Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Motivation

I think I should make a CD of Rooster's sound bites now while I'm sick to death of hearing them. That way when he moves to new ones in a few years and I miss these ones, I'll have something to go back to, to remember "the good times." So far, here are the tracks I am thinking to record:

1: Daddy, can I play with your iPhone?
2: Daddy, will you bring the (Nerf) guns home from work so I can play with them?
3: Mommy, can I have gum?
4: Can I play a video game?
5: Can I sleep in your bed tonight?
6: Wee-hoo! That's so great!
7: No!
All this to say, I think I finally found what would motivate him to be responsible for his own bathroom breaks!

As consequence: When the boy is so engrossed in his games or movies that he wets himself, that's the end of Media for the day.

As reward: When he poops on the potty, he gets to play the Wii all by himself for an hour.

He finally seems to have turned a corner. All weekend he was taking initiative to go pee in the potty. Sunday night I put him on the potty before bed, and he dropped a bomb in there. As he says so eloquently, "Wee-hoo!"

Monday he told me two times he had also pooped, and while I wanted to believe him, I hadn't seen it so wasn't sure what to believe. But later there was a brown smear in his pull-up (yes, I went back after the week leading UP to last weekend), so I tentatively gave him the benefit of the doubt. Then yesterday I realized we haven't had any wet pants episodes for a few days.

I started discussing this with a friend on the phone yesterday morning (so rude, I know, but it's where I'm at). Rooster was laying on the floor staring at the ceiling, sucking his thumb and holding his Eeyore (the love of his life). Suddenly he got up, smiled a secret smile, walked to the bathroom and sat on the potty. A moment later he shouted, "I did it, Mommy! I pooped on the potty! Now I get to play Super Mario Galaxy!"

Sure enough. The power of suggestion had inspired him. So of course I let him, and he was soooo happy.

Then 7 hours later, I was bragging on him to his Daddy over the phone, telling about the morning incident. I'll be darned if the kid didn't overhear and go repeat the whole incident by pooping again.

Apparently he has now gone from avoiding pooping for two days at a time, to putting it out on command for rewards.

I was suddenly reminded of my old cat Figaro, who always seemed to save a torpedo for emergencies. I would wait until he had left a fresh bomb in the litter box, then go scoop out the whole thing; but that cat would invariably come back after I was done and leave another one in its place. I found out later it's an instinctive trait of cats to mark their pooping place.

Although Figaro left us before Rooster ever entered the scene, I guess he passed on the kitty gene. But let me just tell you, I don't care the cause or the psychology of it one bit.

Bottom line, my kid has now pooped on the potty at least five times in the last four days, and that is all that matters to me. This child might be trained in time for college after all. Wee-hoo.

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