My precocious, intelligent son can count to 13 (to 30 with some help), knows all his ABC’s, as well as the sounds that each of those letters make, and he remembers things that happened when he was barely 2 years old.
At 6 months old, we briefly tried elimination communication. It worked, but only for about a month.
And yet as we come upon his 4th birthday less than 2 weeks from now, he is not even close to potty-trained.
That’s right: I’m admitting to the whole wide Internet that my almost-4-year-old is not potty-trained. I try not to mention it because inevitably I get either judgmental looks (and heavy silence) and/or ignorant remarks. Neither of which help the situation.
He was just starting to get potty-trained last year when I was laid off from my job, and therefore his routine was basically turned on end. Although he enjoyed being home with me most of the time, both of us transitioning to an at-home situation made for very poor potty training environment. Then he went through a contrary stage, which can only be described as the terrible 3′s (he got over it, thankfully). And then we moved.
An entire year full of transitions is just a difficult time for a child to be potty-training, so he just decided he wasn’t even going to try.
What I know about my son’s disposition is that he knows what he can do — and what he believes he can’t do, he won’t try for fear of failure. (Sounds a lot like me, actually.) Despite a lot of coaxing, praising, bribing, and cajoling, he just would not sit on the potty at the right times to do the right things.
An attempt around December 2009, before we moved. Unsuccessful.
Recently, I taped a potty chart at child’s eye level in our guest bathroom. We bought a brand-new truck potty (basically it makes a “vroom-vroom” sound when something hits the bottom of the bowl). I told G that when he acquired 10 stickers on his chart, he got to choose a toy from Target. And he acquired stickers by going pee or poop in the potty.
I think I put up that potty chart sometime in June. Today, G acquired his 10th sticker (and his 11th!) and got to open the Leapfrog Tag that my father had bought for him this past weekend.
I have to say, this made me feel pretty good, especially when he used the potty a second time. In the past year or so, there have been many times when I have felt a failure. Failing at keeping a job, failing at being an effective, successful stay-at-home mother, failing at helping my child reach the simple milestone of potty-training. It doesn’t matter that he’s one of the smartest children I know, that he has a sense of humor to rival his father’s, that he kisses my face and tells me every day “I love you, Mama,” that he can put together sounds in words that basically means he’s doing some rudimentary reading. This one thing, the darn potty, has kept me from feeling like anything like a good parent.
Today, I experienced the feeling of a small victory, and I realize that the feeling is still not much more exciting than any other day. And then it struck me: parenting isn’t about anything huge. Most parents don’t have kids who win Nobel prizes, or become President of any country — or even a company. It’s about the little things that prove that sometimes, they’re hearing what we say, following our examples, and incorporating our beliefs and values.
I’m going to try to remember this feeling and this revelation, and hope that our lives are full of small victories — and that I’m observant enough to recognize them.
