Confessions of a Potty Trainer

One year ago, right around this time, we halfheartedly attempted to potty train Lucas. It did not go well. Since that debacle, we have been somewhat hesitant to give it another go. There was one day, a few months ago (I believe it was the day we put our house on the market) that he announced that he wanted to stop wearing diapers and wanted to go on the potty. That enthusiasm was short lived, and approximately 10 hours and five pairs of soiled underwear later, we decided it still was not the time.

Potty training is hard work, and if I am completely honest I think that I had been putting it off. We have been so busy and exhausted because of all of this business with the move, the idea of going full throttle into potty training seemed completely overwhelming. The past few months, Lucas began going on the potty before his bath, without screaming bloody murder and was actually pretty proud of himself about it. But that's where it ended. Until one afternoon a few weeks ago out of nowhere as I was changing Luke's diaper, I decided that's enough! 5 straight years of daily diaper changes is enough! He is ready - let's just DO THIS THING.

Marty and I talked it over and decided that when we got back from vacation, it was the end of diapers. That was it - the end of the line. The date was set. We began giving him pep talks, preparing him for what was to come, and giving ourselves pep talks about how great this was going to be and how much it would be worth it once we got through it.

Two days before vacation, I was wandering around Target picking up sunscreen and other random things for our trip and decided spur of the moment to pick up some superhero underwear for when we got back from vacation. The next morning, I excitedly showed Lucas his new undies, and he immediately begged to wear them, so I put them on him, at first just to humor him. Elise had a doctor's appointment back near our old house (nearly an hour away) so as we were getting ready to leave, I told Lucas we needed to put on a diaper. He cried and cried and begged to keep wearing his new undies. I decided that forcing him to wear a diaper was probably not putting us on the path to being diaper-free in a week and a half, so I threw a change of clothes and a diaper in a bag - I would just change his clothes when he inevitably had an accident.

We had a busy day - an hour drive, doctor's visit, a playdate, a drive home and a nap. And to my utter astonishment Lucas was accident free (and diaper free) through it all! The next morning, as we scrambled to get ready for our beach vacation, Lucas once again begged to wear is underwear. Marty and I looked at each other and asked Ok, are we doing this NOW? It seemed like the momentum was there and waiting until we got back from vacation could damage all this great progress we were making (which was initiated by him!) so we sighed and threw a bunch of underwear and changes of clothes into his suitcase and headed for vacation. We were, in fact, doing this now.

I almost immediately regretted this decision. As I mentioned, potty training is hard work - and hard work is not exactly something that sounds fun for a relaxing beach vacation. When we arrived at the beach, it wasn't quite time for us to check in at the house yet, so we stopped at a playground to kill some time. It was after 2pm and he had done a great job on the trip down, but within 20 minutes after arriving at the playground he announced "I pooped!" leaving me wondering what in the world we were possibly thinking. How did I ever think this was a good idea I wondered as I attempted to change his dirty underwear in a completely packed car in 90 degree weather.

True, it was a major set back, and I started to feel defeated, but quickly realized that this wasn't going to be possible if we weren't energetic and positive about this. Here we are, at the beach 24/7 with our child for an entire week without any plans. It was actually the PERFECT time to potty train. Yes, there were going to be accidents, but that's to be expected. We were going to throw our all into this process and he was going to succeed. I could just feel it.

So, succeed we did! After an accident here and there the first few days, Lucas was completely accident free from Monday afternoon to Friday. We cheered, we had amazing Potty Parades, and most of all we believed in him. And he began to believe in himself.

It has by no means been completely perfect since we got back from vacation. There have been some accidents and some setbacks. But when he woke us up one morning at 5am completely dry saying "I have to go potty" I knew that by and large we have gotten over the potty hurdle and we succeeded.

It wasn't the most relaxing vacation ever. But it may have been the best vacation we ever had.

