Friday, November 14, 2008

Adventures in Potty Training part 2

Once again if you don't want to read about bodily fluids please stop now. This is so awful I've wondered about writing it at all but as I follow a lot of your blogs and a lot of you have kids that you're trying to potty train and are having a frustrating time I figured I could write this and you could think to yourself: at least it's not THAT bad. Or if you have a story (and I'm not talking about my friends sisters cousin stories) that makes this look good, I would LOVE to hear it and think to myself, "Whew, at least he didn't do that . . . " Vinson is going to hate me when he grows up if he ever finds out the things I tell the entire world about him.
Vinson has started working lately. He gets on his motorcycle and says, "Bye mom, I'm going to work." Then he'll usually give me a kiss, the same routine as when Dan goes to work. Then he proceeds to put all of his toys into my bedroom sometimes taking one toy at a time and making a big pile of toys. One Saturday Vince said, "Bye Mom, bye Dad, I'm going to work." We started chatting and after a while realized we'd been talking for a while without seeing Vinson come back for toys. So then Vinson says, "Mom, Dad, pojd" (Czech for come here). So we went together. We opened the door and there was Vinson beaming and looking like he'd done something wonderful. This is what he had done. He pooped his pants and then had taken them off. Sometime during this he thought to himself, this is kind of like the paints that mom lets me play with, maybe I'll do some art work. So then he proceeded to "paint" the floor, one of his toys, and his motorcycle with poop. Dan and I were horror struck. We kind of stood there in silence for a minute torn between laughing, and crying and what to say or do to punish and how much. It's hard to gage exactly how much Vinson grasped that this was wrong especially after his obvious pride in his work. Dan said, "Vinson, you've done a very bad thing. Poop is not paint, you only put poop in the toilet." I turned my head to smile. Dan cleaned up Vinson - his punishment was having a cold shower. I started cleaning the floor with bleach and threw away the sponge afterwards. His motorcycle and toy also had a bleach bath followed by a real bath. Then I heard Dan say, "You made a big mess. You should ask mom if there's anything you can do to help clean up." My mind searched for ways he could help. The only thing that came to me that actually would help was something that I knew that Vince woud think it was fun, I didn't want to support him doing this sort of activity again ever, but I went for it. He had to swirl his underwear in the toiled with a plastic knife (then I could throw it away), lift, flush, swirl, lift flush etc. until I could handle cleaning them. Dan had to supervise. He should have thought before offering Vince's services. Maybe you're asking, why not just throw the underwear away. I would have but my mom brought me nice American tiolet training pants. They have padding that holds the water in so there isn't a wetness all over the floor. Europeans don't have potty training underwear. Their kids run around their house with nothing on bottom and a kiddie pottie in every room of the house. When they do go to underwear it's skimpy bikini underwear. At least that's what I've observed and found. All I have to say about this experience is YUCK!!! GROSS!!! EWW!!! UGH!!! I did take a picture. From the picture it might not look that bad, but believe me it was!

7 comments:

Czechers said...

By the way, While I wrote this Vince poured all of the cereal all over the floor! GRRR.

Morgan said...

I totally agree that the "now you have to help me clean it up" punishment seems pretty useless for the little ones. If cleaning is fun, then let's make another mess and clean up again!! Ugh. It it gets to be too much, here are 2 great Ensign articles to check out on lds.org: Love, Limits and Latitude (august 2008) and Jennifer Adventures (february 2005).

Unknown said...

I guess I had it lucky. Hailey would just freak out when she had to go stinky in the toilet. She was scared of going stinky so we did a sticker chart. When she filled up her whole sticker chart she got her big girl bike. It took her a long long long time. But when she was done she was potty trained. Good Luck!

Katerina said...

I had this exact thing happen when I was a nanny. Two little girls were supposed to be taking a nap. They were suspiciously quiet, so I went in. The smell gave it away . . . They painted the wall, their bed, toys, and themselves (they were naked). I gave them cold showers, washed the bedding and toys, and told them they had to sit on the bed until Dad comes home. He came, didn't say anything, and painted their room yellow. They never did it again. I'm not sure if any of this made them realize they did something wrong, but I think their parents had a talk with them or something. I wouldn't know what to do. Sorry you had to deal with it!

Amateur Steph said...

Val, at least he can eat the cereal to clean it up, right?
I shuddered for you when I saw the picture. Nothing makes me sicker than poo spread all over.
My only poo story (so far, knock on wood) is when we were living in the basement of an older lady that we cooked breakfast for, and I went upstairs and she had pooed on the floor. ACKKKK! So sad, and so gross.

SD Fiddlers said...

Poor Valerie! I lucked out, I think, with Lori refusing to potty train for so long. She never had any interest in any part of it! Good luck.

Kellybean said...

Ew, yuckie yuckie!