It is time for a much overdue potty training update. I would've written something sooner, but, well, there was nothing to report. I had great intentions about potty training, but I have great intentions about a lot of things, like wearing shoes to work. But that doesn't mean there wasn't a day a couple of weeks ago where I went to back out of the driveway for work and I realized the brake pedal in the car felt weird. It took me a minute to figure out what was going on, but after looking down, I realized it felt weird because I was about to drive to work barefoot. (In my own defense, I do often put my shoes on when I get to the car so the kids don't hear me walking through the house and across the porch. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.)
So Leon was the first one to show real interest in using the potty. And then something happened, and he lost interest. Then Michael got interested. And Michael got to where he was at least using the potty every night before bed. It was a small step for potty training, but a huge step for laundry reduction because even if he went in his diaper, at least he was no longer overflowing and we weren't having to change his sheets multiple times a week.
A few weeks ago my mom made charts for the boys to hang up in the bathroom where they could add stickers to track their success. Great idea, but they just sat on the bathroom counter for a long time because I didn't feel like encouraging potty use. I know, bad mommy. (But do you know how flippin' time consuming it is to take two boys to the potty???? You think girls are bad, but they don't have to figure out how every part of the toilet works, or ask what the parts are called 15 gajillion times. They do not feel the need to stick their head IN the bowl to watch it flush or to watch their sibling go to the bathroom. They also do not find ways to get dirtier while washing their hands, or decide that really, they need to wash their feet too.) But on Saturday I finally managed to clean the bathroom, and in doing so, I hung up the potty charts. (And, yes, this means it had been weeks since I had cleaned the kids' bathroom. Twitch, twitch.)
Ree noticed the charts right away, but I told her they were a secret, and we would tell the boys about them on Sunday. She thought that was fun. They were very excited to discover them, and we spent a few minutes making sure that everyone knew the name that started with L was Leon and the name that started with M was Michael. The first question each of the kids' asked was where was Ree's chart? So I dutifully made her one too yesterday.
Things went pretty well on Sunday. The boys liked the chart, and Leon's super-competitiveness kicked in. He kept counting to make sure he had more stickers than Michael, and he even went before bed to make sure he had the most stickers for the day. I realized I kinda liked it too. The stars were encouraging for me - yes, there is an end to having three kids in diapers!
Yesterday morning Leon was skinner than usual when he got up, and given that the boy has the body of a Tootsie Pop with a big round head and a stick body, this meant he was really, really skinny. It turns out he had gotten up, taken off his diaper and placed it in the corner, and put his pajama shorts back on. He then informed Jeff, "I don't need diapies anymore."
If only it were that simple.
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