Mommy, Where's the Butt Hole?

Through our potty training adventures my son has grown quiet curious about his underwear. Which way they go on, which way is backwards, and why underwear even has to be worn.

Our most recent ventures have included defining what the little hole is for...

A few months ago my son realized that the front of his underwear had a hole. He immediately asked what it was for and I had to explain that it was for his penis. That some boys choose to use this hole when they go pee pee so they don't have to take down their underwear.

"So it's a penis hole, right?" He asked. Yup. A penis hole.

After we clarified what a penis hole was, every time he put on his underwear he asked if the penis hole went in the front or in the back. And I'd reiterate that the penis hole went in the front. Because his penis was there.

A few weeks passed and we began our daily routine of getting dress.

Again, my son asked which way was front and which way was back. I asked him to look for the penis hole and to put that in front. He sat down, pulled up his undies, stood up, and looked down.

"Mommy, is there a butt hole too?"

Umm... no, honey, your underwear does not have a butt hole too. But thanks for the laugh!

5 Potty Training Must Haves {Tips & Tricks}

Three weeks ago my son was getting ready for the day and decided to take his night-time pull up off. Instead of reaching for a new pull up to put on for the day, he wanted to hang out naked. What can I tell you? My kids like to be naked.

Well... all of a sudden, 5 minutes later he comes running to me telling me he has to go potty. So we go to the bathroom and he pees on the potty. Whoa... that's awesome!

Since our potty training regression a year ago the only effort I've made in the potty training department is to make sure my son knew he had to be potty trained before he could go to preschool (a requirement of the school we were looking at sending him to). I left everything else up to him.

After the first successful pee we had a few more. Followed by an accident outside in the grass. This continued throughout the day and into the next three days. There was an accident here or there but nothing major. And usually the accidents occurred when he was in his underwear. So we left the underwear off unless we were going out and just followed his cues.

In no time he was running to the potty alone, pulling down his pants, and going. And after 2 weeks he decided it was time to go potty standing up. So now he goes like a big boy on his own, with only a little help from mom or dad.

If I knew potty training was this easy I wouldn't have attempted to do it when he was 2! Here are my must haves for potty training success:

5 Potty Training Must Haves

Small Portable Potty

A small potty is a must for any potty training household. Not only is it convenient to move throughout the house as needed, you can even throw it in the back of your car for much needed potty breaks on the go. Going camping? Or taking a road trip? Avoid icky public restrooms by bringing along your Joovy Loo!

We keep ours in the bathroom and take it with us when we're going places we know wont have restrooms (or if the restrooms or dirty or hard to find) like the beach and park. I've found that my daughter is now starting to show an interest in using the potty so we'll be keeping this around for a while until she feels comfortable on the big potty.

My son also loves his Mommy's Helper potty seat that we got from Amazon.com. It stays on the side of our toilet and he pulls it out whenever he's going to be in the restroom for a while...

Potty Cover
For those times when you're forced to use public restrooms, make sure you have your Potty Cover with you! They're individually packaged for on-the-go ease and fit nicely in a diaper bag or purse. Plus, with children who like to touch EVERYTHING, these will keep your kids clean and sanitary.

Covers the whole potty, not just the top...

I've found these to be helpful when we're at a park or another location where seat covers aren't easily accessible. And they're great for wet bottoms because they won't fall apart or rip on you (ever get out of the pool or ocean and try to use the restroom? Not fun!). 

Compostable Disinfectant Wipes

My little one is still figuring out aim. With that there are a lot of potty clean ups at home and on the go. We had quite a fun time at Disneyland recently and he managed to get the wall covered in urine. Too bad they don't make these in to-go wipes too!

Since these GreenWorks compostable cleaning wipes can be easily stored in the bathroom cabinet or close to the toilet, and they're 99% plant derived, I feel safe using these around my kids. They do a great job cleaning out the little potty too!

Super Undies

Instead of sticking with Pull Ups for night time use we've made the switch to cloth trainers for night time and our choice has been Super Undies. They look and feel just like regular underwear but have a bit of absorbency for small accidents. You can also use the doubler included to maximize the absorbency if you have a heavy night wetter.

Luckily it only took our son 4 nights to realize he had to "hold it in" until he got ot the toilet and now wakes up and goes to the restroom instead of relieving himself in his (or our) bed. But he still likes his Super Undies so we use them just in case.

And last but not least...

Rewards! 

We are currently using gummy worms or M&Ms as a pee-pee on the potty reward and DumDums as a poo-poo on the potty reward. And you know what? My kid loves his rewards. He is constantly telling friends and family that he goes pee-pee on the potty so he can get his worm.

And since we've promised him a LEGO dinosaur when he goes a whole week without accidents, we'll be heading out to purchase said $50 toy on Saturday. Yup, that's right folks, when you promise a reward you'd better be ready to pay up. Because your kid WONT let you forget.

Has your child began potty training/learning? Have any tips you'd like to share?

Disclaimer: I received one or more of the products mentioned above for free using Tomoson.com and other companies. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers.

 

Mini Breakdowns A Plenty #NaBloPoMo

The past week or so I've been going through a change. I've started re-decorating my kids room and am changing things up a bit. That includes a few fresh coats of paint on the walls. Covering up the nursery stripes we added shortly before we had our first child.

I recently received forest friends wall decals from My Wonderful Walls and wanted to make sure I made the most of them in creating a great landscape for the decals to go on. I started painting a blue sky and rolling green hills so that the forest creatures would feel right at home.

As I finished up the last coat of green paint on the hills I put the lid on the paint can, closed the bedroom door, and went to check the decals website for any tips and tricks to putting them up.

