Don't get me wrong. I love my Logan Cruz. In my eyes, he is jut the cutest, little boy I have ever seen. But he is difficult. Although he can also be the sweetest boy around, he can be so, so difficult. He still throws many tantrums a day, does not like transitions, and disagrees with lots of things that I ask him to do. As a result, it came as no surprise that Logan was NOT on board with potty training. In fact, when I first tried after Spring Break was over last April, I had to wrestle him to the ground the morning that I put underwear on him and informed him that we were going to start going pee pee in the potty. Logan then threw a massive tantrum, ripped off his underwear, and threw them across his bedroom. At that moment, I decided that he was not ready to start potty training and shelved the whole thing for a few months. During the summer, I decided that we would try again on Lia's first day back to school. For several weeks leading up this day, I would tell Logan, "You are going to start wearing underwear and go pee pee in the potty when Lia goes back to school." Each time I said this, Logan reacted the exact same way--with a massive tantrum! He would scream and cry and shout, "No!" Needless to say, I was not looking forward to this day.
Three weeks ago today, the dreaded day arrived. We dropped Lia off at school and drove straight to Target. I let him pick out as many toys and treats from the dollar bins before heading home and putting them on the mantle above the fireplace. At first Logan was excited to get all of this fun stuff. But once we got home and it really sunk in that he had to "earn" all of these goodies by going pee in the toilet, the tantrum began. I brought him upstairs to put on a pair of underwear and the worst tantrum of Logan's career began. I'm not kidding. After attempting unsuccessfully to get a pair of underwear on his body, he started throwing things, banging his head against the wall, and trying to rip out his hair (in addition to screaming and crying). It was insane. I have never seen him do anything like this! It got so bad after trying to talk to him for many minutes that I finally had to give up and take Ella out of the room for her safety and go downstairs. This tantrum went on like this for 45 minutes. During this time, I wondered how on earth this was ever going to work. It would take a miracle.
And suddenly the miracle happened. After 45 minutes, Logan came downstairs still crying, but trying to calm himself down. Through tears and gasps, he managed to communicate to me that he wanted to try to go potty. I couldn't believe my ears! I immediately asked him if he wanted to go downstairs on the potty seat or upstairs on the potty chair. After telling me that he wanted to try downstairs, we quickly went in the powder bathroom and I put him up on the potty seat. After seriously trying for a few seconds, Logan produced a few, little drops of pee. And that was all that I needed!! Much hooping and hollering followed! After celebrating with him for several seconds, I asked him if he wanted to put on his underwear to which he said, 'no.' And then it all clicked. Logan was never afraid of potty training, he was afraid of wearing underwear! He always associated the two because I always talked about them together! Once I finally figured this out, it was as easy as pie. We quickly pulled up his pants and then ran into the family room to pick out a toy. And from that moment on, we have never looked back. Logan immediately started going #1 in the potty every single time from that day on with zero accidents. In fact, he has only had ONE accident in three weeks and it was entirely my fault because I forgot to help him go after his nap one Saturday because I was outside planting flowers in my pots on the porch. He has done an amazing job.
However, being true to Logan's form, nothing is easy and simple. He immediately set up a few ground rules that had to be followed. One, he refused to wear underwear and so he went "commando" every day (which is kind of funny to me). Secondly, I was the ONLY person allowed in the bathroom with him (not even Ron was allowed to even watch him go to the bathroom). And third, he refused to even try to go #2 in the toilet. He quickly figured out that if he waited until nighttime, he could go in his pull-up diaper after we put him to bed OR in the morning right after waking up before I changed him for the day. As annoying as these little rules were, I decided that I would take whatever I could get and just went with them. Luckily in the past week, we have broken through all three. Logan is now wearing underwear every day, Ron is allowed to help him in the bathroom, and we have had FIVE successes with #2 in the toilet! So, it looks like we are finally turning a corner. Thank heavens for that.
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