I never thought I'd be happy to be peed on. But two days ago, urine sprinkling my new Victoria's Secret sleepshirt (thanks, Santa!) I was grinning and high-fiving like nobody's business.
Anyone who knows me knows that I don't like doing anything that takes me more than 10 minutes to figure out. So the fact that Cam's supposed potty-training readiness started about two months ago has done little to endear me to this next phase of his life. Two months ago, excited by the boy's interest, we bought the little potty seat that sits atop the regular toilet. And for the next few weeks, he'd sit on the sit for a few minutes, wipe himself with toilet paper, flush the toilet and wash his hands. Then he's promptly "go" in his diaper.
A month after that, I figured that what he really needed was a more exciting potty seat, so I went all out (well, as much as you can go "all out" at the PX) and got him an Elmo potty. Soon he was sitting on the potty making Elmo praise him until he got tired of sitting. Then he would stand and pee on the floor. And a couple of weeks after that, the daycare folks declared him ready and my $30 worth of diapers became worthless as they were promptly replaced with $30 worth of pullups.
I admit that I kinda thought the boy would be a potty-training savant. I'd sit him on the potty with a book (probably something like Lord of the Rings or the Chronicles of Narnia) and he promptly do his business, wipe, clean himself up and declare, "Mum, dad, I'm finished!" (which may or may not happen in Mandarin Chinese). Instead, we're going on almost 3 months of admittedly half-hearted training on my part and the only thing he'd learned is to take off his diaper/pull-up/underwear, often to disastrous consequences.
So last week, I decided Christmas week would the week! I hit the library nearly every day before the holidays, loading up on books. A Potty Training for Dummies and Busy Mom potty training manual for me, and two potty books and a DVD for him. I hit Target and got Yo Gabba Gabba undies, and threw in a pack of those rubber ones, too. The following day, they were all in the wash, along with his sheets. And my exubertant rendition of the "Go, Potty Go" song and my made-up dance, weren't having any effect on the boy. And then he peed on me.
Well, technically, he was on the toilet and seemed to accidentally let go before realizing what was happening and moving abruptly, spraying me in the process. It was what I'd been waiting for. We laughed, we hugged, we cried, we high-fived. It was like winning the potty Superbowl. Since then -- two days later -- I've tried to get things moving again, but so far, to no avail. But at least now, I have a little bit of hope that we're on the right track.
Plus, I know the Potty Dance.
