Remember that song? Eddie Murphy's attempt at singing about his girl wanting to party all the time. Horrible song but catchy tune. It's what I sing to Jackson everytime he potties. "My boy likes to potty all the time, potty all the time, potty all the timeeeeeeee."
We'll also sit and sing other songs and put "potty" into them like, "Old McDonald had a potty, E-I-E-I-O." and "If You're Happy and You Know It, Pee Pee in the Potty". Nevermind that he looks at me like I'm crazy and probably wonders if it's normal to sing while being naked from the waist down and you're trying to "go". It keeps his mind off of what he's doing and it usually works.
Wow...potty training. I haven't done this in quite a few years. With Gracie, it seemed to go very smoothly (from what I can remember anyway) and with very little hang ups. I was always told it was because she was a girl and how I would see how hard it was when I had a little boy. So I was always a little worried about that when Jackson was born but thought, "Nahhh, I have lots of time." Well, fast forward two years later (man, time goes by fast!!) and we are staring (literally) down into the potty.
I started a few months ago just by putting the potty out so he could see it. He was curious and he'd go in and sit on it. That lasted about a week or so and then he didn't so much as look at it. Then he turned 2 and I thought why not just try again. I don't have to push him into it or force him to sit on it. I just let him go in with me and would tell him what Mommy was doing because she was a big girl. Talk about a weird conversation! And he's at the age now that he'll repeat the last few words you say but in the form of a question. So it's hard to keep a straight face when I hear my own words come back at me..."Mommy's a big girl?", "Pee-pee goes bye-bye?", "Tuck my turtle?"
Yeah...the turtle. I thank my friend Tonya for that one. She called it that one time at church while changing his diaper and it stuck ever since. Man, I never had to teach Gracie how to "tuck" anything! So now, we have sitting down and tuckage....and trying to explain to him that he just has to do it without thinking about it. Yeah...right. So, he went a few weeks more after that not really giving a rip.
I started again two weeks ago. He has a little Elmo potty now where he doesn't have to tuck anything and he can sit and push a button and Elmo will tell him how proud he is and how he's growing up just like Elmo. And it works. So all this time, I could have mimicked a red furry monster and got the same result. Priceless.
The other thing I wondered about was rewarding Jackson when we got a result. I started off with M & M's and that worked for all of two days and he got bored. He would look down at them as if to say, "Big stinking deal...you want me to let go and pee in this talking toilet and all I get is five little pieces of candy?? Next!!"
I thought ok...what does he like....I knew I could promise him to go to the splash pad or to Walmart for a toy, etc but those were things that didn't give an immediate reward and he'd forget about the promises no sooner than he shook the turtle and pulled up his pants. So, we tried with some Dum Dum suckers. Wow....magic!
Dum Dum suckers are awesome. Even as a kid, I can remember loving them and looking at the pictures on the outside and all the flavors. He does that too! He'll look all through them and find just the right one and rip it open, declare what color it is, and pop it in his mouth. Instant reward. Now, it's had it's ups and downs too. Such as...as soon as he gets up, he wants to pee pee in the potty...for a sucker...before breakfast. He wants a sucker during the day but doesn't want to take his diaper off to go try and pee pee and doesn't understand why I just won't give him one right then. So we're working on that. But for the most part, he understands if he does it, he gets it.
Who knows...this may work until he's fully trained or he might look at me next week and flat out tell me no. And pooping on the potty?? Man, I have no idea what to do about that one. We'll just take it one Dum Dum at a time.
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