Like Training for a Marathon, Only Harder

Aiden graciously shared his new underwear with the dog.

Since we are all settled and comfortable and well into our South Carolina six month vacation of fun, and I no longer have to worry about graduating from college, I've found new things to worry about. This always happens, I'm convinced that if I could just take care of one big issue then I would be stress free. Except then I find something new to worry over.

Right now it's potty training. We were considering sending Aiden to preschool when we come home in November, in which case I wanted him to be potty trained. However, now we're thinking we may just enroll him in a music or tumbling class in addition to library time instead. Nevertheless, I'm all gung-ho about potty training whatever we end up doing this fall.

I read all of the material I could find, half of which says kids are physically ready by 18 months, while the other half says they'll tell you when they're ready. Well, Aiden has taken to telling us exactly when he needs to go and occasionally getting out of his diaper so that he could go sit on the potty and go. Pretty clear signs he's more than ready right? Seems that way to me.

So Sean went out and bought him a super sized package of Cars themed underwear (which is SO CUTE. ) and one morning I put them on him and explained that he could wear them since he kept pulling off his diaper to go potty. This didn't work. No matter how much I monitored him he would just go in the underwear. He didn't want to sit on the potty, he didn't even want to go near the potty.

So three days later he went back to diapers (which I've now read is the ultimate no-no, but whatever). Well, as of yesterday he's started yanking off the diaper to get to the potty. Not consistently, but pretty often. What the heck?! What am I supposed to do now? I want to keep encouraging him doing so while he's still in a diaper seems silly. Pull-Ups do nothing either, they're just another diaper to him. I am so lost!!!

I asked my mother what she did and she says she can't really remember but that it wasn't fun and it took a long time (another reason for starting now, so it doesn't drag on for a year). I don't really like the whole 'timer' method because it doesn't work for him, he'll just kick and scream, and because I want him to know to go when he feels it, not just every half hour. Skittles didn't work because he just ended up begging for skittles all day. The underwear, although he LOVED them, didn't work either.

Seriously, I'd like to hire a potty training coach. Maybe THEY could figure it out.