Expectations of a Father

I'm not really sure what I expected being a father. There's obviously the things you learn from your own dad and many of my dadisms come through loud and clear when I find myself saying something in the voice of Mike Stauffer... scary stuff. There's also the stuff you watch in the media but for good or ill, none of that sinks in for me. No, I'm hybrid dad, one that feeds off of his partner, best friend and wife, but also one that is unique to the characteristics of his own children. Meredith stakes out the rational middle and I inhabit the extremes of 'Woo-Hoo!' and 'Get over here RIGHT NOW!'

I suppose my internal audit of being a dad came from spending the past week on vacation with my family. Nothing makes you feel more like a child than spending a week with your parents and siblings and nothing makes you feel more like a dad than constantly corralling, disciplining, potty training, laughing, scaring, swimming and at the beck and call of one's own kids. (Especially one's own kids in the presence of parents and siblings... how old am I?)

As I gathered my receipts and began the paperwork for my audit, (I'm not entirely sure how far I can take this metaphor) I found myself having several conversations that were very illuminating to me. 1) Hanging out with a 17 year old whom I see a lot of myself in, (I am so sorry about that, Nate!) I was recounting a number of memories, good and bad as we discussed things that occur at that stage of one's life. Issues often came back to those of manhood - what it really means to come of age and how hard it is to find one's own true voice when there is so much anger, uncertainly, love and confusion. I recounted one especially important story about what is seen in the mirror and how to use that as fodder to move forward or as a reminder of not looking back.

2) Hanging out with my partner, best friend and wife. We're not the same as we once were. We're full on, totally committed parents and sometimes, that is a really hard fact to face. Where did the footloose, fancy and carefree versions of ourselves disappear to? Oh, yeah, I believe they were flushed down the toilet with the constant vigilance of potty training our little lad. However, in the midst of a totally rocking bigger-than-the- Mummer's Potty Parade where we had pots banging and hands clapping, marching all around the house, led by a very proud and very excited new member of the underpants wearing gang, (diapers...diapers...we don't need no stinkin' diapers!) I realized that we are totally and completely insane. And totally and completely awesome! We convinced five other grown ups to participate in a Potty Parade around a beach house at least six times. This tells me several things - our relatives are also insane & awesome and our boy has the cute charm working overtime! By the way, we totally potty trained Luke on vacation - it's pretty great. The things is though, we are still footloose, fancy and carefree - it just looks really different. Footloose is now a potty parade. Fancy is watching Cinderella at 6 in the morning and carefree is...I'll get back to you on carefree.

The third thing was coming home. Tonight, our last night of vacation, I took Elise's training wheels off her bike. There is nothing that was smart about this. The timing: five o'clock before dinner on a Sunday. The situation: created by a random desire of a five year old. The sibling: holding a bat and yelling at his dad and sister about which way not to ride. The helmet, knee pads, elbow pads or other accoutrement to avoid street rashes: none. Here I am in 100 degree heat and 200% humidity in sandals, with my daughter peddling her little heart out alternating between utter abandon (see lack of accoutrement above) and total devastating fear of me letting go of her and absolute excitement about her new found freedom to ride. (We're not there yet.)

It was in this moment, as I panted breathlessly next to my ridiculously happy daughter (did I mention she was also in a dress of course) that I realized my expectations as a dad. A strange, silly, happy mixture of teacher, buddy, sometimes the yelling meanie, motivator (co-inventor of the potty parade) and always ridiculously thrilled to be around his kids.

Oh, and I do believe that last story confirms the carefree!

Favorite Things - Summer 2011

I used to keep track of all of Elise's "favorite things" of the moment on her blog, and realized the other day that I have not been as diligent about keeping good records of what the kids are "into" from moment to moment. I am going to start getting much better about that, because really the children's likes and obsessions have a large impact on the entire family!

Books
Where the Wild Things Are - Both kids (but especially Lucas) are currently completely obsessed with this book right now. They both know all the words cover to cover, but insist on reading it every night. The favorite part, of course, is the Rumpus.

A Bad Case of Stripes - This is a book Elise picked out with a gift certificate she'd gotten to a book store for her birthday. She adores this book, which gets read almost every night since she got it. I'd say she made a good choice!

