Not Above Bribery

Perhaps you remember this little potty-trainer...

The 2008 potty training season didn't go so well and my pregnant self just could not do all the clean-up anymore. So, I let it go and put the little lad back in diapers until I was a little less rotund and the simple act of bending over didn't require hours of recovery.

A few months ago I decided I could once again juggle a potty trainer and a new baby and I tried THIS METHOD (which is pretty much what I had done in my original potty training post). However, one day while on a 30 minute errand with my mom on potty-training duty, our darling son managed to go in his shirt (which ultimately means the floor) 5 times!! My mom gave up and put him in a diaper...she was NOT happy. When I asked him about it, he gave me that little Irish smile of his and I knew we had to pull out the big guns!

Look closely at the above picture...see the stuffed toy he is holding? Well, that was a present from his Mimi and Papa and he promptly named it Chee Chee. What does that have to do with anything, you might ask...

Chee Chee in Keian-land means Chuck E. Cheese. We often go there for birthdays (and try to avoid eating their incredibly yucky pizza!) It is a favorite of the kiddos, but especially of little K's.

So....

You guessed it...I bribed him with a trip to Chuck E. Cheese's if he would not poop in his pants
for a consistant amount of time.

Folks, let me tell ya, he was the fastest potty-trainer in the West!

Here's a few pictures from our celebration party (and yes, we did manage to avoid the incredibly yucky pizza!)




Daddy doling out the tokens



Blake won the jackpot!

Keian's favorite game...push the button to bounce the balls into the dog's mouth.

Feeding the machine!

We had saved up tickets from the previous trip, so we ended up getting a couple of decent toys the whole family could enjoy and then a few of the customary junk toys that kids love for some reason.

And here's a final picture I could not resist sharing. We had a bit of a storm roll through right before we got to Chuck E. Cheese's and here's the rainbow it left.

Thus concludes my adventures in Potty Training Land...for year or so.

Potty Training while Pregnant

It was that golden opportunity every mother dreams of...a little boy who WANTS to potty train! However, it has come at a most inopportune time.

I awake Monday morning to a little boy in a rather soggy diaper begging me to go to the bathroom. No way am I going to pass this up! However, as I am helping him get situated I realize this is NOT a good week for this. We leave on vacation soon...very soon. It's a long drive and I am not confidant that less than a week is enough time to fully potty train a little boy...a girl...maybe...a boy...nope. But, it's too late. He's up there. He's smilin'. And I am trapped.

So, I set the timer, put on my Superwoman cape, and I start my list of To-Dos. At the top is Potty Train. Below that follows pack, finish all sorts of preparations, teach school, oh yeah, and be pregnant.

Being pregnant often makes the Superwoman cape a bit snug. The simple act of going up and down the stairs to do laundry suddenly looks less like leaping tall buildings and more like running a marathon...with all your children strapped to your back. And guess what potty training creates? LAUNDRY! They are not perfect, they have accidents, they dribble just a little, they change underwear 90 times a day. I only *thought* I had a large stash of undies for this little guy!

So, on top of doing load after load of undies, I am also beholden to the timer. Some people hate the timer idea, but I am naturally forgetful, so when potty training, the timer is a must-have for me. However, it does put a bit of a wrench in the To-Do list. Every 15 minutes this crazy thing is going off and I'm saying, "Time to go potty!" in as cheerful and excited of a voice as I can muster. We trot off to the bathroom, leaving behind whatever other household chore I might be in the middle of, and we sit and read and sing songs and wait. My older children joked that someday the timer will go off while I'm baking bread and K will think it's time to go to the bathroom! Hmmmm...Pavlov move over!

Now, I must admit, he's doing quite well, but I am TIRED! I pulled off the Superwoman routine yesterday, but today I was not quite so super. I ran out of undies and had to literally find items to wash since I've been so "on top" of the laundry due to the potty training, I kept falling asleep, and I ignored the timer more than once. Will I succeed in having a fully potty trained boy by the end of the week? Let's just say no...that way, if by some off-the-wall chance I actually get this accomplished, I will be pleasantly surprised. :)

Potty Training 101

Toilet Roll

POTTY TRAINING 101

1) Decide one morning that you are tired of having two babies in diapers and today is the day that the toddler will potty train.

2) Get the potty chair out of storage and put it in the middle of the living room floor and then pray no one comes for a visit.

3) Make a big deal over the potty chair, make up a catchy tune about going potty in the potty chair, set child on potty chair, wait there until the house starts caving in on itself, quickly remove child (hopeful that they understood what you were wanting them to do), clean up all the disasters that happened while you were "potty-training."

4) Set child on potty chair sporadically throughout the day when you have nothing better to do.

5) Decide that this may take more than one day.

6) Let the child run around in their brother's t-shirts w/ nothing underneath for days on end. When t-shirt becomes soiled, remove immediately and hide so big brother doesn't gross out.

7) Clean up all the messes as soon as you find them (if your older children suddenly yell, "MAMA, my socks are wet!" ask them to stand still to mark the spot until you can get there w/ a rag! DO NOT let on to the reason WHY their socks are wet.

8) Decide that the nudist approach to potty training isn't working.

9) Dig out all the cute undies from the previous potty-trainer (boy or girl b/c at this point you don't care) and make a big deal about how adorable these "unnies" are and how we don't want to mess them up by pottying in them.

10) 5 minutes later, change the cute unnies b/c they are no longer clean.

11) 5 minutes after that change those unnies b/c they are no longer clean.

12) In desperation, switch back and forth between the nudist approach and the massive amounts of laundry approach for a couple of weeks.

13) When the crawling baby begins to use the potty chair in the living room as a chew toy, put potty chair back in garage and introduce the "big boy/girl toilet."

14) Take them to the toilet sporadically when you have nothing better to do.

15) Continue to clean up messes and do laundry.

16) Lament to your best friend that you are world's worst potty-trainer. Admit defeat, decide you don't care if they aren't potty-trained until they are 17--isn't that why we homeschool after all--and pull the diapers out of hiding.

30 minutes later your child will potty-train themselves!

I kid you not--this is how I did it--aren't I smart!