Tuesday, 24 November 2009

• Potty training, anyone?

  Ahh yes. You thought I forgot, didn’t you? I was beginning to wonder the same thing. After all, the kids are 12, 10, & 5. Out of potty training ages, right? That’s what I would think too. But no. We're all wrong. Josh hasn’t exactly started potty training yet. The problem wasn’t that he “Wasn't ready” it was that he was scared of bathrooms. Which made potty training difficult. Like, really difficult. Getting him INTO a bathroom was (and still can be) a struggle in itself, and by the time he was in there, any prep talk we had before entering, was long forgotten, and the only thoughts going through his mind were how to escape ASAP.

  Over the past month or so, we've worked him into the bathroom. It had gotten to the point where he would go in, not willingly, but without a big fuss. Making teeth brushing, slightly easier. Up until this point, I had been told to “Keep him out of there at all cost” to “Brush his teeth outside” and “Get a special potty to use” you guessed it, “Outside the bathroom.” I tried it. Once. Because I try mostly everything at least once. The “Special potty” fell through when it started to sing when Josh sat on it…and I began having visions of Josh hauling this “Special potty” To high school with him. It wasn’t a thought I liked. We quickly ditched the idea, and decided that he would use the bathroom, just like everyone else.

  
  

  I get the fact that he might have bad memories attached. I get that he has fears, and most likely a reason to. But I also happen to know that there isn’t any bad thing that is going to happen in the bathroom while I brush his teeth…and how else am I going to get him to see this, if he won't go in the bathroom?

  Lately, he's been making some steps in the right direction. A few weeks ago he ventured in there – by himself – while the kids and I did our best not to FREAK OUT with excitement, not wanting to scare him, or make it a bigger deal than it should be. I'm sure he wondered why we were all staring at him with odd grins plastered across our faces, but hey.

  A few days later, he used the bathroom, for the first time, and again. The kids and I did our best to contain our excitement. It was a big moment, and we were all so proud of him, but we didn’t want to “Over do” our excitement and scare him, and so we calmly congratulated him, told him he did good, and moved on like it was really “No Big Deal” when clearly – it was.

  It's one of those things that not many people would understand “Your excited because he went INTO a bathroom?” and we would all sit there and nod ferociously, because well, unless you know where he's coming from, you wouldn’t understand where our excitement is coming from.

  He's made great steps in the way of being potty trained. I know he already knows when and where to go, it has just been the fear of a bathroom holding him back. The past few weeks, while at home, he's been sporting “Big boy underwear” and doing relatively well with them. The only problem is school. I haven't felt comfortable sending him to school without a diaper or something of the sorts. Not because I didn’t think he was capable, but because I didn’t know if he would know how to tell someone he had to go, or if he would just get scared and forget about everything. He wasn’t thrilled with putting on a diaper yesterday, but seemed to forget about it a few minutes later.

  Early on in the afternoon, the neighbor showed up and said I had a phone call. If anyone needs a phone number, I give them hers (with permission). It's more or less an emergency number, if someone needs to get a hold of me, they can call her, and she can get a hold of me. I knew it wasn’t good when she said I had a call, but when it was the school calling to say that Josh had an accident, and I needed to come right away, I more or less freaked out. A 15 minute drive was completed in less than 5, and I ran over a few stray people going through the doors to the school.  Fearing the worse the entire time.

  I was relieved to see Josh in the corner when I arrived, he was crying but appeared to be ok.

  …and when his teacher told me what happened?  I promptly burst out laughing, because I didn’t know what else TO do.

  Apparently, about ½ through class, Josh pulled his pants down, and proceeded to have some form of an accident. Not the kind of accident I was prepared for, and since they weren’t clear on the phone, with what KIND of accident it was, I didn’t come prepared.

  His teacher proceeded to tell me that he would need to be potty trained before he would be eligible for a “Regular” kindergarten class. She laid great emphasis on the word regular, but I couldn’t wipe the grin off my face.

  The problem is, no one understands why I was so thrilled. It wasn’t just because Josh wasn’t in some sort of horrible accident that I had prepared for while speeding in. But rather because he was making progress in ways that I never anticipated him to. The thing with having a kid like Josh is that there arent typical milestones for him to meet. The progress he makes is so different than what you would expect. We celebrate the small things, the things that most other people don’t even notice, but rather enjoy without thinking about. The things that are harder for Josh to grasp. The small, crazy things that make me smile.

  Some things, people just wont understand. Some things you will have to apply yourself a little more to see what we see in him. Some things, like yesterday, most people just will NOT understand. Those are the things, that we celebrate. The things that make us most happy. The things that no one else understands, are the things that we cant help but be proud over.

  Yesterday was just such an incident. There was so much progress wrapped up into one small, minor accident. Infact, it was MORE than just an accident. It was a step, a giant step, with huge progress written all over it. He pulled his pants down (something he has never done before) he used the bathroom (outside of his diaper, albeit not the way we would hope him to) and he knew he didn’t do it right.

  I know his teachers weren’t impressed, I know I might have a lot of explaining to do, but I couldn’t help but be a little bit proud of him.

  He’s growing, he’s changing, he’s learning. And? He’s making progress in the right direction.  Or at least, we like to think so.
  

  • 8:10 PM
  • 968 Views
  • 4 eProps
  • 2 Comments