>To train or not to train

>Someone in this house is not ready for Sebastian to start potty training.

No, not Sebastian.

It’s me, ok?  I’m not ready.

I’ve admitted this several times to people over the last two weeks, as our Toddler 1 class discussed this and then planned to hear a speaker last night who would provide us with a great overview of how to start or continue doing this process.

First, I will start by confessing that I hate the word potty and try never to use it.  I did so in the first sentence only so that others would know immediately what I meant.  I don’t know exactly why I have such an aversion to the word, but it’s probably just a bizarre personality trait, like how I hate the word blog or don’t use the word mommy because some words just sound ugly or don’t seem to fit in my mouth the right way.  Anyway, so first I had to get comfortable thinking and talking about toilet training because that’s what we’re going to call it here at Chez Rasler.

But the main reason that I am resisting the idea of starting toilet training, which according to last night’s speaker I could have begun two months ago, is that I know that no matter what we do now, Sebastian will almost certainly decide to go back to diapers when the baby arrives this summer.  And I don’t know about you, but any kind of regression always sends me into a tailspin, raging hormones or not.  Why are you waking up twice a night all of a sudden when you slept through the night for two months??  Why do you want me to hold the spoon for you when you’ve been feeding yourself for four weeks??  You know what I mean.  As parents, I think we pretty much all want things to just keep moving forward.

Don’t get me wrong, I am sick of diapers.  Totally over it.  Then again, when compared with having to clean up the inevitable accidents that happen without them, my tired, pregnant self would rather stick with the tried and true routine for now.

I’d been kind of figuring that we’d do the full training in the fall, when Sebastian is older and ready to do it in more of a week, rather than the long, drawn-out process that most parents go through when they start too early.  My mom used the toilet training in a day method for all three of us, and some variation of that sounded like the way to go.

Turns out that it’s a pretty good idea (Sebastian’s new favorite phrase) to start doing aspects of the training now, even though most boys won’t fully train for another year.  Sigh.

As the speaker Jan Faull went through the readiness signs for toilet training, it was then that I realized that Sebastian was ready to begin – not the full-on training, but the preliminary stuff – and that my reluctance was the only thing standing in the way.

With the new baby coming, diapers are obviously still a major part of my future, but I guess this mama better get ready for the next step.

So here I go.  I’m going out to buy… a potty chair?… blech.  A portable toilet?…that sounds weird.  I don’t know what we’re going to call it, but you know what I’m talking about.

Wish me luck.