Gosh. It was a good weekend. Wasn’t it?
If you’re in Husker country, you know we beat the thugs from Miami. And that was pretty much amazing.
The weather. Ahhhhh. Have I mentioned fall is here? Oh I have? Well, I’M MENTIONING IT AGAIN! AND YES. I AM MEANING TO YELL. FALL IS HERE!
The hubs ran way farther than I ever have and did it in his best time yet. While I ate candy corn. And slept in {okay, I didn’t really sleep in like college sleeping in. But I did sleep until 7 am. Which is amazeballs}.
The five year old told me that I am his favorite mommy ever. Which is always such a relief. Because he’s had all those other moms.
I almost don’t even dare put this out in the universe but after reverting back to one wake up a night to belly up to boobytown, Mr. Harrison is on a streak of sleeping from about 7:30 at night to about 7:00 in the morn. Sure, there are a few peeps and grunts here and there and even a little babblin’ around 5:30 in the am. But mostly, it’s been glorious to not make my stumbling trek in the darkness each night.
And, in everything that is good and beautiful in the world, Jonah has pooped. In the potty.
I truly cannot express how happy it makes me to clean my kid’s poop out of a tiny frog twice a day instead of wiping it off of his rear. After it’s been smooshed and caked on. Because he actually pooped 8 hours before and forgot to tell us {I swear it’s never actually been 8 hours}. Though I wish the frog magically hopped the poop over to the real potty and flushed it itself, the current arrangement will have to do.
I cleaned big people poop for a living, and I can tell you, I’d rather do that, than change my three year-old’s crap attacks 2-3 times a day.
Perhaps you recall that several months ago, I posted about our excitement over Jonah deciding, on his own, that he was ready to ditch the dipes. This was fantastical. I mean really amazing. Because this made parenting seem so easy, I kinda thought I could rewrite the Brehm family slogan to be We Do Coast. And then, notreallysomuch because while he didn’t want to wear diapers, Jonah also didn’t want to poop in the potty. In fact, he seemed completely unaware of how the poop magically appeared in his diaper. Which isn’t apparently, completely uncommon. So, after a few weeks of attempting different strategies, we pulled back the troops. And reigned in the poops. We went back solely to dipes. And decided we’d try again when he seemed to be able to tell us that he either needed to go, or that he had just gone. Because the biggest issue seemed to be that the kid can not always feel when he poops. This makes for crappy potty training efforts. Quite literally.
++And let me just note that I am usually a “once you start it, you can’t go back” type of gal. Specifically when it comes to matters like crying it out, weaning from a binkie, weaning to one nap, and pottying. And then I had more than one kid. And we each realized how each kiddo has their own stuff. And we decided we’d throw caution to the wind, recognize that each of our children are going to need to be parented differently, and for the sake of everyone’s happiness, gave up for a bit.++
We decided to revisit it again after he’d recently started to be a little more aware of having the poopmonster invade his pants. Thursday he didn’t have school so we started then and continued through the weekend. And here’s how it went down…
I took Jonah to Target and picked out 5 different poopy prize options:
1} Disney Spooky Tales 5 minute stories book
2} Pete the Cat Book
3} Batman blanket
4} Michaelangelo Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles figurine
5} Lego set
Jonah chose the Disney Spooky Tales book, which was ingenious on his part. Really, thanks, J. Because I could reward him one story for each successful poop in the potty. Win/win.
He went alllll day Thursday without droppin’ one single deuce. Now every time he sat down, he peed, without issue. But the poop, well, that just wasn’t happenin’. And by the end of the day, his stomach looked like he’d done the milk jug challenge. And then right before bed, he dropped a little doody in his bedtime dipe. Aye yi yi. I was not looking forward to Friday.
And then, Friday morn he was successful in our quest. With the help of the iPad, and 25 minutes sittin’ and thinkin’ it over, Jonah managed to make it happen. And he was rewarded with a story, and two candy corn. This, for him, was basically like the equivalent of Oprah yelling, “You get a car! And you get a car! And you…”
So then, we had 4 more successes throughout the weekend {and yes, when you are potty training a child, each output is a group success. For real}. We’re still at the point where I have to ask him to sit on the potty for both 1 and 2. And the assistance of the iPad is basically garnering it a new nickname of the iPood, and I am all about using whatever tools are necessary to get him to produce a prize. Because with the help of the book and the Pad, he only had one crap mishap from Friday to Sunday. And while he’s earned 4 stories, we still have 5 or 6 more to earn so I see quite a few deposits in our future. Woop Poop!
The next step is rolling with the Pull-Up to school and seeing how that goes. Fingers crossed he saves it for the seat. And if not, that his teachers don’t completely hate me.
So in the land of parenting a 5, 3, and 9 month old, this weekend was pretty much gold. And while I would have been happy with silver, or bronze, gold is a nice every so often reminder of just how good it gets.
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