Learning new things can always be hard. It doesn't matter if you're 2, 5, or 35. The struggle will always be real. It's not that people are incapable of learning. That's not it at all. However, there is something to be said for the difficulty involved in rewiring our brain to remember new information while also deleting the information we've long held that we thought was correct.
For Ethan, that difficulty in rewiring his brain is pretty evident when looking at the process of potty training. There's definitely been some good days this week with nary a piece of wet clothing to be had. However, yesterday was pretty much the worst day of potty training that one can imagine. It all began within twenty minutes of Bethany leaving for work when Ethan saw fit to drop an enormous load in his underwear. In case anyone is wondering, that was not fun to clean up at all!
While one pair of poop-filled underwear wouldn't be the end of the world, it definitely continued to get worse. A little around lunchtime, Ethan suffered from another accidental bowel movement. This one stood out because he filled his underwear AND had some escape into his pants. If you're keeping track, that means Ethan is now on his second pair of pants of the day.
The rest of the afternoon went fairly well. However, the second Bethany got home from work, things began to go south very, very quickly. It all started when Ethan suddenly disappeared out to the garage to play in Bethany's car. This is a fairly ordinary activity in our house with Ethan doing so every afternoon when his mom gets home from work. On this occasion though he was only outside for a few minutes before he wandered inside with an ashamed look on his face. When we asked what was wrong, he responded with, "I went potty in Mommy's car." With that we looked down and saw that his pants were totally soaked. Never fear though, Bethany checked her car seats and everything was still dry so we don't exactly know what happened but no harm was done.
At this point, it's dinner time and one would think that we would be done with accidents for the day. I'm sorry to say that whoever thinks that is wrong. First of all, dinner time wasn't super enjoyable to begin with as Ethan was continually throwing food and water on the ground. However, when we finally got him to settle down and eat, he only took about four bites before he looked as us and said those words, "I'm wet." Sure enough, he had soaked through yet another pair of underwear and pants. In case anyone lost track, that made four pairs of underwear and three pairs of pants for the day.
It's hard to remind myself that Ethan is trying to rewrite his brain into knowing that he shouldn't urinate or defecate in his underwear. After all, he's spent two years wearing diapers and not knowing any different. That being said, he certainly has made progress this week. The important thing to remember is that I can guarantee I won't have to clean up his messes forever. Eventually, if he's still having accidents, he'll be old enough to clean up his own pants and change his own underwear. That's good, right? #DaddyWrite
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| Potty-training sure does make one tired. |
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