Potty Training - A Success Story

Potty training.  As you can see, it's serious business.  And this week, I think, I can proudly claim success.  Of course, success is relative, and I've been trying for months to get to this point, using various methods and techniques and tricks, mostly to no avail.  The twins simply were not ready for my previous attempts.

I've had my share of pee-pee pick-up duty.  I've scrubbed down furniture and carpets to get rid of undesirable waste.  I've dealt with tantrums over wearing or not wearing a diaper.  I've rushed babies to the potty only to sit there for hours as they refused to pee or to move.  I've completely missed dinner at a restaurant, spending the entire time in the restroom with petulant twins.  I've gone through hundreds of stickers.  I've begged, cajoled, threatened and broken down into tears.

Potty training.  It is serious business.

It got so bad at one point, I simply gave up, deciding that my quitting did not equal a failure on my part or on my kids' parts.

After that last attempt, as the twins approached their 2.5 mark, I decided, once more, to try the potty.

Here are a few things that worked for me:

1) Forget the pull ups.  My children liked pull ups, they really did.  They liked them because they were pink and blue and pretty.  They had no interest in pulling them either up or down.  They know what a diaper looks like, even when it's colorful, and they know what a diaper does.  It's easier to pee pee in a diaper than in a potty, so if they were wearing a diaper, even one with snazzy velcro, they would pee in the diaper.

2) It doesn't matter what you reward them with, as long as you reward them.  My kids only got distracted with promises of stickers and candy.  The bribes didn't really work to get the pee pee in the potty.  They could not connect the two concepts.  In the end, the best incentive for them was letting them flush the toilet afterward.  This worked on several levels.  They got to do something they considered fun to prove that they were good girls, and they saw the completion of a task.  They gratifyingly saw their pee pee go away.  We have a little ritual that include waving goodbye to it and shouting, "Bye Shee Shee!"

3)  You do not have to clean up urine dozens of times a day.  Repeat that to yourself.  I do not have to clean up urine dozens of times a day.  If you find yourself on your hands and knees scrubbing away every hour for more than a few days (they do need time to get used to it), if your hands have a lingering salty smell no matter how much you wash them, your kids are not ready for potty training.  This is where I was when we gave up.  I simply could not bear to find another "present" behind the coffee table three hours after the fact.

4)  Take it in steps.  We started by going completely pantless.  A few accidents later, and the babies understood that when they had to go, they had to run to the potty.  It was magical.  Then I moved to keeping them in pants and underwear.  We had a few more accidents because up until that point whenever the babies had felt material on their legs they were able to urinate without consequence.  After a few pants soakings though, they now rush to me and I help them down with their pants, and they go, gloriously, as heavenly music filters down from the sky.

5)  Buy the right underwear.  While everyone pays lip service to having their babies trained at 18 months (I'm skeptical, I admit), the smallest underwear you can easily find is a 4T.  Don't do it.  If your child is a 2T or a 3T, hold out.  Wearing underwear needs to be a comfortable experience.  Ballooning, wrinkled, too-big underroos are anything but comfortable.  Be careful, too, of the cut.

On the left we have a "wrong" pair of underwear.  It's made by Joe Boxer.  First, it's huge.  It simply will not fit my babies for about another year.  Secondly, and almost more importantly, look at how small the front portion is.  It's not wide enough.  It doesn't cover, and the blue outline is too rough for the skin it's up against.  They are poorly made.  On the right, we have a "right" pair of underwear, although I don't remember their brand.  They're 2/3T.  The waist is smaller, the leg holes are smaller, the front portion is bigger and sits correctly.  It's enough for me to forgive the "Cute" across the front (really, underwear-makers?).

6)  If you are at the beginning of this potty training process, remember what not to buy, and that quitting is not failing.

Good luck and Godspeed.  Children are all different and can handle different developments at different times.  Two and a half just happened to be the right age for us.

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Playing on Facebook Can Get You a Job

Playing on Facebook can get you a job - I'm not talking about Farmville, though I'm sure there must be something for which those skills can be used.  While Facebook is thought of by many as a way to pass the time, the social network has broad business applications if you use it right.  And it's only one of many networking, aggregating, blogging and mini-blogging sites out there, all of which can be used to pad your resume.

