Adventures in Potty Training

On Monday, Labor Day, we dove head first into potty training. Over the weekend we did little practices sessions, 30 minutes, an hour, two hours. But Monday it was go big, all waking hours in underwear.

"I get stickers, I get Toby train." Bribery was our chosen tactic.

There was SO SO much pee. Like gallons of pee. How does one little toddler boy body hold so much pee?

Ross and I took shifts but with all that pee, even with parenting breaks, we ended the day by ordering pizza and not saying much for fear of saying something not nice. Margeaux and Ryan stopped by in the evening and Cade proudly told them "I pee on the potty and on the floor and on the couch!" equally proud of all three locations.

Then at bedtime Monday night...well let's just say we had a miscommunication about potty training bedtime attire. I'll let you fill in the blanks about what resulted in the wee hours of Tuesday morning.

Tuesday at school Cade went through every single change of clothes I packed. All five of them. Again I tell you - so much pee! But I gotta say, I am so so thankful for preschool. One day under house arrest with the peeing boy nearly broke our family. Without preschool, who knows where we would be.

Yesterday he went through four changes of clothes but two of them were like half accidents. He sat on the potty, said he was done, got his shorts on and then oopsies - went a little more. So school changed him (as they should) but it wasn't a full on pee all over everything.

Then today. Oh today. Little Cade Daniel woke up on the WRONG side of the crib. He was a sassy pants. He yelled at Ross, fought getting dressed and had to go to time out, all before 7:45 a.m.

He did OK during breakfast but then screamed, cried and yelled "I wanna go back home!" the whole drive to school. I had to carry him kicking and screaming. Let me tell you, carrying a kid who is melting down into school is not fun. Carrying a kid who isn't potty trained but is wearing underwear, well, that's stressful too. Combine the two and I broke a sweat going into preschool today. Thankfully a classmate was wearing a football shirt (just like he was) and discovering that was enough of a distraction for a successful hand off to his teacher and a Mommy escape. Then I went to Starbucks for a big drink. Too early for booze so caffeine and sugar would have to do.

Ross picked him up and when I got home, Ross says to me "no accidents!" That's right ladies and gentlemen, our boy had ZERO potty accidents at school today. ZERO! He came home in the same clothes we sent him in. HOLLA!

He'd gone to HEB with Ross so was in a Pull-up after school but when he told us during dinner that he needed to go, we made the pleasant discovery that the Pull-up was dry too. CHAMP.

We ultimately had one little (messy) accident today. But he was so close! We were playing outside and he told me he had to go. But we couldn't run into the house, get around Lexi (who decided the bathroom doorway was the only place in the whole 2700+ square foot house she wanted to stand) and to the potty in time. But he knew he had to go and he told us. I still take it as a win.

When we started this adventure, we said "Monday-Friday, then we'll see." If it wasn't taking, I wasn't going to drive us all to the looney bin to get it done. He isn't even 2.5 until Sunday after all. No pressure. But we're making definite, significant progress. So potty training continues - to infinity and beyond!

Proud boy at the end of his best potty training day