Potty Training

Well, if you read my coming-back post, you will know that one of my goals this summer was to get Audrey potty-trained.  And, thankfully, I think we’ve finally hit on something that works for us!

To back things up, let’s recount how terrible--yes, TERRIBLE--potty training has been so far.

Audrey showed potty training readiness last June.  Yeah, a whole YEAR ago.  She was interested in watching others go potty, she was able to stay dry for long periods of time, etc.  In all the books I consulted they would print a list of characteristics that show that your child is likely ready to potty train.  She hit pretty much everything on the list.  So, I figured I would give it a go!

Bad, bad choice.  Of course, there was no way for me to know that.  And, given the experiences I’ve had, even if presented with a child very similar to Audrey now, I would probably still have tried the potty.  I guess you never know.  But Audrey did NOT take to pottying.  We decided to do the bare butt method in which you take diapers off so the kid could feel pee running down their legs when they went.  We gave Audrey lots to drink and rolled up the rugs (we were in our old house still at this point thankfully, or we would have had tons of carpet to contend with).  She had some expected accidents and appropriately freaked out that she had peed on herself.  I would rush her to the potty so she could finish peeing in there.  Praise her.  But looking back, she just seemed so confused by the whole thing.  I would set a timer and put her on the potty every time the timer dinged, and at first she was compliant and would sit.  If I knew she was due to pee and hadn’t for awhile, I would give her popsicles to keep her on the potty until she actually went and then allow her to get up.  I would praise her and be super ridiculously over the top about it.  Allow her to play with play-doh as a reward (play-doh was new then).  I kept track of the times she peed and pooped, how much there was, how much made it into the potty, how resistant she was to sitting on the potty.

This was Audrey being "potty-trained" last year, eating a Popsicle and watching Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. 

This happened for about two days.  We stayed inside and I thought I was about to lose my mind because I never took my eyes off her the entire time.  It was literally worse than being home alone during maternity leave with a crying baby with no idea why.  I of course had read that kids pick up on this dread though, so I tried so, so hard to be happy and excited and promoting the idea of peeing, thinking that it might just be a sucky week but so worth it in the end. 

The third day I thought we’d made real progress...she was going longer and longer in between pee breaks...we were up to about an hour to an hour and a half!  I put training pants on her (per the method I was following in a book).  She had several accidents and went through about eight pairs of underwear.  Finally I just let her be bare again.  We went several hours without peeing.  “Nailed it!” I thought.

The next day she also went several, several hours without peeing.  In fact, she only peed once that entire day (during her nap when she had a diaper on).  She started to resist the potty, screaming and kicking and hitting and even biting me, which Audrey never did.  She sobbed and threw tantrums if she even looked at the potty.  In the meantime, it had also been awhile since she’d pooped, too.  I tried to give her more to drink, juice even, but she would drink only very small amounts.  It was almost like she was on to me.  I was at my wit’s end trying to keep her hydrated and free of urinary tract infections or constipation...I didn’t know what to do.  Finally, by the end of the week, Kyle took her potty while at church.  She bucked and screamed and cried and hit him, too.  After church that day, we had a very serious discussion that we were doing more psychological harm than teaching her how to potty.  She just wasn’t ready.  We put her back in diapers but left the potty out in case she ever wanted to sit on it.  She didn’t.  And she would scream and get angry if we even suggested she sit on it.  After about two more weeks of that, we put the potty away.  Throughout this time, she still stayed dry in her diaper fairly well, she still was interested in watching us potty, and, thankfully, she began to pee and poop regularly again. 

Okay, so she was too young.  She wasn’t mentally prepared.  That’s okay.  We’d try again later.

By about October, my sitter (who has trained dozens of kids to potty) said she thought Audrey would be ready to try again.  Audrey had noticed that the older three and four-year-old girls wore panties and used the potty, and she wanted to play with and be just like them.  Okay, let’s capitalize on that!  We waited until after we moved and got settled into the new house.  I bought some pull-ups for at the sitter.  After being traumatized the last time, I didn’t have the courage for cloth.  Also, our sitter wouldn’t be able to keep a constant eye on Audrey every second of the day like I could because she also had other kids to watch.  And, in both our house and the sitter’s house, there was carpet in the main living areas where Audrey spent most of her time.  Pull-ups were the right choice there.

Audrey started slow.  She would tinkle in the potty if we forced her to sit on it, and then finish in her pull-up.  It didn’t matter if we or the sitter made her sit there for thirty seconds or an hour.  We tried rewards, but she didn’t show interest in them.  We tried bribery, but nothing.  Sometimes she would refuse to sit on the potty even though it had been hours since she’d last gone.  Just two months ago, Kyle threatened to spank Audrey if she refused to sit on the potty because we knew that she KNEW how to use the potty but was just being obstinate.  He offered her the choice and she took the spanking, which kind of took us aback.  The rest of the day when we told her it was time to potty she would reply, “No, just hit my butt.”

