Writing Checks Your DVD Collection Can't Cash
February 04, 2009
Or, Why I Didn't Post Yesterday
So. For the record, Noah has been successfully potty-trained since the summer. At least, in one -- ahem -- aspect of the undertaking. The second -- cough -- aspect has been kind of a no-go, and my word, am I making a lot of unintentional puns already. POOP. I AM TALKING ABOUT POOP.
This is, apparently, super-normal, and considering the kid lives on a diet of bread, cheese, milk and bananas, we had Bigger Issues to worry about. Bigger Issues I have no interest in documenting, except to say that constipation + stubbornness = honey child, I don't give a shit (bwah!) WHERE you go, JUST GO ALREADY.
Recently, however, we've gotten that situation under control, and were simply waiting for Noah to decide when Noah is ready, one of the biggest loads of crap (bwah! hah!) we've ever been told about potty training.
(I know, I know. Some kids just wake up one day and decide to do it and everything works perfectly and the blessed angels sing and these kids' mothers become insufferable bores about the whole thing, what with the respecting of the delicate little bottom business and desires of the child and such. Let me tell you, the only potty-training assvice I will ever offer is that if you can avoid trying to train a three-year-old, DO SO. Make at least one honest hardcore attempt when they are still somewhat compliant and a few pounds lighter and easier to wrastle. Three-year-olds are scary. Do not engage a three-year-old. Teach your two-year-old how to use the toilet and where the Cheerios are and then like, check in on them in a year. Or two years. I haven't been hearing very good things about Four, to be honest.)
Personally, we've learned that Noah will be ready whenever Noah is offered the correct bribe...and then is sort of forced to accept that bribe through the luck of good timing on our part. For number one, it was -- of all things -- BUTTONS. Goddamn buttons. He was fascinated with all the spare buttons from my sewing kit, so I drew some buttons on a Ziploc baggie and told him he could have a button everytime he used the potty. For every accident, he lost a button. We went cold turkey to underpants and yeah, he lost a few buttons and I did some extra laundry, but in under a week, he was trained and the proud owner of every spare button in the house.
We've offered him a variety of bribes to finish the process, but none have really been enough. Candy bars, special outings, toys -- so. not. interested. I was okay with not forcing the issue, but dude. Three-year-old poops are disgusting. There's no Pull-Up in the world capable of containing some of them. That's a MAN, man, if you know what I am saying. However: he will go when he is ready, I maintained, through gritted teeth and a smile and a bottle of vodka.
It turns out, he was ready yesterday. There was some cajoling and repeating and repeating of the poop bribe du jour: a candy bar AND the 101 Dalmations movie, which he'd watched a couple weeks ago at my in-laws and has not shut up about since. We seized on this and dangled the chance to watch it again over his head, like a carrot.
(By the way, since I seem to get the same snide comment almost every time I mention the fact that yes, we own a TV and yes, Noah occasionally watches it, which apparently means he watches it ALL THE TIME, NON-STOP and thus leaves us NO TIME in the day to talk to him or read him books or do anything that would potentially help his speech, let me huffily clarify: Yes, he watches TV all the time, non-stop and we make it a point to never talk to him or read him books.)
(Seriously, though. He watches maybe one show a day. Little Bear before his nap, or Blues Clues as a reward for eating a good dinner. We have family movie night once a week where he gets to pick a Pixar movie. Exceptions are made on sick days or snow days, because I AM NOT MADE OF MAGIC.)
So where was I? Oh, yes. 101 Dalmations, which Noah calls the Dadamations, which kind of sounds like an avante garde dance troupe who could give Sparkle Motion a run for their money, but is also pretty cute. We did not actually have the DVD, but Jason assured me it was available On Demand. Bribe away!
I pulled up the movie On Demand while Noah proudly chomped away at a leftover Halloween Kit-Kat and oh, there was much rejoicing, and then much scowling as Noah eyed Glenn Close as Cruella De Vil and looked back at me with much suspicion while I frantically looked online and through our Tivo options for the animated version. Netflix? iTunes? Amazon UnBox? FIVE ZILLION OPTIONS FOR INSTANT MEDIA GRATIFICATION, all of which offer nothing but the live-action piece of crap. Try explaining that to a child who has only ever known the magic of TiVo, who can request any specific show (and episode) at any time of the day, who cannot grasp that sometimes certain shows just aren't ON, who will one day roll his eyes at my talk of just five channels and aluminum foil on the TV antenna and how we watched Sesame Street AND WE LIKED IT and snow, uphill, both ways, with only VHS cases for shoes, and that's if you were LUCKY.
