Hop on the Potty Train

Potty training is by far the most evil, ridiculous thing a parent will ever have to do. I am now potty training my fifth child. You'd think I'd be an expert by now, but I have discovered that you can't potty train two children the same way. You can't use the same rewards, you can't use the same punishments, and you certainly can't use the same underwear.

I've had a crier, I've had a quick learner, I've had stubborn, I've had unwilling. And then I've bribed, cried, yelled, whined and bribed some more.

But for some reason (insanity), I've willingly hopped back on the potty train. I swore up and down, left and right, that I wasn't even going to attempt to potty train O until the spring. But she bribed me by pooping in the potty every day for a week.

So I pulled out the leftover pullups from K (not used, leftover) and put her in them. I explained the basics and left her to it. We went through half a box of pullups in two days.

Did I give up? Did I walk away? No, I bought underwear. She peed in four pairs before I gave up and put her back in pullups.

Why am I being so persistent? Because she fools me into thinking this might be easy. She pees every time I put her on the potty and she still poops in the potty. She also pees in her pullups nearly every time. She just has a lot of pee I guess.

I'm not sure how long before I give up. I always do. Even though the 'experts' say not to put them back in diapers, I've given up nearly every time and reverted back to diapers. You can only clean up so much pee. And you know what? My kids all turned out relatively normal.

So it's day four, O is in pullups, I'm washing all of her new underwear and I'm not insane yet. I'll let you know when I need the straight jacket.