Potty Training: Round 1

The ironic part about the fact that I'm writing this post at this time, when Kalina is not yet 2 years old, is that I'm actually in no real hurry to potty train Kalina.

"But you have a new baby on the way! Shouldn't you be frantic? Besides, don't you want to escape your nasty cloth diapers that I always thought were a crazy idea?" you say.

Well, sure, I want Kalina to be potty trained someday. And as some of my mommy friends have encountered potty training success even at this tender age I've occasionally wondered if they might be onto something. I've noticed, by the way, that no matter how early your child does something, there's always some kid who can do it sooner. And yes, it is a race. Would you want to be the very last mom you know still dealing with diapers?

But, frankly, diapers are pretty easy. Even cloth ones. No dashing to find the restroom while picking out pineapples at the grocery store. No stopping the car anywhere, at anytime so the toddler can go do her business. No mopping up all kinds of accidents. Yup, diapers are just fine with me a while longer. Maybe I just don't know what I'm missing?

However, with Kalina asking to use the toilet every night before bed, as well as other occasional times during the day, and having some fairly consistent success, I decided I'd be a pretty bad/stupid mom if I didn't at least let her give it a shot.

A little background: Kalina first used the potty probably as many as 5 months ago. Since then, it's been intermittent, except for when I got a little crabby after Kalina had an accident on my bed an hour before I really, really, really wanted to be asleep in it at the end of my looonng week when Matt was out of town and I was still nauseated from pregnancy and I had a heavy freelance load: for the next month, any kind of toilet use, other than climbing on it with the lid down, was nonexistent. That was fine with me. And then we were back in business.

After deciding with Matt on Tuesday evening that we were going to wait a bit until our schedules slowed down, I rushed out with Kalina Wednesday afternoon, since she'd pottied twice that day, and bought underwear-like training pants in pretty pink. At the store, Kalina didn't want them but was happy to wander around in them later at home. Anything to get out of a diaper change.

And so today dawned and we officially kicked off Day 1 of potty training. Kalina and I smiled into each others' eyes with equal enthusiasm as the first signs of success were flushed triumphantly into our city's sewers (or wherever it goes), and I promised myself she'd mostly have the hang of it by the end of the day.

I almost convinced myself I was having fun. I reminded myself that there would probably be accidents.

I have, of course, heard much conflicting advice about potty training methods, including:
Reward/don't reward
Lavish praise/don't lavish praise
Use Pull-Ups/don't use Pull-Ups
Spend lots of time on the potty/don't spend lots of time on the potty
Make it a big deal/don't make it a big deal
And so forth.

Instead of garnering even more conflicting advice from an armful of potty-training books, I'm winging it. This is probably a bad idea, but I don't want to put Kalina in a diaper (or whatever) long enough to take her to the library. I do take advice from the Internet.

There is, I soon learned, a certain amount of tediousness to potty training. For one, we have to stay home. When we went outside, we had an accident. And it's a beautiful day. For another, I have to watch the child at all times for signs that she's ready for a trip to the bathroom. This means that my grandiose plans for cleaning the bathroom and getting other odd jobs done around the house are out the window. What's more, Kalina's been working on her alphabet and improving her fork/spoon eating skills at the same time--the girl clearly has a lot on her plate. She needs lots of hugs and lots of stories. I've basically been following her around a lot and spoiling her a little.

This didn't get me down, though, especially since the girl ate a lovely breakfast and her entire sandwich for lunch, and so it was a good morning.

As of naptime, we'd had plenty of success and only a couple accidents, but were both worn out (also from the fact that Kalina neglected to nap yesterday in favor of waiting up for another story). Kalina happily let me put a diaper on her for her nap and I happily fastened it and removed myself from potty-training worries for the next 2 hours.

It's amazing how fast the excitement and exhilaration of potty training dissipated after the too-short-for-both-of-us nap. We were united only in the fact that neither of us really wanted to see a toilet again for a good week, let alone read stories while sitting on the floor next to it (okay, maybe that part was just me). But we slogged through the afternoon, me trying to motivate both myself and a now-reluctant girl to keep going now that we've begun. Kalina solved her discontent with the situation by almost preferring to have accidents rather than face the porcelain beast; I solved it by counting down the minutes until Matt would be home with a fresh perspective for both of us. We were both thrilled to see him, and he and I spent most of the evening trying to hand off potty-training duties onto each other while the other did anything but.

And so Kalina's on her way to becoming a big girl, and I'm having my first real experience of wanting her to stay a baby instead. Until now, each big advance has made life easier, but I have my doubts about this one in light of the treacherous path we both have to tread in getting there. I feel like I've been rocketed back to the newborn days, when my life seemed to be ruled almost completely by my child's bodily functions, I was trapped in the house and everything was just messy.

Round 1 is now over because tomorrow we're leaving for a beach vacation. Although progress was made, I still have my doubts and questions about the whole potty training thing. Is Kalina really, truly ready? How many more days will revolve around visits to our boring old bathrooms? Will Kalina begin to refuse to use it altogether, setting us back months or years? Will it spoil our vacation (perish the thought)? Will we be able to pick up where we left off once we get back home? Stay tuned. If you hear nothing, it's because nothing is happening. And that's probably okay for both of us.

Photo: Kalina and her tall block tower. It ended up being 2 very unsteady blocks higher than in this picture, which made it almost exactly as tall as her. After each block beyond the midway point, by the way, she did her signature "Olympic dismount" move (step back, arms wide in a "look-at-me" fashion), which meant that she was really, really proud of herself.