Where There's a Will, I Want a Way Out

Alternative title to this post: Potty-training I.

I live in Faith that there will be a II, a III, and even a "Postscript."

Today is the one week anniversary of when it all went down.

First: the back story.

We've known for some time that Wombles has the capablitiy--like over Thanksgiving, when he whispered in church to J that he had to go potty. And J said he had to wait (we had very little confidence, after all) because I was reading and J didn't want to miss it. So Wombles held out for 5-10 minutes, and then when J took him out he went. Success!

The next few weeks were frustrating (as had been the weeks before), as I was pretty sure he knew what was going on but when I would ask, "Wombles, why didn't you go in the potty?" He would laugh and say, "I didn't WANT to!"

Pull. my. hair. out.

Here's a shot J took 8 days ago:


We were so excited. Maybe there was progress! That was Thursday.

Then last Friday, I decided to get serious. Our pediatrician had recommended putting him on the potty every hour. Are you serious? Because my interrupting his play would become more inconvenient that him interrupting his own play. Really? What about inconveniencing and interrupting me? I'm teaching, you know! But we basically have a four-day school week and save Fridays for field trips, art projects, etc. Or, that's what we try to save them for. Obviously I'm blogging right now while Bud looks at a book on Sabertooth tigers and Pixie works on her writing assignment.

Anyway, Friday was flexible, so at approximately 8:30am I put Wombles on the potty.

At approximately 8:37 he called me into the bathroom to "show me something."

He had climbed OFF of the potty and pooped on the floor. And I'm pretty sure he thought it was funny.

And a great sense of calm came over me...like I was having an out-of-body experience.

That was in Wombles' best interest, I assure you.

After cleaning it up, at approximately 8:49, my friend M. stopped by. I told her the story. She immediately started praying for me.

Thank you, M. And thank you, Jesus.

And then we chatted about the whole scenario. For some reason I had not seriously been thinking about this as a strong-will issue. We are taking a new tack.

I'll keep you updated...for better or for worse.

H

PS While I was writing this, Wombles peed on the floor in the front room. True.