My young cousin is taking a college course entitled "Digital Literacies and Social Media."  After I stopped laughing (not at you, Margaret, and not at your class, but at how very old I am in my young years - when I was in school the height of technology was using an old Dreamweaver prototype to insert annoying music that played automatically on your own web page), I realized how mainstream social media is becoming in the business world.  It's been a part of our personal lives for years now, but corporations and businesses have a lot of red-tape to cut through before they can implement even the slightest change in ideas.  And the use of social media is no slight change.  It's revolutionizing advertising, marketing and public relations.  It's affecting growth, popularity and income in the business world.  And it's something you can learn while you're staying at home with your kids.  And it's something that makes you marketable, should you ever choose to go back to the working world.
Here is how your blog experience can help you in the workplace:

1) Writing skills - By blogging regularly, you keep your writing skills in tune with today's style.  You know what topics draw in readers.  You know which tones keep their attention.  You have, on your own accord, found an audience and grown it.

2) Networking - By creating a Facebook page and Twitter for your blog, you expand your readership.  You allow for maximum readership at any given time, proving you know not only how to write a compelling piece, but that you also know how to spread the word through grassroot avenues.  As more people join these pages, their friends and associates see links to your stuff, and they in turn may join, creating a spiral of popularity. 

3) Marketing - You may have included giveaways on your blog, or participated in blogshares, or done a guest blog.  All of these will increase your readership and are a form of marketing.  You are reaching out to a foreign audience with your 'product' and enticing them back to your homebase, in the hopes of recruiting new audience members - new buyers, in terms of the business world.  There are blog syndication services, and services allowing you to farm your blog out to local newspapers, aggregates and magazines, all increasing your readership and theirs in a symbiotic relationship.

4) Branding - If your blogging, you've had to come up with an idea, a tagline, and a way to draw readers or viewers in.  I'm a writer, so my blog is all about writing, but there are those who showcase photography, or crafting, and some simply use the blogging platform to forward their original ideas.  For instance, a friend of mine decided to start recycle old crayons.  She created a Facebook page, told a few people about it, and within hours had more than 200 fans.  Her idea was that strong.  As you continue in your projects, you are strengthening your brand, something that businesses are striving to do, themselves, with a lot more notoriety and manpower.  If you can build a brand from scratch, it makes you invaluable. It shows you've got the creativity and gumption to find ways to insert yourself into people's lives.  Branding is important.  Branding is the reason you know The Pioneer Woman's name.

5) Partnerships - if you review products or give them away, you are forging a partnership with the businesses that make those products.  You are forming relationships, connecting the personal lives of your audience to the professional service of that particular business.  You've become not just an end-point, but a link.  Those businesses may eventually offer you advertising, and you will offer them a new audience they'd otherwise be unable to reach.

As businesses struggle to catch up to the personal lives of their consumers, they are looking for people who have honed these skills.  This marks a change from the hireability of just a few years ago.  Where previously, you would have been hardpressed to explain to an employer that while you stayed at home with your children for those few years, you were working on your 'brand,' in today's world, that's exactly what they want to hear.  And it gives you an edge that those who have stayed in the business world do not have.

When I start applying for jobs, it's true, I'll have to tell them that I have not stacked or lined a news show in two years.  And, yes, I'm afraid they'll not take me back.  But I'll be able to show them well-rounded growth in an area that not many people have the opportunity to dip into, in an area that has become very desireable in the eyes of an employer.

I'll be able to tell them that in addition to changing diapers and heating bottles, I wrote pieces that were picked up by such and such publications nationwide.  I'll be able to tell them that without previous name or reputation, I built a following of hundreds of people.  I'll be able to tell them that when I write about breakfast cereals, thousands of people take a peek.  I'll be able to offer them the network I have painstakingly built for myself, and more importantly, I'll be able to offer them the skills I learned while building that network.

This is what they mean when they say mommy bloggers are taking over the world.

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Social Media and Moms - An Introduction

Social media has revolutionized what it means to be a mother.  Sure, the basics of mothering remain the same throughout the ages, but with all the information of the internet at our fingertips, new theories catch steam quickly, unsafe practices are brought to light in front of large audiences, and people can pick and choose which parenting methods work best for them in real time, as these methods are being used and tested by others.

One of the largest drawbacks to staying at home with your kids is the broad-stroked isolation you feel as your friends continue on their paths while you stop your own development to jump start your babies' development.  Though spending hours upon hours with your kids is fulfilling in a way nothing else can be, it is also lonely, as your main mode of conversation becomes: "Do you want this or that?  Do you have to use the potty?  Please, stop crying."

