Luke is Potty Trained

or, There is hope for you, boy mom, and your little man. He will “get there”! If it takes a whole year, he will get there. And when someone asks you later, “When did you potty train little Johnny?” you will cite when he reached Potty Trained, not how long it took you to get there, and no one will ask more questions, and no one will notice you sweating from the stressful memories that just resurfaced, or judge you for not doing it earlier. Some will say, “Wow!” Some will say, “Yep, no point in starting till he’s ready.” Some will ask for advice. Err on the side of giving moral support rather than methodological tips, unless specifically requested. Anyway. That was a long secondary title. Moving on…

Remember Day 1 of potty training? I’m happy to report that Luke is now fully potty trained. With some caveats. He still occasionally has accidents. I still often tell him it’s time to poop rather than he telling me. But most of the time, he chooses when to go, before it’s too late, and he can hold it if needed. Hallelujah!

It was a long road. We had some significant speed bumps. But we’re here.

The first few months were as-expected. He could physically do his business in the toilet instead of in his pants, but it was totally my responsibility to keep track of when it might be time to go. Some of my friends were impressed, and some were amused, at my audacity to take him out and about in underwear instead of a diaper or pull-up in the early days.

Church was always an interesting place. I didn’t know if he could hold it through the whole service or not, so if he said he needed to go, I took him. And if he didn’t say so, I made him go both before and after. And if he didn’t, I was in eggshell territory. One day when he hadn’t gone in an hour or more, and I got distracted socializing, he peed on me. He was sitting on my lap. I was wearing my ONE dry-clean-only dress. And he just peed all over me.

When we went to San Diego, he was in pull-ups most of the time, because an accident on an airplane, or carrying 2 changes of bottoms with us all over the city, sounded like a big Not Worth It. He mostly kept the pull-up dry, but it was impossible to resist the temptation of just not stopping-at-every-possible-bathroom-just-in-case….so there were also wet pull-ups. And, somewhere in his brain, I’m sure that pull-up interval caused a slight regression.

The next few months, I regretted having started potty training as young as I had with him. I was still keeping track of his liquid intake and his potty intervals, plus I had pregnancy brain. I barely had enough undies his size to be able to keep enough clean between loads of laundry. I knew he knew how to go potty in the potty, but it sure felt like he just didn’t care. He didn’t mind having wet pants and socks, as long as that meant he got to keep on playing whatever he was playing. There were soooooo many frustrated moments for me in there. I swore I wouldn’t even mention potty training our third child until he or she was two and a half.

Then one day, I realized I wasn’t having to keep track of every ounce and every minute anymore. He would sometimes tell me he had to go, and usually—at minimum—not fight me when I suggested it was time to go. I thought to myself, “Okay. It took us six or seven months, but we’re here. We’re back to where I don’t regret starting when I did, because it might have taken us six months at any age, and now we’re here already.” I may have been rationalizing, but hey, I felt better about it!

Then Cecily was born. I expected a regression again. The books and blogs all talk about it. But it didn’t come.

In fact, the opposite happened. He became a big brother, and he simultaneously crossed the threshold into “fully potty trained” territory. This was when he started saying “I’m just gonna go potty real quick,” and then did so. He almost always needed help when he was done going potty, with toilet paper or pants or hand washing, but more often than not, he went straight to the potty without even telling me, for #1 and #2. I was so stoked!

And then…something weird happened.

Luke was still going on the little potty most of the time, which allowed mom and dad to get up close and personal with everything that went on. We’d begun noticing a small, red, jelly-like smear on the poop a little before Cecily was born. It wasn’t like the just-blood we saw on constipated poop with our first. The poop itself seemed fine (ie. not constipated). I never noticed him straining, or complaining that it hurt. When I asked if anything in the tummy/bottom region hurt, he said No and was always perfectly cheerful. But the jelly (blood-mucus) smear became a daily thing, so we were concerned.

