Potty Training Sucks

Before I get into why I hate potty training so much, let me first share an update with you on my grandfather and his recovery from heart surgery.  He is doing really well overall.  The day after the surgery he was awake and talking and as of yesterday, the doctor's were already talking about moving him to a rehab facility within the week.  They have even taken him for a few walks to get things moving again.  Lets just hope the recovery continues as smoothly as it has.  Now, onto less important things such as potty training.  Beginning on Friday afternoon, we took our son's diaper off and let him run around naked in our kitchen and outside.  I wasn't home for most of the training on Friday afternoon (luckily) and will once again not be there for it during the week except for the short period in the afternoons when I get to see our son after work.  I don't mind the potty training so much when we can have him run around outside with his little potty sitting in our driveway.  Its the inside training that bothers me.  But more about why it bothers me in a little bit.  First, let me share the reason for beginning potty training before our son turns two as some have told my wife it is too early (as if they live with our son and know him that well).  Since our son has been walking and for a time before that, I have periodically taken him into the bathroom with me when I have to go, not number 2 as the smell might kill him, but only number 1.  I figured that since I can stand and go, I might as well bring him in with me so he can see what happens when his daddy goes.  After a while, he would want to come with me every time I went into the bathroom.  His desire to do that has only increased as time passed.  So we knew that he had an idea of how to urinate in a toilet even if he couldn't control his own muscles yet.  Then there is the fact that he began telling us when he needed a diaper change (one of the benefits of cloth diapers).  We would notice the poop face and ask him if he had poop in his diaper to which he would answer yes.  Even if he went number one and we didn't notice, upon random questioning, he would either answer yes or no and would be correct 75% of the time.  Finally, one of the signifiers as we understand that a child is ready to potty train is that they don't want to have their diaper changed.  Well, one more reason we began this past Friday; it is approximately six months out from the arrival of our new child should everything go smoothly and we don't really want to have two children in diapers at the same time. 

 

So there it is, the reasons we began potty training.  Now to the reasons why I hate it so much.  When I am sitting in the kitchen playing with our son, there is the constant thought that at any moment he could start peeing on me.  Quite frankly, I don't want anyone's pee on me, whether it is my son or not, and as I normally don't mind him crawling all over me like a jungle gym, I do when he is naked and can't control himself.  I have gotten some pee on my feet, but the story is a bit funny and so I will share it here.  We have our kitchen completely gated off so that he can get no where else in the house.  That being said, I went over the refrigerator to fill up a glass with some ice and water for myself.  I got the ice in and as I am filling it with water, I feel a light splashing on my feet.  My first thought was that the water from splashing off the ice in my cup and hitting my feet, so I moved the cup a little higher up.  It didn't stop.  Immediately I put two and two together, look down, and there is our son peeing on the floor and that is what was splashing onto my feet.  The tricky part is, I can't get angry or frustrated with him as it will inhibit his ability to potty train.  So I say, "Hey, your peeing, lets get to the potty!"  And with that I scoop him up, run over the potty, sit him down, and he stares at me as if to say, I already went on the floor, I got nothing left for the potty.  Oh well.  Next time maybe.  The outside is much easier to deal with because instead of cleaning and sanitizing our kitchen floor, all I have to do when he goes is grab the hose and wash it away.  Then there is the poop aspect which my wife has yet to deal with.  The first time I had to deal with it was outside.  Our son was pushing his little dump truck around and all of a sudden he paused.  As I was watching him, his rear end facing me, I saw a little nugget start to emerge.  Quick like a bunny, I ran over, scooped him up, and managed to get him over to the toilet before the nugget fell on the ground.  That was it though, one little nugget and almost as soon as I got him on the potty, he got up and ran away.  Oh well, next time.  Well, the next time was inside and to spare you all the disgusting details, it was a lot bigger than the little nugget he had before and i didn't quite get him to the toilet inside before it dropped.  Luckily it was solid.  I hate cleaning up poop, especially when it gets everywhere, and I just hope he figures out this whole potty thing quickly. 

 

There is good news though, he is slowly getting the peeing thing down.  He has gone a total of three or four times in the potty, not on his own, but with a quick scoop and a dump (ha, not pun intended) on the potty.  There was one point when we were outside on Saturday that every time we would say, "Hey, your peeing," he would stop peeing and run to the potty and sit down.  I know he will get it, it just sucks right now.  I guess it is just disgusting to me in every possible way.  I think perhaps the worst part about it is that you have to spend almost the entire day watching him very closely to see when he pees.  Every time you think you can do something and turn your back is when he starts peeing.  But, at least we only have to do this once and then we shall be all set.  I just hope it doesn't take too long.  I joked with my wife about covering the entire kitchen floor with plastic.  At least she thought I was joking.  I really wasn't, however, I know that plastic on a kitchen floor is just asking for an accident to happen and as such, I can't bring myself to do that.  Oh well, the kitchen floor, while old and wooden, has some thick coats of poly on it and should survive just fine.  Yes, it will require extra mopping when he is done and I will probably want to refinish the floor as well, however, for now, it shall remain as it is.  Enough is enough about potty training.  Hope I didn't gross anyone out too much, but I just had to write about how much I hate it today.  Tomorrow, I move on to cleaner and perhaps more interesting topics.