Stubborn, thy name is potty.

It’s about negativity, I think. The core of this potty training problem is that she is dead set against peeing. She’s proven that she can hold her pee though many hours, even though the afternoon nap. Going when she needs to, or when I tell her she needs to, that’s another story (which I am about to tell). I put her on her potty and say “let the peepee out.” She says, “I can’t like the peepee on the potty.”

“yes, go pee.”

“no.”

“YES!”

“NO!”

“YES! and DON’T say ‘no’ again orsohelpme!”

“WhaaaAAAAAAA!!!!!!” (repeat chorus… and scene!)

Finally, after she peed on the rocker this morning, I sat her down on the potty and I laid it all out. (I know, you can’t reason with a two year old, but I try.) I said, “There are NO diapers any more for you. None. That part of life is over now. Never again (except at night). YOU hold your peepee very well. HOWEVER, you need to let the peepee out when I tell you. YOU need to tell the peepee to come out. The peepee does not control you. You control the peepee.”

The whole time she’s crying, “I can’t want to peepee! I can’t want the potty!” (Yesterday, we had some little successes of her calming down, and I would hold her hands and she would think very hard and the pee would come out. Today, however, she was digging in her heals and refusing to try.)

So, I calm her back down and started to tell her that when she kept saying NO to the peepee and the potty, the peepee won’t come out. She needs to say yes to the peepee. “YES! YES! Peepee, you come out!”

She looked at me like: Mom, You. Are. Crazy.

But I pushed the issue (to the point of “say it… Say It… SAY IT!), and eventually… she said it. And…

It worked.

And when it works, she always seems so surprised. If I wasn’t so annoyed by her stubbornness, this would be hilarious. I suppose to you it is, as you keep reading about our potty woes.

We talked a lot about the peepee today. She really can hold it very well, for hours and hours. It’s just the hours and hours of her sitting – unproductive – ON the pot that worry me. I reassure her every minute that she can do this. I make it clear that the POTTY is the way of the NOW and FUTURE. We are going all potty, all the time from here on out. She needs to get on board here. There is no ‘fresh-clean-diaper’ coming anytime soon. Has she heard me? I think she has started to. Although I hadn’t meant to, I decided THIS would be the week. This is the time to make my stand about sitting on the potty. She’s stubborn, but she got that from me. Onward and upward.

But, I wonder if this is all for naught. We are going on vacation here in about 5 weeks. Will I be able to get her settled into a routine in 5 weeks? and if I do, will I wreck it with the vacation and have to start all over again? Ugg. I’m trying to instill positive thinking in my girl and all I can think is this is never going to work on an airplane!