Toys

Cars & Trains - Lucas still really loves to play with cars and trains the most of everything and has continued to expand his imaginative play, creating conversations and elaborate (for a 2 year old) scenes.

Coloring - Not sure if this counts as a toy, but Elise has been completely obsessed with coloring lately. So much so that she actually colored an entire Jumbo coloring book in two days (doing a really good job too!) All of this practice has actually greatly enhanced her coloring skills!

Dolls - Elise has a ton of dolls, but they certainly do not go to waste! She still loves to play with her dolls regularly, although the way she plays with them has changed a bit. When she was younger, she always put the dolls to sleep, whereas now she puts them into school and makes them have conversations with one another (in addition to putting them to sleep!)

TV Show

Calliou - Much to my and Marty's chargin, this contiues to be the kids favorite tv show, although for a minute they were into Berenstain Bears, that phase passed very quickly and now it's back to Calliou.

Movie

Cinderella - Both children are easily scared and don't like to watch mean characters so they are fairly limited in the movies they like. They don't like much (because almost all movies have a plot with a bad/mean guy) but for some reason, in spite of the Evil Stepmother, Stepsisters and Lucifer, the kids have absolutely embraced all things Cinderella. We have movie night every Friday and 90% of the time, this is the movie that is chosen. There is also a lot of love for Cinderella 2 (if you haven't seen it, you aren't missing much) which also makes it into the rotation quite often. There is also a Cinderella 3 (which is actually fairly decent) but we have only watched it once and Elise declared it "too scary" and is boycotting it. Lucas really enjoys it, however, and has watched it quite a few times. They do like a few other movies (Aladin and Tinker Bell: Great Fairy Rescue are the others that come to mind) but Cinderella is by far their favorite for movie night. At Grams house, both kids adore Shrek. I have even caught Elise randomly reciting entire scenes from it, so it must be a big hit.

Food

Yogurt - A morning staple and frequent snack - probably the thing asked for the most by our kids. Also in this category is the drinkable yogurt, which in our house somehow became dubbed Monkey Juice because the kind we get has a monkey on the bottle.

Cereal Bars - Man my kids love cereal bars and would probably eat nothing else for meals and snacks if I let them. It is a new trend but has come on very strong in the last two weeks. They pretty much love all granola bars, which we call gorilla bars at our house because that what Elise called them before she could say "granola" and we thought it was adorable. I will probably call them gorilla bars for my entire life and people will probably think I am insane.

Themes
Princess/Fairy - Elise is still complete into princesses, although she is starting to like fairies more and more. Lucas also loves princesses, particularly princess books. He seems to like Jasmine the best because he has an obsession with looking at bellys and Jasmine's belly is - conveniently for him - "sticking out".

Superhero - Even though Lucas knows little to nothing about superheroes (other than what they look like) he really loves Superhero stuff. Batman continues to be his favorite, with Superman coming in a close second and Spiderman a somewhat distant but respectable third. He likes to wear capes and fake fly around, but mostly he just likes anything that has a superhero on it.

Adjustments

It is taking all of us a bit of time to adjust to the new house, new neighborhood, etc. It's all very, well, new. But some of us are adjusting better than others, with Lucas falling solidly in the "not adjusting very well" category. It's actually rather surprising given that he is typically the one in the family who has the most go-with-the-flow attitude. But on the other hand, it's actually not that surprising considering that he is probably the one in the family who knows the least about what the heck is going on!

We have obviously been talking about the move for months, and then we owned the new house for a few weeks before moving in, so we had lots of time to visit and get used to the new surroundings. And while we talked about it a lot - Lucas included - I don't think that he was actually grasping the concepts behind the words. Because he's still asking questions like "when are we going back to our house?" and such. And never having experienced all this change before, he had no real idea what it would mean.

Lucas has been having trouble falling asleep ever since we moved to the new house. Napping and bedtime have become somewhat nightmarish - usually ending in crying and screaming and not sleeping - and that's just me and Marty! =) He doesn't seem to want to be alone in his room so he begs and begs for you to stay with him and then he just won't fall asleep. It has been a tough (and exhausting!) time for everyone, though I might possibly see a light at the end of the tunnel - it does feel like it's getting a little better (or maybe I am just getting used to it!)

