Potty Training - continued

I know, since my last post you've all been checking and rechecking my blog to see how potty training is going. Perhaps you're looking for a good laugh - I think that's the main point of potty training posts. If you've ever potty trained someone, I think that looking back on it, there were probably several funny moments. You know, funny in retrospect. :)

I guess then, that this post might be a little disappointing. We've had some mildly amusing moments where Kaylee has debuted her new phrase, "I don' yike da" (I don't like that) and of course there have been many crazy moments where both kids proclaim "I have to go poddy" and Blake and I both go racing through the house carrying a kid, only to discover the other has taken the potty we were headed for, and where did the other potty go? Was it last in the bathroom? the kitchen? oh, crap (sometimes literally) it's in the backyard! quick, run!

Thus ends the humor and begins a post that's more for my own documentation and anybody who's currently in potty training mode. Plus perhaps the grandparents will be interested so they know what they're in for the next time they babysit! :) The rest of you may want to skip it, but I'm going to blog it because before we started this potty training adventure I went and re-read all my friends' posts about potty training their kids to get a little "familiarity" with the subject and really appreciated that they had all blogged about it!

And so, onward. How's it going? you ask. At least, those of you who are still reading ask. Well, differently than we had expected, that's for sure.

Day 1 -
Ethan woke up from his nap dry. Big surprise there. Perhaps a fluke as it didn't happen on day 2. Kaylee was wet. After nap, Ethan told us many times that he had to pee, and then he actually did. Sometimes minuscule amounts. Only one accident for Ethan in the whole afternoon. And then, surprise surprise, he pooped in the potty too. I guess some kids can get pee potty trained but can't master the poop part, so we were extra excited when he pooped. Kaylee on the other hand, did not poop all day. And she kept our laundry going. Accident after accident after accident. This is what really surprised us. Kaylee was the one that "showed signs" of readiness. We strongly considered trying to potty train only her and wait another potentially long time before trying with Ethan, who showed very little interest or signs of readiness. But here was Ethan, doing really well. And Kaylee was trying SO hard. We'd give her fresh undies and she's tell us "don't pee on dem, only pee in da potty" and she wanted to pee on the potty so bad. She sat there for at least half an hour at one point, saying "get da candy. go pee on da poddy and get da candy. kayee get da candy." we stopped saying all of those types of things ourselves because she obviously got it, and we started worrying about her a bit that she was too focused on the goal that she just couldn't relax enough to succeed. I think kaylee only had one or two successes the first day. We cut off liquid intake at 6pm, put them to bed in undies (at 8pm) and woke them up around 10ish. Kaylee was dry, so that was good, Ethan was wet. When they both woke up in the morning, they were both wet (not surprising).

Day 2 -
Day 2 did not start out well for Kaylee. She did not want to sit on the potty in the morning and was freaking out about it. Crying, hysterics, etc. :( It was very sad. Eventually she was willing to sit on the potty, but then she didn't want to get off. We'd tell her it was time to get off, she'd play for one minute and then say, "I have to go poddy." We were thinking she was just terrified of peeing in her pants and we didn't want her to be traumatized, so we tried naked time (didn't help) and Blake and I agreed we'd put her in a diaper for nap time and she could let it all out then. We were also getting concerned that she hadn't pooped, so we started feeding her lots of oatmeal snacks and such.
Ethan meanwhile was doing awesome. No accidents, and peeing all the time, at his own initiative, not ours. Then Blake wanted to take the kids outside, but I still wasn't dressed for the day so I went upstairs to get dressed while Blake took them to the backyard. I came out to find that both kids had had accidents (Ethan's was just poor aim - he got to the toilet in time but forgot to "point it down") but that was all 100% okay with me because Kaylee pooped! She was SO proud! Before nap time she had a couple more successes, and although Kaylee did have a few more accidents, she seemed to have made a big emotional step, so we put them both down in undies.
They both woke up wet. Oh well; that's why I bought additional sheets and mattress protectors, right? After nap we continued to have general improvement. Ethan had one more incident of forgetting to "point it down" but otherwise he was flawless! Multiple poops and lots of pees in the potty and we even switched to only giving him candy when he asks instead of every time (although often Ethan will forget and Kaylee will say "E-E get a candy?" and then he remembers!). Kaylee did alright too, although she did poop in her undies once. But I figure that's just what other cloth-diapering parents deal with all the time, so we can handle it.
When it came to bedtime, Kaylee kept asking to go to the bathroom. This was tricky - a stall tactic or a real need? We said okay the first time and although she'd had the opportunity to pee moments before, this time she peed! 5 minutes later, she says she needs to pee again and Ethan says he does too. Sigh. But this time Ethan peed. And we put Kaylee in a diaper. She was pretty stressed about "don't pee in da bed" which I don't think we'd ever said, but this way we were able to calm her and say she could, because she was wearing a diaper. The nighttime routine, which is usually a breeze, was actually pretty rough, and we don't want Kaylee to get so stressed she holds too much in, so we're going to do nights in diapers for now. And, considering that Ethan hasn't been successful at night yet, we'll put him back in diapers for nighttime as well. Plus this gets us off the hook for waking them up in the middle of the night, and it means we won't have any bedtime stall tactics develop. We thought this whole thing might be a flop, so if we end up with everyone day-time potty trained but not night, that will be just fine by us!

Day 3 -
Doing well! By which I mean they both woke up wet, but no accidents in the morning from either of them. We even went to a park and brought our potties and they both peed at the park! Kaylee was wet after nap time, but Ethan was dry! Ethan continued the day with only aiming accidents and Kaylee continued the day w/o pooping and with general difficulty and stubbornness and accidents. We may just consider Ethan day-time potty trained (you know, by the minimum standards, since we do still need to have a potty available at a moment's notice!) Kaylee is... TBD.

Day 4 -
Continued success with Ethan. Continued obstinacy from Kaylee. She peed in the potty once for Blake before he went to work, but has only had accidents with me this morning. She's in a diaper for her nap. Sigh. I do love her, but that doesn't stop me from wishing she were a little... less like me. :) We'll just see how this turns out I guess!

And, now that you've endured this whole post, here's a special "potty treat" for you. A recently photoshopped (by my dad) family photo from our 2 year old photoshoot (with Kelly Chandler).