It appears, God help me, that I am in exactly the situation that I swore I would never, ever be in.
After avoiding it for as long as I thought I could, it appears that potty training (or more accurately, the lack thereof) has become a battle royale in our home and that Rob and I are now locked into a power struggle with the most stubborn boy EVER.
It is ugly, my friends, it is really, really ugly.
Graham, aka the most stubborn boy EVER, has been wearing big-boy underwear all day, every day for weeks now. He lets us know when he needs to pee and does so in the potty several times a day.
But, with the exception of that one time when he was rewarded with a toy and a celebration so exuberant you would think he had graduated goddamn medical school, he will not use his potty for number two.
Graham is three and a half. He is ahead of the curve in every other aspect of physical, emotional and intellectual development. We have tried to be patient, but finally drew a line in the sand when for weeks he never wavered from his routine of using the potty all day to pee and then soiling his night-time pull-up withing minutes of putting it on every night.
He is more than capable of pooping in the potty.
But he won’t.
He holds it. He clenches. He begs for his bedtime pull-up. He cries and rants and raves and sits on the potty, sometimes for over an hour at a time chanting “I want a pull up, I want a pull up, I want a pull up.”
He has, the last two nights, spent nearly all evening on the potty and started to fall asleep there before being sent to bed, without a story and with a pull-up that was soiled within five minutes.
And while on the potty last night he looked me straight in the eye and with just the hint of a smirk threw down the gauntlet.
“Mommy, I am NEVER going to poop in the potty ... NEVER.”
And I have no idea how it came to this but, God help me, I believe him.
Help?
Originally published on DonMillsDiva
Photo courtesy of DonMillsDiva