The kids were happily playing in the playroom together so I didn't think anything of the silence that interrupted my time perusing the site. Until it became deafening. Then I started to worry...

I knew the kids were no longer in the playroom and had no idea where they had gone.

So I went off to find them. I walked down the hall, past the empty playroom to my son's bedroom door. And what I saw inside made my heart leap.

Paint. Green paint. Everywhere!

Click on photo to enlarge and REALLY see the damage

Oh.my.word. If ever there was a time for me to lose it, this was it. I quickly rushed into action commanding the kids to stop what they were doing and put down the brushes (my daughter found hte sponge brush I had on my son's bed for touch ups later). After the brushes were down I had to make sure they knew they were NOT to put their hands back in the gallon of paint.

From there I whisked both kids in my arms as carefully as I could and raced to the bathroom. I started the water, stripped off their clothes, and plopped them in. I didn't waste time and hurried to grab baby wipes, towels, and warm soapy water. From there I grabbed the phone, called the husband to tell him to drop everything and come home, and got to work.

For the most part the only real damage is the paint on the carpets and blinds and my mini breakdown.  And we needed to replace the carpet and blinds soon anyway.

The kids were cleaned up, although my daughter still has a little paint on her scalp, and it could have been a LOT worse than it was. I even added another set of hills in a different shade of green we had in the garage without the kids help this time. And the walls are just about ready for those decals!

I'm sure that more of these fun adventures are in our future. With kids as crazy fun as mine, it's bound to happen. I can laugh about it now and appreciate their creative genius and excitement to help me paint.  They really were, and still are, proud of their artwork.

What makes your heart leap?

Starbucks Shirts

A snippet of the conversation I had with my 2.5 year old son this morning: 

"I have Starbucks on my shirt"
"Starbucks?"
"Yeah, see the light sabers?"

He's wearing his starWARS t-shirt. This is what gets me through my day. Seriously.

Terrible Twos Lead to the Terrific Threes, Right?

This weekend my son was helping Daddy up on the hill. They're working on making room for a planter box so that they can start growing fun stuff like squash and pumpkin. (Side note: This is my husband's project. I am not interjecting with any opinions about the fact that they're working on this at the end of summer and might not get any results. They're bonding together and that's what counts.) During the fun of digging and playing in the dirt my son got the fun idea to start putting toys and trash in the post holes they were digging. My husband told him not to do it and gave him a warning. If he did it one more time he'd get a time out.

Well, as any testing toddler would do, he did it again. And he was promptly brought in by Daddy who told him that he was going on time out for putting another toy down the hole and not listening to Daddy. My son sat down as told and started telling my husband something a few seconds later. My husband kept on trying to figure out what he was saying and after about half a minute finally figured it out. "Timer go off, Daddy?" my son was asking him.

He knew that when we go on time out we have to sit down until the timer goes off. Daddy forgot. But my son is smart (at least I think so ;)) and was reminding Daddy that the timer needed to be set so he would know when to get up. So Daddy set the timer for a minute since more than a minute had passed and E was insisting on having the timer. When the timer went off, my husband explained again why E was on time out and asked that he not throw toys down the hole. E happily got up, nodded in agreement and started playing again.

Now I am not sure if time outs are doing what they're supposed to be doing (I'm assuming this is correcting the behavior by negative reinforcement, right? Taking his freedom away for doing what he's not supposed to?). Because sometimes he'll push again and again and do the same thing he was just put on time out for. But deep down I know that this time out is not only for him but for us too.

Sometimes I get very upset at my son's actions and react in a not so nice way by raising my voice and grabbing him to put him in time out instead of walking him over or telling him to walk over himself. I feel my blood start to boil sometimes and feel my face get flush. That's when I know that the time out is not only going to help our son learn but will help me take a break and gain my cool again. I try and give myself mini time outs throughout the day. 10 seconds, 30 seconds, whatever I need. Because if I don't get that time to cool off I am afraid I might react without thinking and tap his butt. So with the help of time outs I hope that I am teaching my son that we do have boundaries and those boundaries are enforced.  

Here are the steps we follow to insure that time-outs in our house are always the same and are (almost) always successful:

Warning
When E does something he's not supposed to we give him a warning and let him know if he does it again he will get a time out. If he does that action again we do not give another warning, we put him on time out (or if we told him we'd leave... we'd leave. Especially if he's just bitten a kid.)

Explaining
As we walk E to the time out rug/spot we explain to him why he's on time out, how long he will be on time out for, and what we would like him to do when he gets up from time out. That can range from being nicer with his hands to saying sorry and giving his sister a kiss for throwing a toy.

Timer
E knows that his time outs are two minutes. In an effort to make sure he understands that time is passing and that his time out will come to an end after that two minutes is up we set the kitchen timer. He knows he cannot get up off the rug until the timer goes off.

Re-Explaining
After the timer goes off we make sure to tell him why he was on time out again. And we ask him to tell us why he was on time out too. Most of the time he says "I don't know". But I know if he can remember that the timer needs to be set for two minutes then he knows why he was on time out.

If he continues to do what he is doing and a time out isn't working I will usually tell him he needs to go to bed. I go into his room, close the blinds, put him on top of his covers, take away the tv (yes... my 2 year old has his own tv... talk to his dad), and close the door. I don't return for 5 minutes. That gives me time to cool down and him time to forget what he was doing wrong so he doesn't do it again. Sometimes I feel like locking him in his room for the whole day but I think he probably wouldn't mind that.

Do you have any great tips on how to react to kids pushing boundaries? Please feel free to share :)