The really frustrating part is that she would teeter back and forth.  Some days she would do really well, and some days she would do nothing on the potty.  We even got her grandmas, her favorite two people in the world, to try to help us.  My mom, who had me potty trained before 18 months, was at a loss.  We would bring her potty out to sit on so she didn’t have to go far to pee, and nothing.  Our sitter did the same, and no results.  When we told her that she couldn’t play with the big girls at the sitter’s house until she peed in the potty, she lost interest in playing with them.  We would ask Audrey where babies peed (diapers) and where big girls peed (potties).  Then we would ask if she was a baby or a big girl.  She would say, “A big girl, but I will pee in my underwear.”  She knew the rules but didn’t want them to apply to her.  AND she would come down hard on any kid she saw who had an accident or who wore diapers, but it never occurred to her that she still did those things.  We just kept consoling ourselves...time, time, time.  No kid goes to college in diapers, right?  RIGHT?!

Finally, a few days after school was out (so only a few weeks ago), it was obvious that Audrey had to poop.  And that she was pooping.  We caught her early, so we rushed her to the bathroom and put her on the potty.  It was traumatizing to her, but she went.  She was so proud that she had pooped in the potty and kept talking about what a big girl she was.  We talked her up, too.  When she pooped a couple of days later, same thing.  She screamed and cried the whole time, but she pooped on the potty.  And she was proud of herself.

At about this time, Audrey went to play for awhile at a friend’s house and this friend had several Disney princesses that Audrey wanted to bring home with her.  I told her if she was a good girl over the next few days (mostly I meant listening, going down for a nap when I told her to, etc.) I would buy her the princesses.  She was, so Kyle and Audrey and I went to the store.  We didn’t find the same ones, but we found a busy book that came with a princess book, eleven princess figurines, a charm bracelet, and a story sheet that you can put your princesses on to play.  We had a sudden inspiration...Audrey had been having a few up days in a row with peeing on the potty...maybe we could make this work?  We made a deal with her.  Do a good job going pee on the potty, and you can have one princess at the end of each day.  A poop in the potty automatically guaranteed a princess right away, no matter the time of day.  She got to pick the princess, of course.  Doing a good job consisted of going without complaint when Mommy or Daddy asked and keeping pee out of her underwear (pull ups).  She agreed, although she probably didn’t realize what she was agreeing to.  We gave her the book that night and put the princesses inside the medicine cabinet in her bathroom so I could open the mirror and show her the princesses I was holding hostage inside out of her reach. 

It. Worked. 

Now, if I would have tried this earlier, would it have probably worked?  I’m guessing not.  Audrey was in the right frame of mind FINALLY in combination with having had a few successful pee days and two poops on the potty (which were rough compared to peeing on the potty).  Also, since I’m pregnant we’ve been talking a lot more about babies and diapers lately, so she’s been seeing diapers get stockpiled again.  She is also very much on board with being a big sister and a big helper, so I think it all finally clicked in her head.  Hallelujah!

There were some hiccups, of course.  She went swimming in her kiddie pool a few times during that first week and twice instead of going inside to pee, she went over and squatted near a tree instead (once was my fault...she had just been in to potty five minutes earlier so I told her she didn’t need to go...oops).  That weekend Audrey went on a trip to Michigan with my in-laws and the pottying was kind of rough since it was a several hour drive and lots of fun in the pool, at the park, and at the zoo.  We waited until after the trip was over to start big girl princess panties.  Audrey has had approximately a few accidents in her big girl panties, twice at the times I was talking to contractors for our bathroom remodel, so I can justify those...she probably was too intimidated by the strangers to come tell me she had to go.  Another day she went through four pairs of panties, but we are chalking that up to her guzzling apple juice (which we usually do not allow).  On the latter day, when she told me she had peed in her panties again, she yelled, "I'm so sorry!  I'm so sorry!" over and over again.

Now we’re about three and a half weeks out from starting the princesses and two weeks out from panties.  We still have some major steps to take, though...she still is afraid to poop in the potty.  We have to sit down and coach her through pooping, if she will do it at all.  Also, she is getting better at lengthening the amount of time between potty breaks (about 3 hours now!) but I’m still the one telling her she needs to go.  This week we are going to try to allow her to figure out when she needs to go and I will be quieter. 