I found it divided into 10-minute segments on YouTube, but by this point Noah was crumbling into despair. "You need to FIX IT," he sobbed, pointing at the television, "Dats all WRONG."
What else could I do? I put the kids in their coats and in the car and drove them to the nearest store and prayed and prayed and prayed that their online in-stock status thingie was correct, thanked the nice man who held the door for us by ramming him in the shin with Ezra's stroller, and ta-daaaaaaaaaa! Procured the correct version of the Dadamations for Noah, who regarded the DVD with awe and wonder and proudly handed it to the cashier and proceeded to tell her exactly why he was getting that movie.
We came home and watched it together instead of taking a nap. People smoke and smack each other and call each other idiots and you know, talk about skinning puppies and Cruella is clearly the stuff of toddler nightmares. It was everything Noah hoped it would be, and I was Parent Of The Year for a few hours, until he -- ahem -- demanded it again at 11 pm.
The moral of this story, I think: Wait until they're ready, or at least lay off the fiber.
I have a four year old who only potty trained in his third year. Because he cannot be bought. There is no bribe in the WORLD you can offer this kid in exchange for good (or even passable) behavior.
If I told him he'd get a piece of candy if he pooped on the potty: "I not want candy anyway."
If I told him he couldn't watch TV unless he pooped on the potty (or peed, for a loooong while): "I want to look at books anyway."
ARGGGHHHHHHHHH. Finally we just accepted that he would do it when. he. was ready. I also made him sit on the potty, alone, for half-hour stretches at a time and impressed upon him that he could not share a room with his Beloved Big Brother until he was out of diapers.
And yeah, we hate the live-action Dalmations movies, too. The only good thing about those is Ioan Gruffud. Yum.
I laughed out loud about six times during that post. You're an utterly marvelous writer, even if you're not made of magic.
"I am not made of magic" is awesome and will possibly be used in conversation regularly.
And we all know that Noah watches TV all day and never gets talked to or read to. We know this because we are parents and that's how we raised our kids! (Just throw some of the freshly acquired poop at those people)
Oh, yeah, here's hoping the DVD continues it's wonder working magic. Because I know -- that is some nasty shit!
You're so funny - I can't believe you made it to 3 WITHOUT already having procured a full compliment of Disney movie DVDs!!! Of course, for my son, it was VHS - and we have EVERY DISNEY MOVIE EVER MADE (or darn near) in VHS. We're sort of a Disneyphile type household, and I wanted him to have all of the movies to pass down to his kids....and then, (((you stupid idiot, how could you NOT see this coming??!))) they switch formats on me and they all now need to be replaced in DVD. Problem is - Disney doesn't release ALL of their movies at the same time....I'm still waiting for the original Parent Trap and Swiss Family Robinson to show up on DVD ( or BluRay even, I'm not picky)!! So, the point of all this pointless rambling?? Be careful WHICH Disney movie you promise to ANY child UNLESS it's already in your library(arsenal!!)....because it may just not be for sale at any store, although perhaps you COULD find it on amazon at a horribly over-inflated price and totally devoid of the instant gratification that most 3 year olds demand.....good luck.....and WTG, Noah!! (btw, I'm one of those parents whose 3 year old son just "decided" to self-train one day shortly after his 3rd birthday and never even had an accident - sorry.....)but, I have a friend who's son refused to fully train (same situation as yours) until he was 5 and was threatened with enemas - that cured him totally - go figure.....
Oh, wow, what an undertaking! I myself have been through the potty training of the 3-year-old (and finally managed it with the help of a book I found in the diaper aisle of CVS: "Toilet Training Without Tears"--which is exactly what I needed, a scenario where neither of us was crying), and it was not pretty. My Ezra has just turned 3 and can potty on demand but is generally happy going in the pull-up. So I'm waiting until the horrible flesh-eating disease leaves our house and am going try it full force again.
Congratulations over and over again on the successful pooping! A friend's little boy has been promised that he can set a TV on fire in the backyard if he puts all his poops in the potty. I say, stand by with a fire extinguisher and do whatever works! Way to poop, Noah!
Yes. To everything you said! LOL
(Except that part about you being a horrible mom because you only let your child watch TV all the time & never talk to him or potty train him or feed him, etc.) 'Cause I've SO been there with migraines. And I have NO room to talk.
Thanks for the laugh this morning!
