Potty Training

July has been a hard month. We usually fly to Utah for summer break & this was the first year in the six that we've been away that we didn't go. Dang timing & money. *fist shaking* With us sticking around I decided to tackle something that needed to happen.......POTTY TRAINING!

Kill me now. I was sooooo not wanting to do this, but I knew Liam was ready.

(Just look at that stance. He was super excited to finally wear big boy underpants like his brother.)

 I think what I was most dreading was the fight. With Gavin it was quite a power struggle. He would NEVER tell me when he had to 'go' and the accidents persisted for months. And with the accidents, came the 'drills' practicing running to the toilet. And with those 'drills' came the fights, screams & tears. From both of us. A few days before beginning the training with Liam I just couldn't shake the thought that using the same 'Boot Camp' method used for Gavin was not the right thing for Liam. This kid is beyond stubborn. He is unbreakable. I mean it, there is no coaxing him into doing anything that he does not want to do. A friend of mine shared a potty training method that she had on hand, but hadn't used. I read it over & it had a complete different take on the whole situation. It was 100% positive reinforcement & that you should NEVER punish for an accident. (oops. I guess drills kinda fall into punishment) There were definitely things about this new method that I didn't agree with like 'sleep on the floor by their bed at night so you can monitor when they get restless to use the bathroom'. Uh, ya right. That is not happening. Haha. So I kinda combined methods & used what I thought would work best for Liam. I prayed A LOT for patience & those prayers were answered. Heavenly Father very much had His hand in this process with us. :) In the course of the week I didn't yell or get mad at Liam once. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to & almost did, but I was able to bite my tongue & change my tone of voice quite promptly. I was pretty impressed with myself, but know it came from the Big Guy. It amazes me how much He truly cares for us in the little things. I was also nervous about Gavin being home while we did this, but he was excited about it & was totally on board for encouraging his brother to be a big boy. He gave lots of high fives, 'good jobs' were spoken & he never complained about not getting a 'potty treat' for himself. It's nice that he is older & capable to entertaining himself too. I found him a few times like this.

 I love the new website we found called Star Fall It was lots of reading games that are fun & interactive.

So with this new method I had to be by Liam's side constantly. Like never leave the room without him. Or if he left a room I had to follow. The reason behind it is so that I can always be there to catch the accident in process. If you aren't there when it happens then the teaching moment has passed & they don't connect the dots of feeling the urge & rushing to the toilet. When you see them starting to go, you pick them up & rush them to the toilet while saying "Pee pee goes in the toilet." IF they continue to finish going in the toilet you treat it like a success & reward them with praise & a treat. Then you just remind them to 'tell mommy when you have to go potty'. This was the go all phrase to remember.You can't ask, "Do you need to go potty?" because they will always say, "NO!". But if you just remind them to tell you...it puts the thought in their head & gives them complete control of the situation. This ended up working like a charm for my stubborn boy. It wasn't until the third day that I saw the light bulb go off for him. But that moment when it happened was beyond rewarding for me as a parent. It really was so neat to see him 'get it'. I had sent Gavin off to play with the Steels & sweet Michele ended up keeping for like 6 hours that day. It was so nice to just have 100% of my attention on Liam & not feel bad about neglecting Gavin. We were playing with Woody & Buzz & I started to roll play with the dolls  action figures. I made some underpants for Buzz to wear & had him tell Woody about how he is a big boy & tells his mommy when he needs to go potty. I saw the little wet dot starting to form in the front of Liam's underpants & quickly said, "K, let's go potty!" He replied, "No thanks." That's when I said to him, "No Liam, this is when you tell mommy that you have to go. When the pee pee starts to come out, you tell mommy." So he said,"Ok I go pee pee!" And that's when it clicked. From that point on the accidents have been minimal & I couldn't be more proud of my lil man! 

 And as exhausting as it was to just be around him non stop, we had a lot of fun. I'm not generally the type that gets down & plays for long periods of time with my boys. Especially now that they play together. But they loved every minute with me & I loved every minute with them. We played lots of trains, colored lots of pictures, watched some shows together & of course played superheroes.