I just couldn't wrap my head around it, for some reason. So he just kept wearing diapers, while I thought about potty training and how the hell you would do it, in the back of my head. On the internet it basically says that you shouldn't try potty-training if there is anything else changing in the kid's world. And poor Ivo lives in a world of constant chaos, or as we like to say, EXCITEMENT! Routine is not really our thing. To say the least.
But after I got back from LA one day, my dad gently asked if perhaps it was maybe time to potty train Ivo. 2 weeks before his third birthday. GREAT IDEA! No time like the present! Let's do it tomorrow.
Now, my parents had mentioned that they had the miracle potty training method, where you potty train your child in one day. It involves a lot of potato chips and Coca-cola. GREAT. Sounds pretty damn retro to give your kid all that crap. Ain't no way like the 1974 way.
The day dawned... and we started potty training. I told Ivo that he had to pee in the potty, and we were going to wear these underwear instead of diapers. And, by the way, here was a giant glass of Coca-Cola and a plate of potato chips for breakfast. He must have been super-weirded out. He didn't drink the Coke (which he called "black juice"!), or eat the chips at all. So I sat around watching him play for about 100 hours until he then peed in his pants. Ugh.
Also, he was doing really bratty things like hitting me, and so I had to put him in time-out about three times... So he was not motivated to listen to me tell him that he had to pee and poop on the potty anyway, because I was being a draconian bastard.
To make a long story short, he was not potty trained in one day. It was a fairly upsetting day for both of us actually.
Later that night, I was reading a bunch of stuff on the internet about potty training and I had a revelation. Part of the potty training method that they market as the "One Day" solution, has to do with getting a doll that wets him or herself and putting the doll on the potty after you feed them liquid. Genius.
The next day Ivo and I sat on the floor and pretended that all his dolls, all 10,000 of them... were in school. We were the teachers. I made ALL the dolls wear underwear. Funny when the underwear are a 2T and the dolls are 5 inches high, but these are the things that don't faze a tiny tot at all. I made all the dolls have accidents so that they could change their underwear, and then I made them all go to the potty, pee and poop... OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Well, maybe for like one hour. But after all that, Ivo GOT IT! He totally used the potty by himself, and was loving it!
As long as he was totally naked.
Anytime I put underwear on him, he would just take a dump right in it, and didn't care one bit. Same as diapers. Crap.
That night, I went on the internet again, and came up with this solution. No underwear.
The next day, after one incident of getting crap all over his leg (he was completely freaked out to have poop on his foot. I didn't feel too good about it either... especially when he kicked his foot and a chunk of poop went flying through the air in slow motion), he got the whole pulling your pants down to go potty thing. And that, as they say, was that. Done. He had a couple of accidents, but now he is trained during the day. And I phased back in the underwear after about a week or so. At night, he started by saying that he didn't want pull-ups, and actually got up in the night to go, but after a couple of night-time accidents, necessitating Google searches on "enzymatic mattress cleaner", I decided that pull-ups were the way.
I am so happy that I have changed my last diaper (for now that is). He is becoming a big kid so fast, it's crazy. Yay, Ivo!
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