This is agony. It's not the pee pee or the poo poo; it's the expectations! We each read books on the subject. What does it mean - the age it happens? Why do boys do it later than girls? Will he be on par with his peers? What does this mean about his psycho-social development? Should we be employing a man with a penis to help him? Is that even legal? This poor child has been forced to sit on a potty so long his butt must hurt at the mere thought. He was just 2 when this abstract talk changed from "We're gonna have to start..." to "Let's get started!" My poor Kody has not two but a team of women discussing and deciding his every direction. We finally realized that making him sit for hours made him so fed up with his little Elmo potty that I think it hurt his relationship to Elmo! We ditched that potty for one that played a little music when peed in. Unfortunately, they learned that touching the two little buttons together did the same thing and pretty soon this potty was singing its own imaginary praises. But it was getting late. And we found out the neighbor's kid was doing it. He's only two months older than Kody, and had apparently been doing it for three weeks. That gave us exactly 5 weeks to beat him! This kicked us into "Teacher gear". I should say it kicked my wife into "Teacher gear". I am personally not looking forward running to find bathrooms on a moment's notice like we went through with my niece. Changing diapers leaves me the power of time but I understand my wife is all about the competition.
So, after saying "Bye bye" to diapers the one weekend we were home, buying a few new potties and sitting on them through all sorts of fun activities, we packed a school bag full of extra clothes and gave him only a Pull-Up to ride to and from school in.
Three days was all it took. Speculation about the boys' kidneys and habits were all dropped the minute he got up from the couch while watching Curious George, sat on the new Mickey Mouse potty that he'd picked out, and told me "I'm gonna make a poop".
And he did. And it was beautiful! And who was worried?
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