Justin googled what it could mean, and was highly concerned. I was still in postpartum fog, narrowly focused on the baby, avoiding google and the C-word, and was only mildly concerned. We made an appointment with the pediatrician.

TMI warning. I created a photo album on my phone at this time entitled “Poop,” so that I could show the doctors what the jelly smear looked like. The pediatrician applauded my forethought. She said it was very helpful from a troubleshooting/diagnostic standpoint, since he couldn’t exactly poop on demand in the office. But now I can’t figure out how to delete the album. All the pictures are deleted (heaven help me) but that album just sits there staring at me. My sister once asked me, “Why do you guys talk about poop so much??” This is parenting, y’all. This is my life. Worrying about and talking about and writing about other people’s poop.

So we did a blood test and a stool sample. An ultrasound and an X-ray. No answers. A little Miralax. That red jelly still there. A referral to the pediatric GI specialist.

A colonoscopy.

Yes, my two-year-old was scheduled to have a colonoscopy, something I usually associate with middle-aged (or older) men. My mama heart was hurting with compassion for my “baby” boy to have to go through that. He was on a full dose of Miralax in preparation for the procedure, so he was back in diapers completely. We tried to maintain potty protocols, but like with the pull-ups in San Diego, the regression was inevitable.

Anyway, the colonoscopy went well. They found (and removed) a juvenile polyp, which is a harmless, mushroom-shaped growth, which was getting irritated and bleeding inside the colon. Everything else looked normal and there were no odd “markers” or the type of polyp that could indicate cancer. Immediately following the colonoscopy, and ever since, no more red jelly.

The doctors instructed us to keep him on Miralax for a while to make sure things kept moving. We’ve gradually weaned him from a full dose of 17g a day down to about 2g every other day, now. Thank goodness.

By the time he was on a half dose, I expected Potty Trained to kick back in. It wasn’t happening, though. I was back to a bathtub full of wet pants every couple of days. He just wasn’t paying attention. I had to keep track of his potty intervals again, and he was putting up a fight when I did say it was time to go. For some reason he refused to even try to go poop unless he was concurrently drinking juice with Miralax in it.

The timing of this regression was terrible. I went from elated about his anti-regression with the new baby, to devastated by this regression. It almost would have been easier to cope with if he’d never been at 100% in the first place.

Except, more rationally, I am still thankful that he really “got it” when I had a teensy new baby to care for! And if he was going to have this issue, it worked out that it was noticed and completely resolved the same year we had a baby with a short NICU stay to meet our out-of-pocket maximum already with our health insurance. From the first pediatrician appointment to the 6-week post-colonoscopy follow-up with the GI doctor, we paid $0 (besides our regular monthly insurance premiums) to figure out and treat Luke’s issue.

I knew it wasn’t his fault, but it was still so frustrating to me as a mom. I felt like I had failed somehow. And it felt so unfair to him, too. To his dignity. To his pure little body.

It’s a little blurry, now, exactly when we got back on the upswing. The procedure was in October. Finally, in December, a full year after the first day of potty training with him, Luke was acting Potty Trained again. Under “Is he potty trained?” on the preschool registration paperwork, I wrote “85% yes,” in early December. By his first day of school in early January, he was up to 99% YES! And since school started, those “occasional accidents” have decreased noticeably, too.

In short, Lukey is up to Potty Trained, Level “Grandma could take me for a few days overnight and not go crazy.” Level “One change of clothes in my preschool backpack is plenty if not superfluous.” Level “Mom is proud of me for being barely 3, a boy, and fully there.”

Well. Actually. He still wears a diaper at night. But that’s because I am not ready to risk having to wash sheets/mattress pads daily. He usually wakes up dry anyway, but sometimes he doesn’t. Cecily isn’t sleeping well enough (read: Mom is not sleeping well enough) for Mom to be up for official night training. I’m giving myself that grace. I’ve read all the theories. I’ll get to it before he turns 4, I promise.

Also I just realized that I officially have no toddlers in my house right now. I have two preschoolers and a baby. 😱🤯😭