Mom Tip #26

Potty training a boy equals war. Call up the reserves.

Everyone told me that “training a boy was much more difficult than training a girl.” They didn’t tell me I would need seven battalions and the strength of Patton! Mo? Potty trained at 2 ½ in three days with some help from Grammy. Tuck? He is 3 ½ now and the war rages on. Now like every good war it is fought in battles.

Battle of the Stairs - Getting Tuck to go into the bathroom.
We live in a raised ranch so the basement is actually ground level with a bonus room off the garage that we use as a playroom/office. When I first started training The Boy it was a battle to even get him to go up the stairs to the main part of the house and the bathroom. He would flail, kick, scream, go limp, go board stiff, (and did I mention the screaming?) all the way to the top of the stairs. Then he would dissolve into the carpet like he didn’t have a bone in his body. By the time we got to the bathroom I would be a sweaty harried disaster and more than likely his pull up would already be wet.

Battle of the Seat – Getting his behind to make contact!
In the event that we DID actually get to the potty before he used the pull up we were now up against the sitting part. We tried the small seat that went on the big potty. Nope. We tried just the big potty. Not happening. We invested twenty bucks in a floor training potty. But if you’re sitting on it you can’t push the button to make it sing. Never mind that the potty will sing if you just pee in it! And by now we have used the pull up instead.

Battle of the Poo – Well, that’s self explanatory.
Boys stink. They start stinking with that first poo in the hospital and they don’t ever stop. Now imagine walking into a room and being knocked down by that smell? And nine times out of ten, he’s just sitting there like it’s the norm. Why?! Can someone please explain to me why?! And how?! How can he stand that smell?! We’ve tried treats, stickers, punishments, stopping our attempts only to try later. I even let the boy drop his drawers where ever he wanted while we were on vacation out in the country. Nothin’ doin’. The Boy will not go in the potty.

It is my husband’s idea that you don’t run into grown adults who aren’t potty trained out there in the day to day world so he’ll get over this. Just this once (and don’t you dare tell him!) I hope he’s right. Just this evening I was summoned to the front lines to deal with the enemy. He shows no signs of surrender.

I, however, have started to embroider pretty gold stitching around the hem of my white flag. At least I’ll go down with a flourish.