Day 3 has officially come to a close, and I couldn't be happier about it. Today was another great day by comparison, but there were a couple of times today when I considered losing hope all together. I even went as far as telling Keisha how much I dislike this whole process, which I still don't think is too far from the truth.
Ethan had a rough night last night. He woke up crying and soaking wet around midnight, and I'm sure that his belly was still hurting from the day-old brew that he was still baking in his bowels. Keisha and I got him cleaned up and his sheets changed with all the efficiency of a NASCAR pit crew, and I sang him back to sleep for what felt like hours (it was probably only about 10 minutes though...).
He woke up around his usual time this morning and was thankfully dry. The lower half of his body is apparently not responding well to being periodically soaked with pee, and he's broken out in a bit of a rash. This is creating even more urgency on my part to get him out of his undry undies, so finding him still dry in bed is a huge plus.
His pee-game was super strong again today, going 2 for 2 on his first two attempts, but that wasn't what I had my sights set on. If you remember from yesterday, I had put in a ton of leg work into getting him poop, but all my efforts had been in vain. This morning, he and I were back to the same song and dance. He would give me the look, we would run to the bathroom, then he would start screaming and kicking as soon as he sat on the toilet and the moment had passed. We did that probably another 10 times this morning before we decided to take drastic measures:
Plan A: Pear Juice. We've found this tool to be EXTREMELY effective with Jackson in the past, so we decided to give it a shot with Ethan. This is a delicate process though, kind of like a haircut: You can always cut more off if you need too, but once it's too short you just have to deal with the consequences! This didn't give us the results we wanted, so we moved on to plan B.
Plan B: Fiber One Bar. This is the atom bomb of laxatives. We were desperate. I was desperate. I had given this anti-constipation cocktail almost an hour to work, and still nothing was improving. He and I were still running to the bathroom every 5 minutes or so, but all we were doing was maintaining the status quo. He was clearly giving me the signal, but as soon as I would snatch him up that seemed to be the moment he put the brakes on. I half-seriously told Keisha "I'm just going to let him go in his underwear... his stomach has to be killing him..." Well, I must have been more serious that I intended because that's exactly what happened! I was glad that he finally got some relief, but I was also crushed because this movement had been the sole focus of my life for approximately 20 hours. This was when I voiced to Keish how much I hate this process...
We had another successful pee-event before his nap and for the first time he woke up completely dry after sleeping. We did have two other accidents this afternoon, but all in all I'm very satisfied with where we are. Jackson hadn't peed in the potty one time over the course of his three day adventure, so by comparison Ethan is knocking it out of the park. The most exciting part of this process is that it now becomes a team event! As much as I take pride in the growth and development of my son, taking three consecutive days out of my life to stare at a two-year-old's groin and clean up excrement is still not the most appealing assignment!!
I'm so proud of my little boy, and I think he did a great job. Sometimes as a parent we get so caught up in helping our kids grow up that we lose sight of the fact that they are still so sweet, small, confused, and even sometimes scared. Throughout the past few days, I had to keep reminding myself of this.
This blog is fun to write, but I don't pretend to think that I'm breaking ground on some revolutionary potty training technique. Everyone, with very few exceptions, eventually figures out the whole potty-training thing - I just think it will be fun to show these blogs to the kids someday to give them a laugh or two! Hopefully you found a few in there as well...
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