Potty Training Gone Awry

I think I missed the window with potty training Malia. For the longest time she was willing and able to PT but somewhere, somehow the PT boat sailed off without me. I didn't want the kids to be completely bored at home for the summer so I made sure we had stuff to do but knowing that Malia needed to be PT'ed, I was careful not to over-schedule.

Somehow that didn't happen.

Add on to me being lazy and Malia being so particular about what potty she wanted to use, it was a recipe for failure.

First, we have a nice white potty. The Baby Bjorn potty that was Kael's. Unfortunately we only have one. At one point we had three but beats the heck out of me where the other two went. The one we did have stayed upstairs where she religiously peed in before hitting the showers at night. The problem came up when we were downstairs during the day. I wasn't about run upstairs every 10 minutes, carrying a 2 year old, 7 months pregnant whenever she thought she had to tinkle. Only to get there, pull down her panties, and then be told that she's changed her mind.

No. I'm smarter than that. That only happened a couple of times before I said "Forget it, sister -- pee in your diaper!" Then I felt bad. My daughter wants to use the potty so why am I stopping her? So I brought the potty downstairs. I actually thought of this first but I kept forgetting to bring the potty downstairs and the thought of dragging myself back upstairs to retrieve it was not on my list of desirable things to accomplish while being this pregnant.

The potty did eventually come downstairs. You'd think this would solve the problem, right? Wrong. In Malia's world, the white potty belongs upstairs and she refused to use it downstairs.

Count to 10. Slowly. Count again.

Then Shana told me I could have Gina's potty (also a Baby Bjorn) since Gina doesn't like it. Great! My life will be much easier -- and $25 richer since I don't have to go buy another potty. Shana's such an awesome friend. The thing is she failed to tell me it's red. Fire engine red. And you all know how much Malia loves color.

So now we've got 2 potties. Malia's so enamoured with the red potty that she's now refusing to use the white potty altogether.

Mother of.... This child is going to be the death of me. And to think at one point in time, I thought her color fascination was cute.

I switched the potties a couple of times to confuse her and after about 3 switches, I've now got the red downstairs since that's where we are most of the time and the white upstairs. She's been using the red pretty well but I can't remember the last time she's peed in the white. She will sit on it just to get Mom to shut up but will jump off and pee on the carpet.

Count to 15. Slowly. Do it again.

That was 2 weeks ago. I've decided that since I've got about 7 weeks until D-Day, I better get off my butt and get this child trained. So now whenever we're home, she's in panties.

The thing is: the potty fascination has worn off. She can really give a rat's a$$ about the potty now. Plus she's a dribbler. Meaning she goes 5 drops now, 4 drops in 5 minutes, 7 drops in 6 minutes. So she's constantly hopping on and off the potty. I *think* she does that on purpose to get M&M's. I'm not sure but I can fully see her turning her wheels, scheming ways to get more green and blue M&M's. And if that means doling out pee like a Mr. Scrooge, then that's what she's going to do.

Last week -- she's willing to sit on the potty... but refuses to wear panties. In fact, she's got it in her head that when you potty, you take off all your clothes. And she got that from Kael because when he goes #2, he does it naked. So now she's running around naked which makes me totally uncomfortable because at least with panties, there's a little bit of a barrier between where the general population sits and a potential pee disaster. But try as I might, she refuses to wear panties. If I insist on panties, she will claim that she's got to pee so off they go again. On and off. On and off. It's gotten to be a battle of wills: she's perfectly content to goof around on the potty as long as that means she doesn't have to wear panties. I've seen her scoot around the house with her ass on that potty just so she can stay naked. Today she was hoarding books and toys around herself, while on the potty. And the potty is totally clean. She doesn't have to pee. She just has to be naked.

I swear this girl has got me running in circles.

Today she did a scene straight out of the Pussycat Dolls. She was completely naked (of course) and sat backwards on the potty, legs straddling the pot. We were listening to music on XFM Radio and she did the best naked dance while writhing on the potty. It was awesome. I'm a little concerned that she looked so natural doing it. When you add to that the fact that we were listening to World Music and the track that was on came from India, it was the funniest thing I've ever seen.

So yeah. I'm pretty comfortable with my decision to hold off on preschool for her. She needs to be potty trained and it looks like I now have to get her to keep her clothes on too.