I am Potty Trained…a Little Bit

Evan's potty training has been our headache for the longest time. We know that boys are slower than the girls, but we didn’t expect that he is that slowerJ.

Olivia only needed to wear pull-ups at night when she was about two and a half. But for Evan, there were no sign of interest when he reached three and a half as he moved up to pre-school as one of the few boys who were not trained.

I wish he were like Andrew, my best friend's son, who has the strong will to excel in everything he does. To avoid being laughed at by other kids, within a week after Andrew moved up to pre-school, he was pretty much potty trained! But unfortunately Evan is a much laid back person, he simply just doesn't care about what others think about him. He once even told me that he enjoyed peeing and pooping in his diaper.

So Evan had been doing his own thing and time flied, he turned four, he became the only child in the class who was still in diaper but that didn’t bother him a bit. He still didn't show any desire to go potty by himself even though he was pretty upset when he learned that he could not sign up for the swimming class for the spring, but that lasted for about two minutes.

Of course the teachers have been trying to ask him to go every two hours at daycare and he was pretty good doing No.1 but not the No.2, especially after he got home, with everything going on at the house, we were not consistent in asking him to go regularly. But stinky diaper is no fun to smell. Daddy finally got tired of it and told Evan that he had enough. Since then whenever he has a dirty diaper, Evan would come to me with this guilty smile and tell me that changing his dirty diaper is my responsibilityL.

One day about two weeks ago, I got frustrated and asked him: "Evan, are you ever going to be potty trained?"

He gave me a mischievous grinning and said to me:" I am not ready! I like to poop in my diaper!"

What can you when you have a kid like this?

So finally, Evan’s teacher and I decided to give him the cold turkey about ten days ago. I would change him into underwear in the morning and bring extra pants, socks and shoes in case he has accident. He did have a couple of nasty accidents the first day or two including the one in our garage right after I buckled him in and ready to hit the road. But about a week ago, the teacher said he started to do very well at school. Evan was so proud of himself that he came home and made an official announcement to everyone: "I am potty trained!"

And it just like he had a sudden enlightenment, he made such dramatic progress. He would go to potty by himself when he needed to and reported back to us after he was done whether he has made a "yellow pond" or something resembled the shape of his No.2. He was so excited the first time he went No. 2 by himself, he asked everyone to go to take a look. "I made a volcano!" he even told his teacher the very next day after he got to school. Since then we heard that he made "tree", "shark", “number seven”…he would always give it a name.

We are so excited about his big progress and always give him high five after he goes by himself. And he never forgets giving that proud "I am potty trained" at the end of his report.

One morning a couple of days ago, he came up to me with his right side of the pant pulled half way down and talked to me in a serious tone: "Mom, I am not all potty trained. I am only trained a little bit. I peed in my diaper again."

It turned out that he did remember to go potty after he got up that day but the pant he was wearing was tight (forgot to change him into pajama the night before), he could not pull it all the way down before he had to pee in his diaper.

His beautiful big eyes were looking at me as if they were trying to explain: “See, mom, I thought I was potty trained but I guess I was only trained a little bit. That’s why I had this accident. ” His eager of re-defining himself was so cute that it touched my heart. “Oh baby, that’s not your fault at all! You are doing great!” I could not help but wrap his entire body into my arms and give him a big hug and a kiss.