My TV guilt is all encompassing. I have basically the same set of rules for TV with my 3.5 year old, but on days when the snot is flowing like a polluted river and the whining is non-stop I sedate the child with videos.
It's better than dispensing the $6 babysitter (benadryl) and it seems to produce the same glassy eyed stare and closed mouth that I'm looking for.
I think you did good, I think you're a terrific mother. Around here we keep the tv on 24/7 just to be sure our kids turned into vegetables. Not made of magic either and think a little TV is just fine. *gasp*
I love how people make ass-umptions.
Anyway, my assvice? Hard earned through 4 kids? Laxative. Nice, gentle, everyday laxative so ze poop becomes not a big deal. Not sure if you've tried it, or even want to, but when it's nice and soft, my kids stopped being afraid, or trying to control it, or whatever was making them so determined/afraid/whatever about pooping in the potty.
I feel your pain. My daughter was/is a withholder. She was potty trained for pee in July (she turned 3). And not for poop until November. Until November, she just asked for a pullup when she had to go.
I certainly hope that 101 Dalmations does it for you. Great post!
And, BTW, my kid watches TV too! I've seen parts of Wizard of Oz about 10 times in the last 5 days. Now, I think she's moved on to Jungle Book.
Really? The people about the TV, and their yogurt they make by hand right out of the goat. Enough. I have Little Einsteins on a constant loop.
Toddlers being potty-trained "when they're ready" is a big steaming load of crap. Toddlers will be potty-trained the minute you open a Costco-sized box of pull-ups. The end.
First of all, you should SEE the ad on your sidebar right now. It's an ad for a dating service (I assume) with a a bouncing bimbo in a tiny plaid skirt and hot pink bustier who looks like maybe she's getting ready to play golf or hit someone on the head with a golf club. Not what I expected to see next to a post about poop, you know?!
Bribes are the only thing that worked with us... and the taking away of things when he backtracks. Which he still does for some reason. Often. So I am a very mean mom, of Cruella Deville-like proportions, some might say. But seriously, if you think three year old poop is bad, trying cleaning up after a four year old who had decided he'd rather sit in his own shit than put down his Leapster. NAS-TEE!
My little brother used to listen to storybook records (Thank you Disney!) while relaxing on his little potty seat in his bedroom.
On long car trips he would entertain us with the entire Dumbo LP complete with accurate voices and musical interludes.
In fact I can, even today, entertain you with parts of the Dumbo LP complete with voices and musical interludes.
http://991.com/newgallery/Disney-All-Dumbo---Sealed-360508.jpg
Mom24 - we're alllll about the Miralax, baby. Powder of the gods! Cocaine of the butt!
Oh, if only it was as simple as buttons and Dalmations in our house! Seriously, my kid will hold it, stay dry, do it so well and then? PISS AT MY FEET IN FRONT OF THE POTTY...AND SNOTTILY ASK ME "CAN I HAVE THE SESAME STREET DIAPER LIKE I WANTED NOW?!?!?!" Hoping to find the right bribe. Told him I'd take him back to Mickey Mouse's House (Disney World) and did he want to go back? Excited YESYESYES! "So do all your pee-pee in the potty for just ONE short month." "Um, no. I'm not doing that."
Seriously. Wouldn't do it for frickin' DISNEY WORLD! Where he has been! And talks about constantly because he loved it sooooo much! Just, you know, not as much as peeing in his Sesame Street diapers.
Glad to see that someone is having progress :)
De-lurking, because? I've totally been there. Apparently, it is very common for kids with sensory issues to have pooping issues as well. My son has SPD and we went for an entire year where he was "pee-trained" but we still dealt with poop in the undies (or the pull up) and countless loads of laundry. I also made it our nasty little secret and let it get out of hand because oh. my. god. Just poop already!! It took a nine-day regimen to clean out my little guy out and the kid held in an enema for 30 minutes! (Now that's determination) My point? It is common in the sensory processing world, but no one talks about it. If it becomes a problem (and I'm not saying it will since it seems like you are actually making progress), a pediatric GI can help and will give you a step-by-step solution. Our GI sees it on a regular basis and told me that no parent can MAKE a kid poop (see above and enema). You're doing great... And? It will all get better... I just didn't want you to think you are alone.
Your humor and sarcastically wonderful wit come through in your posting. I've been reading you on my feed reader for quite some time now, and just thought I'd poop in, um, pop in, and lecha know this post is hilarious!
I'm sure your potty training days are just about behind ya now! :)
I've heard boys are way harder to potty train than girls, and I wonder why this is. If maybe men are just hard-wired to be content with the status quo?
