Getting off the Pot

Potty training has been in full force at our house for the last two weeks. I think it's completely safe to say that Ella is not ready. It makes sense that someone who didn't really roll, pull up, crawl or walk anywhere near normal probably wouldn't be on the early side of potty training success. I've made peace with the idea of sending her to school with a giant sack of underwear. Lucky for us, we got a great Lands End preschool size backpack, monogrammed for $7 at the outlet store. That pack will be filled to the brim with changes of clothes!

We tried many different tactics with Ella hoping something would catch her attention. There were bribes, like if she used the potty, I was going to paint her toes with the purple nail polish she picked out for the occasion. We tried candy. Read books and sang. We tried only wearing big girl underwear. We tried going commando. We tried reminding her every few minutes. We tried not reminding her so it would be child led. Didn't matter what we did. She's not there.

All that really happened is that Ella and I both got into a really bad head-space and were not enjoying being near one another. She felt bad when she had accidents. I was frustrated. She got defiant. I knew it was about time to wave the white flag when she'd sit on the potty for nearly and hour with no luck, then would have an accident within five minutes of being off. And the big one, I caught Ella standing on the couch and peeing on it, then bending down to splash it. It was at that moment that I saw two well marked paths: "patience and humor" or "psychotic episode" and while one was really pulling me, I had to suck it up and be patient. It didn't help that Loran was in Seattle.


For our own sanity, Thursday was deemed diaper day and the potty was put away. Lo and behold, we were both much happier