I’m going to be honest with you guys. My brain is fried.
It was fried last week (hence my dusting off an old post with a New-and-Improved!!!!! commentary added to the end), and it’s still fried today. I don’t know if it’s the getting up early, a simple creative dry spell, or something else entirely (my Eeyore-ish mind wanders into doom and gloom territory), but I have been struggling to create new and entertaining and/or informative blog posts the past few weeks.
It’s not that I don’t have ideas – my Evernote is full of them. But every time I sit down to flesh one out, I stare at a blank screen with not even a tiny smidgeon of what to do. It’s as if I’ve suddenly forgotten how to string words together in a sentence. I’ve even tried seeking out writing prompts, but no inspiration has been found there, either.
This creative paralysis encompasses my photos, as well.
I decided at the beginning of the year that I wasn’t going to pressure myself to post a photo Every. Single. Day. on Violet Film. Instead, I would post 365 photos, but feel free to post multiple images on a single day and no images on other days so that it all worked out to 365 at the end of the year. Thus far, I’m only a couple of days behind, but it’s been like pulling teeth to keep up.
So what’s the point of all this whining? It’s to prepare you for the fact that I’m about to talk about potty training. Yes, my friends, that’s what it’s come to here at Casa de Sunshine. Consider yourself warned.
Potty training Sarah Kate was one of the most frustrating experiences ever. She finally figured it out, and I’m not even mildly embarrassed by the fact that the potty spent a great deal of time in the middle of the living room and also was a regular passenger in the cargo area of my Toyota 4Runner. I am still traumatized seven years later.
I made a boastful marathon weekend vow that the start of 2013 would mark the beginning of Potty Boot Camp for Nathan, and then promptly threw the whole idea out the window when we got home. Feel free to call me lazy if you like, but I just Can. Not. Deal. with taking him to the potty every {insert appropriate interval} minutes all day every day until he “gets it.”
So we’re just winging it, which is a cool-sounding word for not doing much of anything.
He has a frog potty
But he has yet to pee in the potty a single time.
Actually, that’s not true. Nathan peed in the potty the first time I put him on it…and hasn’t done it since. I’m pretty sure it was an accident.
And you know what? I’m okay with all of it.
I have not a clue if Nathan is mentally or physically ready to use the potty. What I do know is that the diapers aren’t killing him or us at the moment, and he’s not (quite) three yet. We’ve got other things to worry about – like his upcoming IEP meeting and working on his speech – so I’m not stressing over the potty just yet. It’ll come.
Mom of three “typical” to gifted boys. I don’t really think I did much of anything to potty train my kids. I pretty much just waited for it to happen. I told myself that they’d figure it out.
At the point where I realized that M got it but was just too lazy, I put him in underwear or had him running around naked. If he had a diaper on, he was just too lazy to stop playing to go to the bathroom.
Now, they did all potty because from about 18 months to two years, every night at bathtime, we put them on the toilet to pee. So they knew what to do. But beyond that, I don’t really remember doing much. And I don’t think any of mine were potty trained before they were three. They were all over three. Once they went, they went fast. I even thought “I don’t care how long they need pull-ups at night…” but they never did once they trained.
Which is all a really long way of saying: If you don’t stress about it, that would really validate me and the choices I made. 😉
I hope to validate you soon. 🙂
Andi, I found this book to be very helpful when potty training Reece: http://www.amazon.com/Toilet-Training-Individuals-Developmental-Edition/dp/1932565493/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1361295471&sr=8-1&keywords=potty+training+autism
Also, his OT should be able to help you determine if he has the necessary motor skills and sensory awareness for potty training. Our OT told me that Reece would be potty trained approximately 8-9 months after I started therapy with her. I thought I was going to cry. As it turns out, she was almost 4.5 when she potty trained… nearly 9 months to the day after we started therapy! And there was very little training involved because as you know the cloth diapers help so much in letting them know when they are wet/soiled. It was just a matter of her having the sensory awareness to feel the wetness, then to feel the sensation that comes before that, to have the developmental ability to connect the two, and then the physical skills to hold it all and make it to the potty. It takes some extra time. So please don’t stress about it!
Thanks so much! The OT has been going to Nathan’s preschool the past few visits (largely without me present) so I haven’t had a chance to talk to her about it lately. I will do so ASAP. I also am thrilled to hear about the book – good stuff!
You’re not alone in the burn out department, the potty training part is another story. (Sorry)
I feel like you just wrote my “potty story” with our son Jack…he loves playing and sitting on his frog potty too, going in the bathroom with us to keep us company on the potty but without much happening. I too, have tried to “gear up” for a potty boot camp weekend without much success of actually following through on it. Jack just turned 3 and I am still placing a lot of trust on the fact that eventually, most kids learn to go in the potty. For now, we will keep enjoying his company and keep ready the potty books. :}
I’m with Adrienne K. None of my three potty-trained much before 3 and at least one was almost 4 (but she was being lazy). I found it helpful to do it in the summertime when they could wear minimal clothes to get in the way (and to get wet).
I’ve had the whole “wait until it’s warm” thought in the back of my mind for awhile. Fortunately, we live in a warm climate so that’ll be an option pretty soon. My biggest fear about waiting until summer is that I really hope he’ll be trained before he starts back to preschool in August. They want them potty trained by the time they are in the three year old class, so that’s extra pressure.
I didn’t even start potty stuff with the boys until 2 1/2 because I was told by women much wiser than me that trying to potty train boys any earlier is a practice in futility. Neither of them “got it” until right before 3. One of them “got” number 1 pretty quickly, but not so much number 2. One would think that understanding 1 would automatically lead to understanding 2, but not so much in our case. Boys take FOR-EV-ER. Have fun with that. 🙂