go to the potty, but we wouldn’t worry about undies right now. She was fine. Caedmon? He was crushed. Poor guy. He was so excited about helping Honor use the potty. Such a sweet, supportive brother. Except for when he was telling her he didn’t want her to hold his stuffed puppy because he didn’t want her to accidentally pee on it. Love only covers so much.

This is definitely a different route than I planned to take, but it’ll be fine. She’ll figure it out and probably just ditch the diapers one day and it’ll be done. Until that day, we’ll just wing it.