The journey to potty training

Benjamin successfully potty trained completely over Labor Day weekend. I was thrilled! But apparently my being thrilled was not enough for him. After about 2 weeks of pooing and peeing in the potty consistently he decided that was for the birds and his pants were a better place for all that mess. It has been a long month because I have REFUSED to put him back in pull-ups. It has been so frustrating for me because I know that he has known what to do and he has just chosen not to. And he wouldn't just poo once a day either. On average twice a day he was pooing in his underwear.

I was ready to scream. In fact I think I did on a couple occasions. ;) About 2 weeks ago every time he would poo in his underwear I made him clean up the mess himself. He had to clean his underwear out and then I would give him a shower. This still didn't seem to get through to him. I have been at my wits end. We have tried bribery (I am not above bribing my kid to poo in the potty). Bribing didn't work. I told him he could have 3 Hershey's Kisses if he pooed in the potty. He told me he didn't want Hershey's Kisses. Brad told him he would take him for a ride on the tractor if he pooed in the potty. Benjamin said, "I don't want to ride on the tractor again."

I had finally accepted that my child would never poo in the potty again. I was feeling terrible for all of Benjamin's future relationships because my son was not going to poo in the potty again. I tried Saturday night to get him to go. Our conversation went like this:

"Benjamin, you need to go poo poo in the potty."

"I don't want toooooooo...."

"Benjamin, it will be okay just tell your poo poo it's okay to come out." (What a mistake it was to say that.)

"...poo poo you can come out now. OH! Mommy! My poo poo said, 'okay sure!' It's putting it's socks and shoes on."

"What????"

"The poo poo is putting his socks and shoes on because it has to drive out."

"What?!?!?!"

"Vrrrooommm....(and more car noises)....Oh no! It crashed! The poo poo crashed."

I'm speechless at this point and don't know what to say.

"It's okay Mommy....Poo poo, do you want to go to McDonalds?...The poo poo said, "Sure, we can go to McDonalds!"

"Ohhh...great?"

"Oh no Mommy! There's a rock in the poo poo's way!....It's okay. I moved the rock out of it's way...But the poo poo still won't come out Mommy."

"Okay, Benjamin, you can be done."

Fast forward to yesterday. Benjamin was holding his bottom because he needed to go poo poo. I sent him into the potty and he was just crying his eyes out because he didn't want to go. I checked on him and he kept crying and I told him that he needed to be quiet and try to go poo poo (I was not about to tell him that he could tell his poo poo to come out again.) Well he sat there and tried and tried and I told him I would come check on him in a couple minutes. Jasmine heard her baby brother crying and went into the bathroom to check on him. She stayed in there with him for about 20 minutes or so and then she came out and said, "MOMMY! BENJAMIN POOPIED IN THE POTTY!!!!!" Ient flying into the bathroom and sure enough he had gone. So we hooted and hollered and praised Benjamin for his poo poos and then he got to pick any piece of candy that he wanted.

He was a happy boy. So after Gabe's karate lesson last night we had to stop at Walgreens for some milk. Benjamin saw the display of Webkinz's sitting there and says, "A WEBKINZ MOMMY!!! I WANT A WEBKINZ!!!!" Now usually I don't let that bother me and I tell him no, but a plan was formulating in my mind. I let him pick out a Webkinz. And I gave it to him when we got home. He loves his Webkinz. It's a little black and white cat and he has named it "Kitty." I told Benjamin that if he poo pooed in his pants that I was going to take Kitty away. He said, "Okay Mommy, I won't poo poo in my pants. I WILL poo poo in the potty."

We got home from running around this morning and I sent him in to try and go potty...He came out of the bathroom unsuccessful, but he did tell me why he couldn't go potty. His words to me were, "And MOMMY, the poopie won't come out. He's in bed and he won't wake up. And MOMMY, the poopie just won't come out..."