Potty Training Continued...

About 20 years ago, or what feels abut that long ago, I posted about how we were venturing into potty training. Oh how optimistic and naive I was. I knew that potty training wasn't easy, I have more than enough friends who have struggled with it and worked with enough children in Daycare and Early Learning settings to know that it can often be a long drawn out process. But I think like many of us, I was tempted to hope that we would take a different route, one where suddenly she would wake up and be completely potty trained and I would smile proudly and we would carry on happily. That did not end up being the case. Being pregnant with Sy when we started the process I was hoping to have it all wrapped up long before he was born, the idea of needing to assist her and constantly question her need to go on the potty while caring for a newborn had very little appeal. So we kept at it, until one day she whimpered and said, "Mommy I can't do it." I questioned her a little bit and found that she seemed to have become overwhelmed by the whole process. So we took a break, stuck with the Pull-Ups and tried to keep her familiar with the idea of it at least, waiting for signs she was ready to try again. Sy was born and she was slowly starting to show a little interest again but as I feared I found it challenging to keep up with it during the 24 hour nursing stage. But we tried to stick with it, finding things that we could entice her with as rewards. We had been keeping at it mostly because we thought it was important to move past this stage until we realized that we had a different goal, she needed to be potty trained in order to attend the Preschool we had her registered for. So that has weighed on mind heavily this summer. However, Henry and I remained confident that like all other milestones with Zoey, she would likely just suddenly get it, we were just hoping it would happen in time for Preschool.

Jumping to this month, I will admit to starting to feel a bit discouraged and overwhelmed. I allowed myself to wonder if it was something I was doing wrong? Was she actually going to miss out on the start of Preschool because I wasn't doing this right? Good heavens was Zoey going to be sort of shy AND not potty trained? (I'm obviously kidding with the last one :) In hindsight, she may have picked up on my stress as she had a few rough days and meltdowns, which can be typical three year old behaviour but was quite unusual for her. Finally I talked to Henry about it and we agreed and admitted that we had been praying very little about it. I wondered why I had fooled myself into thinking that God wouldn't care about this issue? Or perhaps in my infinite lack of wisdom, I thought I could handle it. We agreed to start praying for wisdom for us and even that it would just work like most things had for Zoey. I also made a choice to have more confidence in Zoey herself. We started to see more progress over the course of a week or two but still not quite the consistency we needed to be able to say she was fully potty trained. Finally this week I decided reach out to our amazing Small Group community and asked for prayer on this issue. Literally the next day we had a near 180 change. Bailey was over and was able to get her to wear undies which up until that point, she had declared to be yucky. Once the undies were on she has been consistently asking to go on the potty and kept them dry for the last two days. We even went to the library and Daddy's soccer game without any accidents.

Anyone that has been involved in potty training knows that this is no small thing, it is a huge victory, and for me personally an exercise in faith. I have been reminded that my God cares about all things in my life, big and small. He has has constantly shown Himself to be unfailingly faithful to me, and I must do a much better job at doing the same in return. Perhaps this whole process has taken longer than I would ever have hoped or initially wanted, and I definitely felt discouraged at different points, but I feel that this success is that much sweeter right now because of the entire process. I have very few answers as to how God works, and this may seem like a very clichéd idea but I know right now, in this experience I am so grateful for prayer and a God who cares about my children and our lives in every area.

I know this process isn't necessarily over yet, we'll likely have some challenges ahead yet, but I'm so excited about how far we've come and I'm so proud of my sweet Zoey.