Gone are the days of idle chat with your peers, the coffee shops, the restaurants, the heart-to-hearts.  You can barely get an entire sentence out without addressing your kids in some manner, which is off-putting to conversational attempts to say the least.

Social media and Web sites bring the world to you.  If you want to talk about parenting, there are sites devoted to parents sharing pictures and stories of their little ones.  If you want to read the newspaper, you can catch up on current events with the click of a button.  You can interact with others and discuss the stories you're reading in the comments section.  You can keep in touch with friends via Facebook.  Most importantly, you can devote just minutes at a time to any of these activities and go right back to your kids without looking socially awkward.  A thread on Facebook, or in a forum, can develop slowly throughout the day, so that you can comment on something interesting to you, leave to play with your kids, and come back to comment again on the thread when you have time, without missing any of the conversation.  Drive-by internet conversations are practically tailor-made for the stay at home parent.  It caters precisely to the kind of chatter we can handle.  The kind that takes just two minutes at a time and can handle long lapses in between.

As the world catches up to the technology available to us, work from home opportunities abound - moms can invent, can create, and can produce viable products and ideas in their spare time, possibly making money, but, more importantly, keeping their foot in the business world's door, as more and more employers respect and desire the know-how necessary to keep online projects afloat, the marketing and networking skills acquired through creating a brand for yourself online.

Back in the 1970s and 80s, women were still struggling to prove themselves in the workplace.  Taking a year or two off to start a family stunted progress in that battle, and individuals often felt not only isolated in their choice, but ostracized as they tried to get back into the career they'd worked so hard to be a part of.  As much as staying at home with your children is given lip-service, it's rarely looked upon positively behind closed corner-office doors.  How can a woman who's left the working world for an extended period of time be as efficient or as appealing as a person who has been working and growing with the industry all along?

I must admit, when I made the decision to start staying home, these fears weighed heavily on me.  Would I be hirable after my hiatus?  Would the technology have completely changed?  Would all my backbreaking work throughout my childless years be forgotten or obsolete?  What could I possibly have to offer after such a long "vacation?"

I worried I may well be putting the nails in my only half-built coffin by leaving television journalism when I did.

I no longer worry, though, and tomorrow, I'll tell you why.  It has to do with the internet.  It has to do with social media.  It has to do with this blog and the desireable skills I have, quite accidentally, honed each morning while Sesame St. is on.


(If you are interested in this topic, you may also enjoy the Parenting Online Series: 1 and 2)


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Moment of the Week - 25

Remember that elephant show with Bram, and Sharon and that other one?  My kids don't either.  But they like the song!

Toddler Tricks - 25

Ways to Trick your Baby:

Problem:  Congratulations!  Your child is pooping in the potty!  What could possibly be the problem there?  Well, I don't know about you, but after years of wiping the stuff, cleaning the stuff, and otherwise handling it, I find nothing more gross than carrying it from the chamber pot to the actual toilet to flush.  And, sometimes, it sticks.  It sticks.  It's something that just turns my stomach, and I don't know why, but I hate it.

Solution:  This is pure common sense, and I'm sure almost everyone but me must have been doing it right off the bat, but for some reason it took me weeks to figure this little simple gem out.  Before you dump the offensive-smelling treasure into the toilet, pour some water from the tap into the bucket and swish it around a bit.  The excrement usually slips right out without sticking or clumping or making you ineffectively wipe at it before you give the potty a wash down.  This tip is gross all around, but it's seriously been a lifesaver for me.


Ways your baby Tricks You:

Problem: Now that they are using the potty regularly, they're realizing it's not as fun to sit on the potty as it is to play.  You may go through a week or two accident-free, then, suddenly, the kids are peeing their pants again.

Solution: Pick opportune moments to suggest the potty, then slow down activities so that there is nothing more interesting going on.  You may choose to suggest the potty, then sit down and read a book right near the receptacles, clearing all other toys out of the way.  Usually, your suggestion will be met with a no.  Don't force them to use the potty.  If you've waited until after two, like I did, you should be able to talk to them after they've declined.  Tell them that if they don't use the potty now, they'll have wet pants later.  They will most likely test this postulation a few times before getting it.  But I've found that now they accept my potty suggestion when I remind them that their pants will get wet because there's no diaper there to protect them.

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