A little TMI...or, Fun With Potty Training!

     We've been working on potty training big brother for, oh, I don't know, maybe a year now.  We knew this would be a frustrating process for all of us, and we weren't wrong.  I honestly think this will be one of the biggest factors on whether or not we start kindergarten next fall.  On a certain level, he gets it.  He gets what needs to go into the potty.  That was a process by itself.  He would sit and sit, and nothing would happen, so I'd get him off.  5 minutes later he'd unleash on my carpet.  Or the couch.  Oy.  I finally decided to force the issue.  I would sit him on the toilet, pour warm water down his front and he would go.  Now, I usually don't have to use the water to get him to go, he just does that on his own.  He does not get that process of telling me, or just taking himself, when that time comes.  His motor skills are still delayed enough that he really can't get himself fully dressed yet, so he still needs help.  For a while now we've been setting the timer for about every 40 minutes or so.  When the timer goes off, he has to go sit on the toilet.  As usual with big brother, we count any progress, however small, as progress.  The fact that he'll just go when we sit him on is progress.  HUGE!  Lately, however, he has decided that he doesn't like to go.  I guess he still doesn't see any benefit to himself.  I have to wrestle him in every time.  Last week he started adding twisting to the flailing and it tweaked my back.  Lovely!  It is so hard not to give up.  He will get it.  I know that.  The process of getting there is taking all my sanity (which, granted, isn't much).  We stopped trying to train little brother because it was just too much.  And, as is usually the case with big brother, all the great suggestions out there don't really apply.  With big sister we did a chart and if she got enough stickers she got to go to Olive Garden.  Worked fantastically.  When little sister finally understood the whole bribery thing, that worked pretty well.  Her big motivator, however, was when we told her that she couldn't go to the regular preschool until she was potty trained.  So she did it.  Big brother has no idea what I'm talking about if I try to explain that he can't go to kindergarten until he's trained.  He gets confused.  Or, this week, he's started saying he doesn't want to go to kindergarten.  He already has a school!  And, as I've said before, if we have to wait another year, oh well.  Food rewards aren't a good idea, he doesn't like any candy well enough for that to be a motivator.  (That's a whole other post.)  He LOVES cookies, but I can't really give him that many cookies in a day.  Plus he doesn't love them that much anyway.  So, just like with so many other things with this sweet boy of mine, we will learn the patience that he was clearly sent here to teach us.  And just like with so many other things, I'm sure that one day it'll just click.  He'll suddenly just get it, as I've seen happen numerous other times.  And I'll try not to think about when he should be trained by, because my timeline's have never been correct when it comes to him anyway.  It's a good thing he has those big brown eyes that make me love him so so so much!