July 1st,
2014
So it all started exactly a month back with an email
informing that Aarav would be moving to preschool in a month. I and my hubby were
so excited that our lil boy is promoted from daycare to preschool status!! The
only hitch being the pre-requisite that the child should be fully potty trained
L
Both of us were eager for his transition and didn’t want any
stone left unturned to get his promotion done. After being in software industry
for so long we have been mutated from normal human beings to SDLC followers. So SDLC (Software Development Life cycle) got
translated to PTLC (Potty Training Life Cycle).
The first phase in this Life cycle is Planning. We started
our long hours of internet search on potty training. We skimmed everything we
could on web and made our strategy.
We finalized on a 4 key point strategy- Bribe him, Make a
big deal about it, Emotional blackmailing and Potty Alarm.
So the next phase was making the design which meant going
for a shopping spree.
I bought dozens of
his favorite character underwears- Thomas chu chu train and Macqueen/Mater. The
Disney brand underwears costed me a fortune, it hurt even more knowing that at
daycare they just throw the underwear away in case of number 2 accidents. But
never mind anything is worth seeing your lil one being a preschooler.
Next stop was to buy bribes for him. Didn’t want to spend a
fortune on these as they had to be given very frequently. Stocked up on some
sticker sheets for regular bribes (pee pee) and some a dollar each toys from
party city for his big deed (poo poo).
As for potty watch, hubby set up an every hour alarm on his
mobile to remind us that we have to make him sit on the potty hourly.
The biggest challenge for us was the carpet cleaning in case
of any accident (side effects of living in US). Stocked up on disinfectant
wipes and foam cleaner. Removed all the expensive rugs from the floor and my
pretty cushions from the bed. Also got a high quality mattress cover to save
our only mattress from India.
After setting up the stage, now came the time for the
performance. Nervously stripped Aarav off his pull ups and showed a bright and
shining Mac queen smiling at him. Aarav fondly looked at him and I knew it was my
chance to get wicked and emotionally blackmail him. I said, “See Aarav Macqueen
is so happy, if you wet him, he will get an ouchee and will be sad. No making Macqueen/Thomas
yucky” (This was to be our mantra for the next month, repeated every time I
left him at daycare and at home).
The first 2 weekends were both tiresome and frustrating,
making him sit every hour as soon as the alarm rang off. His accidents when he
didn’t want to leave the TV and peed happily while watching Thomas chuff away.
Or when he didn’t know how to apply pressure while sitting on potty, he could
only do it standing and I had lot of yucky underwears to wash after accidents.
But we still kept to our promise and awarded him every time
he did the task successfully. To make an even bigger deal about it, every time
he relieved himself while carefully balancing him on the seat, I and hubby did
our cheerleader dance and sang the song we composed then and there, waving our
both the hands to and fro, we went-“yayyyyyy pee pee on the potty, pee pee on
the potty, Aarav is a big boy, he peed on the potty…yayyyy” Must say even Sea Hawks cheer leaders could
not have brought that smile on our lil prince, he felt so proud doing the big
boy thing!
Gradually Aarav started telling us when he needed to pee,
but the number 2 was still a problem L
He just didn’t know how to do it. As soon as we saw him
hiding himself and getting it out, we used to practically throw him on the
potty to get the rest of the business done on potty. Slowly he started seeing
the fun in filling up the bowl and flushing it swirl all away.
It’s been a week and there have not been a single accident!
He is very regular and has his bowel movements right in the
morning after waking up. Its Aarav’s Dad’s duty to sit with him for about half an
hour in the morning and keep coaxing him for more. Aarav asks his papa to wait
patiently as he explains-wait Papa, it’s downloading. J
There was another selfish motive in potty training Aarav. We
would save on 500 bucks every month as his daycare charges less for a potty
trained child. It was the last week of June and I told his teacher that he is
ready and has been using potty every single time. She replied understandingly
that if there are no accidents this week, she would inform the office and we
could pay the reduced fee July onwards. Both of us had our fingers crossed, one
poop=500 dollars (30,000 in Indian rupees). We nervously waited all week and
religiously spent the potty time with him in the morning.
Squeezing this extra half an hour in our morning schedule hasn’t
been very easy. I have missed all my team status meetings this month, but
somehow there are no regrets. Surprisingly it’s more gratifying to see our
toddler achieve his big milestone than giving status to my boss…
And what more, I proudly cut the cheque for just $1230 in
the morning! J J
PS: I know PTLC
is not complete yet, there will come a phase of regression and have to do
monitoring and maintenance for a long time. Life Cycle goes on!!
Some of Aarav's underwear-
