Sorry kid, your ass is large. It was sort of your destiny, though.
When the kids were around 10 or so months old, we went on a trip to Ikea. We got four of their awesome little potty chairs. Two for upstairs, two for downstairs. We had no illusion that they would soon be diaper free, but we wanted to introduce them to the idea of sitting on a potty, so it was never a weird foreign concept.
This went okay. Nothing really exciting happened, but we didn't expect for anything to happen. This was largely before Philip's amazing growth spurts, and the chairs were a good size for them.
Months forward and we have a regular routine of sitting on the potty around bathtime. They sit on the potty, we clap and tell them how the potty is for peeing or pooping and how that's great.
Nothing exciting happened, but we really didn't expect it.
Months forward, and still nothing is happening. They're 2 years old, and Philip has gone from the size of a 2 year old to roughly the size of a 3 or 4 year old. Those tiny Ikea potties are laughingly small for him. He can sit on it, but it squishes his penis, and he appears uncomfortable. In the meantime, he's been experimenting with peeing. We take their diapers off before bathtime and let them run free and naked for a bit, and he's had this big excitement about that. He'll squat, and start to pee, and stare at his penis and check out this neat thing it can do. Awesome. He's connected where pee comes from, and how it happens. He even seems to be controlling it, for the most part, as he'll often wait until the diaper is off to pee and doesn't pee during his nap and goes long periods with a dry diaper.
He's showing a lot of signs of readiness, but there's no comfortable way for him to pee. We went and got nice toilet seats for our two toilets that the kids would have access to. There's a nice kid sized seat that folds into the lid with magnets. Otherwise, it's the normal adult sized seat. We sort of hoped maybe we could skip the potty seat, since he was getting so much bigger.
No dice, though. He doesn't feel comfortable with his feet so far off the ground, and mostly just keeps trying to squat on the whole seat.
I could go into a discussion about how this is much healthier for his prostate and colon health, this squatting to do his business, but the truth is, this isn't how our toilets are set up in the West, so he's really going to have to learn how to use a Western toilet.
So, we've been thinking about getting another set of potties. Bigger ones that are more comfortable. I've looked at a lot of potty designs. I didn't want a complicated design with a bunch of places that get unsanitary and gross really easy and are hard to clean. I loved the design of the Ikea seats, but I just wanted them slightly bigger.
So, today, I find the Precious Planet Froggy potties. They're cheap, and I pick up two. I don't want to pick up the upstairs and downstairs amount without knowing if they work or not. I'm being cautious.
I bring them home and put them on the floor, and the kids are immediately excited about them. I explain how they're potties, and they are for peeing and pooping in. Jilly doesn't care that much, other than the design she finds friendly and nice. Philip, on the other hand seems to mean business about them.
They do some experimental sitting, and then we take their diapers off as we normally do. Philip runs around like a mad man and then does a bit of a squat and starts to pee. I pick him up and put him on the potty, and he sits then runs off.
Then. Then he starts to squat again, and Russell picks him up and puts him on the potty and he gets his SRS BZNSS look, and I say, "hey, I think he's peeing." Sure enough, Russell looks and there's pee in it. Not a little, either. Philip peed his normal huge amount. So we get him up, tell him how excited we are, and take him to the bathroom and empty it in the toilet and let him flush. Then we gave him a cookie.
Not that we intend to give them cookies or candy for every reward, just, we really wanted to reinforce how awesome we thought this was. He seemed to think it was awesome, himself.
We asked Jilly if she'd like to pee or poop on her potty, and at first she just said, "No!" and giggled like we were saying the most silly thing ever, then she saw that Philip got a cookie and how awesome we thought it was that he peed, and she seemed a bit more focused on it. No dice for her, though. She doesn't quite have it worked out as much as he does.
I don't have any illusions that he's potty trained, or that we've done anything other than take the first step on an ncredibly long and frustrating journey. It's still cool, though.