Anyway, congrats on your parent of the year moment and good luck with your continuing quest. It's gotta happen eventually, right?
Apparently, Noah's poop IS made of magic, as it was able to produce a copy of 101 Dalmations with little effort. Okay, maybe constipation makes it a little effort, but you know how it goes. :-)
The TV thing? I'm writing a post about it now and I want to hear some honest answers out of parents. I'm tired of feeling this forced shame when I turn on the tv so I can make dinner without my toddler thinking her hand ALSO goes into the oven. (Oven? Who am I kidding? Microwave.)
I totally would have gone to the store to buy the DVD too.
Also, don't believe all you hear about age 4! For us, it's been so much better than 3 in so many ways.
This is just reminding me of my niece and nephew - the niece potty trained in about 30 seconds once she was told she could wear princess underwear if the used the toilet. The nephew could not have cared less if he pooped in his pants right until college. I forget what they did to train him. Something involving Dr. Phil? No, kidding. Finally, he was old enough and the bribes were good enough and the punishments dire enough.
Apparently my 3yo is backwards because he'll only poop in the potty, but not pee. We're going the sticker chart bribing route. Once he fills a row, he gets a toy, usually a Matchbox or something. Yeah, still not working. Oh well.
Krista - YES. And WORD. I swear, I proposed at Blogher after meeting some other SPD moms that we need a secret handshake or gang sign based on what dosage of Miralax our kid is on. HALF CAP IN THE HIZZOUSE.
Yay Noah! Yay Amy! Yay Dadamations! That is a huge step!
We finally crossed the bridge of Number 2 about a month ago. It took forever, and no amount of bribery would work. Then one day, he just did it. And for his reward, he got 8 cents (Monies! Lots of monies!) and a box of Spiderman mac & cheese. He was the happiest 3 year old in the world.
I lucked out with a combination of the peer pressure of Gabriel's cousin being potty trained AT THE SAME TIME, and his daycare provider doing all of the day time work of the thing. (She potty trained all 6 of the kids she was watching last May. Because she thought they were ready....I rewarded her awesomeness by sending Gabriel to preschool)
So glad that Noah's going in the potty...hope he keeps it up and that you aren't subjected to twice-daily showings of Dadamations!
Here's a funny poop story to brighten your day:
My dad's a pediatrician, so I've heard good and bad potty-training stories over the years. One of the best came six or seven years ago when my dad had an older mom (with boys in their late teens/20's) and surprise twin girls with her second husband. Emma and Jenna - the cutest girls ever. They loved my dad, but hated coming to the office (mostly because of shots). The mom was having a particularly hard time with the girls, noting that her ex-husband had taken care of the potty-training for her now grown boys. In fact, just the previous weekend, one of the girls went - ahem - on the front lawn "like the doggie" and wanted to leave it there until her daddy came home. My dad had a heart-to-heart with the girls.
Then, one Saturday, Emma and Jenna's mom calls the office line - forwarded to my dad's cell - and apologizes profusely because she wasn't calling about an emergency. Instead, the girls simply wanted to call to boast to my dad that they'd gone "poopy in the pottie!"
have your tried the library brib yet? We went thru the same thing. My kids love books and the magic of the lib. is powerful. Only kids who use the potty for everything can get a lib card of their own. ;-)
You ARE made of magic, because I am having a rotten day and you actually made me laugh.
Thank you!!!
Hang in there. My now 10 year old was in the same spot at 3. He would actually bring us a diaper to put on so he could go poop. We finally succeeded by promising him an electric jeep-"Only BIG boys can handle the jeep" Worked like a charm.
I just spit my coffee all over my laptop with this post - thank you for making my morning. My oldest was super stubborn on the potty training - we tried bribes, threats (they don't call them the "threatening threes" for nothing!), everything...with little luck. He would sit on the potty for long periods of time, reading his books, but would rarely go. ALL of his friends trained early and were promoted to a new class in preschool, while my son had to stay in remedial potty training, but that didn't seem to matter to him. He was just too lazy to bother taking time out of his day to go. Argh - he finally pulled it together around 3 1/2 - but we threw out a lot of underwear before then (I don't wash poopy underwear - that's just nasty). Now he likes to show off his "toilet art" with a flourish and a "ta da"! And then I get to wipe his butt. Lucky me - but still better than the alternative.
Thanks again for this post - I hope Noah keeps up the good work!
