Potty debacle

Shortly before Emily was born I bought Kyle one of those cute little potty chairs that converts into a step stool once kids begin using the regular toilet. After I found that a Styrofoam eating monster had bitten a chunk out of the foam cushion I decided maybe one of those seats that you set onto the regular toilet seat might discourage further PICA like behavior.  He used to use it every once in a while, but lately any time I try to coax him to try and use the potty like a big boy he acts like the stupid things burns his bottom, crying and screaming “No No No, I don’t want it!” My bag of tricks was quickly becoming useless as one by one they well, became useless. It was time to break out the big guns, a.k.a the “Big Boy Box”.

This morning after I changed his diaper and he got dressed I showed him the Big Boy Box, which is filled with little goodies to entice him to use the potty, things like snack packs of cookies and graham crackers, some match box cars, and a fake snake and spider. Not quite sure how his little 2 ½ year old mind would understand a token reward system, I decided to ease him into it with some immediate gratification so I told him that if he peed in the potty and not in his diaper he could have some of the cookies and if he pooped in the potty that he could pick one of the cars. He immediately ran to the bathroom, stripped off his pants and diaper and tried to pee. He eventually managed to squeeze out a couple of drops, proclaiming “Yay Dyle, I did it!” as he ran to the kitchen to point at the BBB which I had placed on top of a cupboard. You can imagine the site of the half naked little man excited jumping up and down, chanting “tookies, tookies, tookies.” Being a mama of my word, I handed him a couple of the cookies and gave him a high five for being a big boy, and then sat down to play with Emily. 

Maybe 10 minutes later I realized that my house was unnaturally quite and called for Kyle. A slightly muffled “what” floated down the hall from the direction of the bathroom, where I found Kyle sitting on the toilet, trying to earn some more tookies. “Can’t get it” he grunted when I asked him what he was doing. I helped him get redressed and told him it was ok, and that he could try again later. The next couple hours where like a bad imitation of a scene from the movie “Groundhog’s Day” with Bill Murray.  As I followed the little Mister into the bathroom for the 209^th time in 30 minutes, I think he decided that maybe if he had some privacy while he was in the bathroom that he might have some more success, and so he began slamming the door in my face, and yelling “No Mama”. On second thought, maybe potty training is over rated.