Russell mentioned that he especially felt proud of Philip because it's been such a long time since he's had a first before Jilly. Philip used to be first at near everything, and lately, well, you all know how things have been going lately. It was nice to see his star shine a bit. I'm so proud of my little man.
This went okay. Nothing really exciting happened, but we didn't expect for anything to happen. This was largely before Philip's amazing growth spurts, and the chairs were a good size for them.
Months forward and we have a regular routine of sitting on the potty around bathtime. They sit on the potty, we clap and tell them how the potty is for peeing or pooping and how that's great.
Nothing exciting happened, but we really didn't expect it.
Months forward, and still nothing is happening. They're 2 years old, and Philip has gone from the size of a 2 year old to roughly the size of a 3 or 4 year old. Those tiny Ikea potties are laughingly small for him. He can sit on it, but it squishes his penis, and he appears uncomfortable. In the meantime, he's been experimenting with peeing. We take their diapers off before bathtime and let them run free and naked for a bit, and he's had this big excitement about that. He'll squat, and start to pee, and stare at his penis and check out this neat thing it can do. Awesome. He's connected where pee comes from, and how it happens. He even seems to be controlling it, for the most part, as he'll often wait until the diaper is off to pee and doesn't pee during his nap and goes long periods with a dry diaper.
He's showing a lot of signs of readiness, but there's no comfortable way for him to pee. We went and got nice toilet seats for our two toilets that the kids would have access to. There's a nice kid sized seat that folds into the lid with magnets. Otherwise, it's the normal adult sized seat. We sort of hoped maybe we could skip the potty seat, since he was getting so much bigger.
No dice, though. He doesn't feel comfortable with his feet so far off the ground, and mostly just keeps trying to squat on the whole seat.
I could go into a discussion about how this is much healthier for his prostate and colon health, this squatting to do his business, but the truth is, this isn't how our toilets are set up in the West, so he's really going to have to learn how to use a Western toilet.
So, we've been thinking about getting another set of potties. Bigger ones that are more comfortable. I've looked at a lot of potty designs. I didn't want a complicated design with a bunch of places that get unsanitary and gross really easy and are hard to clean. I loved the design of the Ikea seats, but I just wanted them slightly bigger.
So, today, I find the Precious Planet Froggy potties. They're cheap, and I pick up two. I don't want to pick up the upstairs and downstairs amount without knowing if they work or not. I'm being cautious.
I bring them home and put them on the floor, and the kids are immediately excited about them. I explain how they're potties, and they are for peeing and pooping in. Jilly doesn't care that much, other than the design she finds friendly and nice. Philip, on the other hand seems to mean business about them.
They do some experimental sitting, and then we take their diapers off as we normally do. Philip runs around like a mad man and then does a bit of a squat and starts to pee. I pick him up and put him on the potty, and he sits then runs off.
Then. Then he starts to squat again, and Russell picks him up and puts him on the potty and he gets his SRS BZNSS look, and I say, "hey, I think he's peeing." Sure enough, Russell looks and there's pee in it. Not a little, either. Philip peed his normal huge amount. So we get him up, tell him how excited we are, and take him to the bathroom and empty it in the toilet and let him flush. Then we gave him a cookie.
Not that we intend to give them cookies or candy for every reward, just, we really wanted to reinforce how awesome we thought this was. He seemed to think it was awesome, himself.
We asked Jilly if she'd like to pee or poop on her potty, and at first she just said, "No!" and giggled like we were saying the most silly thing ever, then she saw that Philip got a cookie and how awesome we thought it was that he peed, and she seemed a bit more focused on it. No dice for her, though. She doesn't quite have it worked out as much as he does.
I don't have any illusions that he's potty trained, or that we've done anything other than take the first step on an ncredibly long and frustrating journey. It's still cool, though.
Russell mentioned that he especially felt proud of Philip because it's been such a long time since he's had a first before Jilly. Philip used to be first at near everything, and lately, well, you all know how things have been going lately. It was nice to see his star shine a bit. I'm so proud of my little man.