He has also been acting out in other ways - though I can't be sure if they are related to moving or related to the fact that he his two. He has been, as of late, completely unable to demonstrate any impulse control AT ALL and has gone back to the day of hitting, kicking, randomly dumping things out of containers/drawers and onto the floor for no reason. It has been resulting in lots of time outs but not necessarily lots of "lessons learned" as he is continuing to demonstrate the behavior. Again, it could just be that he's two and stubborn, but it could also be his way of exhibiting control over a world he doesn't feel like he has control over anymore. Whatever it is, I am hoping that it is short lived!

It's not all doom and gloom and sleeplessness though! Lucas and Elise have actually been particularly lovely to each other since we've moved (not that they haven't had their moments) showing a wonderful "we're in this thing together" kind of bond that results in lots of hugging, kissing and laughing between the siblings. Kind of makes all those hard times worth it.

Birthday Week

Five years ago, a sweet little girl came into our lives and nothing has ever been the same for the Molloy family! We celebrated our little darling turning five with multiple celebrations - each one involving cake, presents, people we love, and a whole lotta fun.

Elise obviously really wanted to have a birthday party with her friends, but it seemed completely overwhelming to me to plan and throw a birthday party in the middle of a move in a month already jam-packed with other birthday parties, holidays and school festivities. Where could we even have it (our new house and our old house were not options) without spending a small fortune and when could we possibly pull this off? Time was ticking and I, of course, had failed to make a decision, so we finally settled on a date and spending a small fortune having it at a fancy location. When I mentioned the intended date to Elise's friend Ana's mom, she told me that it was the same day she planned to have Ana's party and suggested that we combine them since it would be pretty much the same kids invited anyway. This ended up being the best possible solution. It is lucky for me (and yet sort of strange) that all of Elise's best buddies are also June Bugs!

We had a joint celebration for Elise and Ana at Ana's house - a backyard BBQ with a little pool and swing-set that kept the kids fully entertained! The kids had a blast running around the yard and playing in the water, while the adults enjoyed hanging out on a wonderful afternoon. Almost all of Elise and Ana's friends from school were there - with the sad exception of Audrey, who was out of town and Sara Jane, who was having her own birthday party that day too (too many June babies!) but everyone that was there had a fabulous time.

When it was time to sing, we decided to sing Happy Birthday to each girl separately so they each got their turn in the spotlight. We sung to Ana first, since her birthday was first, and things went very smoothly until Ana blew out the candles. Elise burst into tears and I had to reassure her that we'd light them again for her! She had a little trouble getting it together for her birthday song - she was so traumatized by the candle incident - but it all ended up fine. She was thrilled to have an afternoon to celebrate and play with her friends from school and to celebrate with her good buddy Ana.

On her actual birthday, which fell on a Thursday, I told Elise that she could pick the dinner menu for her birthday celebration. She chose pizza, pretzels and peppers so we all had quite a yummy and eclectic feast as a family. Gram and Grandpa then joined us for cake and presents. She was thrilled to receive not one but TWO awesome new dolls - toddler Cinderella and a Fancy Nancy doll - which she has been playing with non-stop!

This weekend we celebrated yet again, this time in Delaware with Oma, Opa, Uncle Wolfe, Aunt Kate and cousin Eamon. More yummy cake and awesome presents - the girl certainly never seems to tire of being the center of attention and eating tons of sweets! Elise and Lucas had a great time hanging out with their cousin Eamon (although it made us wish we could get them all together more!) and also enjoying the 4th of July festivities in Delaware in addition to the birthday hoopla.

We had a wonderful week celebrating our little girl. She has really grown a lot over the last few months, which is so exciting to see but of course a little sad too! She is so excited about this next phase of her life - kindergarten in the fall, new friends and new adventures.

I have a feeling that five is going to be an awesome age for our sweet Elise.