Potty Training

Can't sleep, so I thought I'd talk about our experience potty-training Maisie. I remember vividly my own potty-training experience, which is probably not good. It was traumatizing. I was almost two when my mom, pressured by her friends whose children were already potty-trained, decided she had to buckle down and do it. But I wasn't ready. I couldn't control my bowels. I just could not do it. I was so frustrated. I felt like a failure. I was two. It was awful. I have, as you can imagine, very defiant beliefs about potty-training. When your kid is ready, it will happen. When he's not, don't bother trying. So I planned to wait however long it took for Maisie to be ready, be it two years or even five.

A few months before her third birthday, a dear family friend of ours was getting married. This was a girl two years younger than me who I grew up next door to along with her two sisters. When she got married, I was asked to be a bridesmaid. I was delighted. Two weeks before the wedding we flew out to Colorado to help her get last-minute things ready. Well, it so happened that her older sister had a two-year-old girl who was potty training. Maisie was fascinated by her plastic potty (we didn't have one) and how she used it. She decided after three days that she wanted a potty to use. She was very excited. My dear friends were happy to let Maisie potty train then and there. Unfortunately, it didn't work. Maisie could not seem to do it. She would announce she had to go to the bathroom, rush to the potty, get her pull-up and everything off, plop down on the potty, sit for like ten minutes, and then finally say "Never mind," and get up. The moment her pull-up was in place she'd pee and burst into tears. "Didn't do potty! Didn't do potty!" She was so upset, it was awful. She was mentally ready. She wanted to use the potty, but somehow she couldn't.

Well, we convinced her to give it up until we got home. But it was no better there. Finally we decided to take her to the pediatrician, afraid that this was a sign of some new health issue. Thankfully, the doctor found nothing. Nothing in her blood or urine or even in the MRI we had done a month later (for another reason but they checked it for any urinary/digestive obstructions anyway). We were relieved. And a month later, Maisie ran into the living room shouting, "Mama! I did it!"

The front of her pants was soaked. She hadn't taken them off before she sat down.

But close enough.