Am I the only person who was out of breath after I read this entry? I don't know what it was, but I felt frantic. Maybe I'm channeling the panic of a 3 year when confronted with Glenn Close. I dunno.
What a crappy post.
BWAH ha!
I kill me, sometimes.
:)
So funny! This whole TiVO/On Demand thing has definitely spoiled the kids. Lucas insists, "Yes, you CAN find it, Mom!" -- he knows it is all there accessible anytime.
next time just call me, I own it, and every other disney dvd known to man.
And, and you know what finally got Michael to do it, I told him if he didn't we couldn't go to Disney in 8 days. He now says, how many poops until I meet Mickey. So, million dollar vacations work too.
Mulan was my bribe oh those years ago. I thought I'd be smart and buy it AFTER she went.
So lo, when she went and there was much rejoicing? We couldn't find it at the store. I finally found it at Walgreens. Who knew?
AWESOME.
And thanks again for reminding me to talk and read to my kid. GOD, that's hard to remember. ;)
GAWD, mothers should unite against potty trainging or something. My first REVERSE potty trained at 3 (meaning he would poop but not pee in the potty)...I'll tell you it is a lot harder to clean up pee when it is EVERYWHERE. My second didn't finish until 3.5 and there was a lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I have two more to go and I think I might go insane in the meantime. They are all boys btw. Eeesh. K.
Totally been there, too. The poop was such an issue. I finally bribed my then-3-year-old with a squirt gun (yes, a gun!) and he told everyone it was his poop-gun. Whatever works, I say.
Dadamations - that is adorable. That movie was my sister's favorite when we were little. We watched it over and over and over. However, whenever the part where the mean men come in and the parent dogs attack, we always had to fast forward because she would cry about them getting hurt. I guess the whole thing about the baby puppies getting skinned didn't really register.
I got easy with Playdoh I think---and yes, before 3 is a must. This is totally the age of the quirky reward though--run with it! 4 can't be bought so easily.
This is one of your best essays ever. My youngest (of three) is 7 and I still have a bit of anxiety when I think about potty training. I feel for you.
My 3 yr old keeps telling me "Not yet" when I ask him if he wants to go on the potty. I am praying he starts soon.
Hey, you do what you have to do!
And fuck those TV assholes. TV has been around for half a century and used since then to get parents some damn quiet time already and soceity has yet to crumble.
Sorry, I just get really pissed at all the handwringing over every little thing that kids encounter. They'll be fine. Really.
All I can say is don't let Four fool you. Four is much better than Five.
Wow, this was a perfect blend of your classic pre-Noah hilarity and the post-babies lore. Love! Good luck with the potty training!
My three year old just got out of pull ups a month ago and you are so right: Three year old poop is so many times bigger and more gross than two year old poop. And never feel bad about using the bribe technique for the all important skill of "shitting in the toilet". We used points but I really think she was stubborn and did it when she damn well felt like it. Thank you for telling it like it is. Tears of laughter and empathy across the interweb. :)
Oh, man. I am not looking forward to potty training. Ugh.
Oh, this brought back horrible, painful memories. My ds was one of those insta-trainers, because he has SPD and *hated* the feeling of poop in his diaper. However, not knowing his eventual diagnosis promptly convinced me that I was the best potty-trainer ever, until I had my dd, who is autistic and loved, loved, loved playing with her own poop. I was pregnant with our third when dd was diagnosed and I almost lost my mind... Not because of the diagnosis, but because I was afraid it meant that she would NEVER poop in the potty, or at least not till she was six, which is supposedly the average potty-trained age for autistic kids, and have you tried cleaning up poo four times a day while pregnant and trying not to add vomit to the mess between your kid's legs? Oh, yeah, you probably have!
(As it turned out, the school district's preschool for children with special needs takes un-potty-trained kids and TRAINS them! With or without you! And so one day I was the proud mom of an almost-four-year-old who would poop in the potty. Believe me, I oozed hearts and flowers out of my pores in sheer joy for at least a month.)
My son can still be a withholder. He was in trouble at bathtime the other night for not cooperating, so he told me, "I just won't poop then."
He also once got fixated on seeing Monsters, Inc, which he had at his grandparents, a whole country away. We tried to get it at the video store--they didn't even carry it! We ended up paying some inflated Canadian price for the DVD.
Great post!
Funny thing about buttons... My daughter HATES buttons, and will not wear any article of clothing that has a button or anything that may look like a button. It makes clothes shopping very difficult.
Noah's obsession for them and my daughter's hate for them is pretty odd, huh?