There are myriad differences between walking a road with your first child compared with your last. Even though the span between my oldest and youngest is only 4 years, so much has changed in those 4 years. Mainly, me.
Here's a little review. When child number one was potty training, I was a psychopath. Let's take a little walk down memory lane, shall we? Since I chronicled every part of the journey 🙈, we've got it easily accessible in memorandum. When Lily was three, I started seriously trying to potty train her, which I found humbling and difficult and was sure to lace with lots of drama - the post was titled, "Trying to Tame the Bladder of Steel." That didn't work, which I mentioned in this post, and then I took her to ACH to get an ultrasound of said bladder. 🤷🏻♀️ The next step I took was taking us both to a child psychologist. 🤦🏻♀️ How am I not kidding with this? I am not. Not even a little bit.
Y'all. She did finally get potty trained. Obviously. We survived, though not unscathed. I was much more chill about child number two, though I still made a pretty big deal about it: see family trip to Wal-Mart to pick out a toy, dinner out at a Chinese buffet and a family donut date. No skimping there.
Fast forward some years to the twins. They've had some developmental delays, but the truth is, they are both quite bright. Here is the other truth, I did not care one lick about when or whether they potty trained. After the major drama of potty-training Lily and realizing that she finally did it when she was ready AND ONLY THEN, I was scarred and gun-shy. And also lazy. And there are two of them, always. Potty-training twins sounded like the worst thing ever, so I basically tried to avoid it completely.
Plus, I'm just worn down, with a lot of other things going on now. There are 4 kids, instead of 2, and we've got other fish to fry. So, when Violet showed a lot of interest, it was fine, but I moved very slowly. She's been fully potty-trained for quite some time now, though it took a long time to get there. She's also still my most avid toilet tourist and never misses an opportunity to use a public restroom - what a joy! 😒
However, William had zero concern over peeing in a pull-up - and why would he? It was convenient. It was comforting. For both of us. At the most recent school conference, they asked about whether or not I was considering potty-training (they were very gracious, though we all fully recognized that it should have already been done), and they also volunteered to help. "Send him in undies!" they said. "We'll deal with it!" they said. I felt guilty about letting them do ALL of the work, so I put him in underwear, very much against his will, one Saturday. It was a disaster that included two accidents, that were not actually accidents since he smiled right through them, while we were at the mall and then at the movie theater. John put a mostly empty popcorn bin under him to catch the urine streaming down his legs the second time.
But Sunday came, and he realized we were serious. He's had an almost perfect record since then for both day and night. I guess he was ready. 😂 He was extremely pleased to be rewarded with SpiderMan Legos for the first full week of getting it done a while back.
Just like that - my four children are potty trained! I never thought this day would come - especially when potty training child one seemed like the hardest thing I might ever face. Even though John and I lead by example in this area, it seemed a difficult thing for many of our kids to catch on to. But the years and diapers flew by. We are onto bigger, better and honestly harder things. We all grow together. I'm not sure the next thing I will be a psychopath about, but I'm sure it's looming.
Til then, I'll be hoping and praying for wisdom and grace to prop us up along the way. And, I'll try to remember to have a little levity and a long view, because Lord knows, we're all gonna need both. For now, I'm reveling in the lack of a diaper bag, while always always always keeping wipes in my car because life.
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