I’m so relieved!  Pun intended!  We are all very excited for Audrey that she is doing so well.  Audrey is so proud to be a big girl.  Audrey still wears pull-ups (now named night-night underwear) for naps and at night, but even those are drier in the mornings than usual, and the naps the last few days have had zero pee in them.  Although we’re far from being completely trained, we’ve come a long way in the last few weeks.  Feel free to put another notch in my parenting bedpost.

Hello, Linden!

Kyle and I looked at many homes in the fall, but most were not very great upon actually seeing them.  As I mentioned, there was a house we became pretty excited about, but eventually went to someone else.  Although we were frustrated and heartbroken at the time, we now see that it was for the best that we didn’t get that house.  If we didn’t get that house, we wouldn’t have gotten ours.

Our Linden house was on the market for about two days when Kyle and I went to see it.  We put in an offer the next day, (a Thursday) but found out we weren’t the only ones bidding.  We were asked to come back with our highest offer and just to wait.  

Please excuse the fact that these are all screenshots...I wanted documentation of how this house looked before we got our hands on it.  So far, we have re-seeded the front lawn, as you can see that it's a little patchy.  The front of the old garage here looks white, but it really is yellow...the exact color of the rest of the house.  The flowers are wonderful perennials...now I just have to keep up with them!  It certainly is a lot more to weed!

We were sick with anxiety.  Every time my phone rang, I thought it would be our realtor.  The sellers' realtor was supposed to meet with them on that following Saturday to go over all the offers, so we hoped to hear that evening.  What actually happened was the other realtor had something unexpected come up and had to postpone his meeting with his clients until Sunday afternoon, so it was going to be another terrible day of waiting.  I felt like I could throw up all day that Sunday.  It was awful.

I woke up Saturday evening at about 11:45 PM with an idea that I should do more to help us get that house.  I had no idea what to do though, so I rolled over and went back to sleep.  I woke up again at about 4 AM with the same impression.  I had just had a lesson the previous morning with the Young Women about following promptings of the spirit so I got up out of bed and went to our half-packed dining room to think.  

Without really knowing what I was doing, I opened my chromebook to Google docs, thinking I would just type something up about what I was thinking, and I ended up with this:

Sunday, September 13, 2015

To the homeowners of XXXX Linden Street,

My name is Megan, and after my husband Kyle and I visited your home for a showing on Wednesday, we were immediately impressed.  We visited lots of homes that day and throughout the last few weeks, but yours stood out to us for several reasons, all of which were on our original wish list when we set out to purchase a new home.  After the heartbreak of seeing a few “potential” forever homes slip through our fingers within days of coming on the market, we knew we had to act fast so that we could be considered buyers of your lovely home.

It’s hard to say what we love most about the home.  My husband and I couldn’t stop smiling as we toured it and found new things to be excited about.  He and I have very different priorities.  I want ample space for our family to grow, and your home has it in spades.  We have one daughter named Audrey who will be two tomorrow, and we plan to start adding to our family very soon.  If we get your house, Audrey will be staying in the green bedroom, and she will have plenty of room to grow up there.

Audrey's bedroom--the biggest bedroom in the house!  That's alright, though, because eventually it'll be shared.  That's a king-size bed in there, folks!  Not bad for a house built in 1959.

We have since painted Audrey's room a very pale blue and ripped up these carpets to reveal the original hardwood floors underneath.

This was used as an..exercise room?  It houses our computer and desk right now, but it will be baby's room in October.  We removed the carpets and the walls are now a light gray.

Our bedroom.  We haven't done much in here except accidentally scorch the carpet (oops).  That's okay though because, guess what?  Original hardwood floors underneath.  We're thinking of covering the paneling with shiplap, but haven't gotten to that point yet.  All in good time.

Everyone told me that babies come with a lot of stuff, and they were right!  I wanted a designated playroom for Audrey and her future siblings because in our home right now we have to put several things in storage just to have enough living space, which is frustrating to all of us. We intend to make your formal dining room/piano room our play area because it has easy access to the backyard and is easy for me to watch the kids from the kitchen area.  After it’s done being a playroom, I could easily imagine it being a room to hold our future piano--I very much want our children to have lessons.  

The previous owners used this room to house their piano and as a formal dining room.  It's the playroom now.  Still not painted, but that's in the plans for this summer.  Carpet is newer, so it will be staying.  This is an addition, so there's no hardwood floors underneath.  We also plan to replace the light with a ceiling fan.

This room is actually quite huge!  It could be a living room in its own right if we wanted it to be!

I don't have very many pictures of the house right when we moved in, but I tried to capture Audrey's enthusiasm for having a room for just her toys.  Look how small she looks!

Audrey pointing out to Daddy that there are skylights in this room.

I also wanted to have a bathroom separate from the kids’, which is hard to find in a 1950s and 1960s style home.  None of the homes we have seen so far in our budget had double sinks in the bathroom...my heart almost bottomed out when I saw yours!  And as I continued through the bathroom into the master closet...let me just say I wanted to stay in that closet forever.

Our bathroom (you can't see it, but our master closet is just off of this and it's HUGE).

You see how there are even carpets in the bathroom?  Yeah, that's getting removed in a couple of weeks.

My husband of course is very particular about the yard, garage, and parking.  He also was not disappointed.  Your yard is very beautifully kept, and he fell in love instantly.  The yard is wonderfully big for a Muncie home, and he commented often on the deck space in both the front and back of the home.  Last weekend we had our daughter’s second birthday party with all of our family over, and we barely squeezed in (we have only a small strip of grass for backyard right now at our home, so going outside was not an option).  At your home, we could easily visualize having family over for cookouts and allowing the kids to play in the yard.  One of the best things about the home is that everyone would have a place to park instead of having to walk several blocks to our home.  

We're now the proud owners of a riding lawnmower to make this all easy work for Kyle.

Kyle also wants (but never dared dream he would actually get) his own little office, too, which he could have here.  One of my husband’s favorite things about your home?  The fireplace mantle, which he pointed out to me could hold our stockings at Christmastime.

What we use as our actual living room.  Probably this will get made over next summer.  Not pictured behind this room (about where the person taking the photo is standing) is another small room, used originally as an office.  Kyle wanted it for an office at first, but we're going to make it a mud/laundry room instead.

Audrey actually sitting in front of the fireplace during December.

Wanna know where our laundry is right now?  In that closet with the white doors.  Yep.  Since this room used to be a garage, and the laundry was originally in garages when houses were built during this time, our laundry is in our living room.  It actually hasn't been as weird as I thought...I'm actually a lot more on top of laundry because of it and can do laundry and watch TV at the same time!  But...it is going to get moved eventually.

We had this extra room at the front that we didn't know what to do with.  We decided to make it a library.  We have ripped down the bookshelves that were previously attached to the walls, painted the room a light brown, and taken up the carpets in favor of the original hardwoods.  The piano the previous owner left for us will go in this room.

And Audrey’s favorite thing about the home?  We told her we could eventually get a dog if we moved to a house with such a big yard.  She adores dogs.  

We both love that your home is in a safe neighborhood and everyone obviously cares for their homes.  We originally wanted a dead-end street or cul-de-sac but never imagined that we could get something like it!  I am a teacher, so a good school that is close by is important to me.  Your home literally ticks off every item on our wishlist.  If you select our offer, we would be excited to make it our forever home.  We intend to be in our next house into old age, raise our children there, and spoil our grandchildren there.  

The thing I like least about the house is the kitchen.  It's in the middle of the house (since additions were put on after the original construction) and gets zero natural light.  But, I do like that it's sort of in the middle of everything.  We will be adding more cabinets and re-configuring some appliances, I think, replacing cabinet doors and floors, lights, new appliances, etc...next year, when the budget will allow it.

As of right now the only things we've done in this room is rip out the appliance garage and take down the border.  But paint is coming soon.

Please understand that our offer might not be your best offer, but it is ours.  The home is at the top of our budget, but we will gladly spend it to get all the things we want in a home.  We close on our home at the end of this month and are moving out mid-October, so I know how important it is to be reassured that whoever purchases your home will take care of it and respect the memories made there already.  Even if you do not choose us, I wanted to compliment you on the beautiful home you have created and wish you the best of luck on your new journey as well.

I signed the letter and ran upstairs to snatch if off the printer before I could lose courage.  I hopped in my car (at this point, about 4:45 AM), went to the house on Linden, and snuck up to the front door and stuck it in the screen door.  Then I tore out of there like I was being pursued.  

Kyle didn’t even know I had gotten up at all until I came back.  When I explained what I had done, he thought I was crazy.  It might actually have been one of the crazier things I’ve ever done…

I’m not sure if the letter helped us get the house.  In fact, I’m not even sure if the previous owners saw it before they selected our offer.  But I do know they saw it.  They knew I was a teacher when I met them for the inspection, and that Audrey loved dogs, and what room was going to be hers.  They even let us have one of their pianos for when we got Audrey lessons.

I about died of relief when our realtor Kathy called us that evening with the news.  

Now that we’ve lived in the house for about six months, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.  Sure, it needs some work, but we love it.  We truly do.  When we pull in, Audrey loves to say, “Hey!  It’s my house!” and that’s exactly how I feel every time we come home to it.  When I look out on the backyard and see how much space we have, I still can’t believe it’s ours.  

And every time we change something...even something small...I think to myself And here’s to the beginning of a beautiful friendship.