Last week was definitely one of the most difficult parenting weeks I have ever had. (Although, I haven’t had that many considering that my children are only 3 1/2 years and 20 months old.) As the stay-at-home parent I was dealing with my indoor allergies, kid-illnesses, and tried to begin a concerted effort to potty train my son.

My son had a runny nose on Monday so I decided to keep in home from pre-school. Although we have tried a little potty-training with him, he isn’t yet adept at getting-the-clothes-off to be able to sit down in time to actually do his business. So, I let him go around without anything on and kept the little potty near at hand.

The first time he went #2, I think it actually made it into the potty. I didn’t see this because I was making lunch for two children, talking on the phone with a relative overseas, and trying to eat my own lunch.  By the time I got to it, the potty had been tipped over and the contents had spilled out into the lid and on the floor. I cleaned up my son and said to him that I would clean up the mess after I put my daughter in her crib.

I ran upstairs for 15 seconds to put my daughter down and upon my return was greeted with a wad of poop in his hand. We put that in the toilet and went upstairs to wash down. I still didn’t think to put a diaper on him because he usually poops only once in a day. So, I Lysoled the floor, the leather sofa, toys, chairs, the carpet floor, door knobs, and any other surfaces I could see, and then I bleached out the potty seat. As I was rinsing the potty seat, I turned and saw he had pooped on, and decorated, the carpeted floor right outside the bathroom.

I just dissolved into tears as I washed him down again, put on a diaper on straight away, plopped him in his bed with a bunch of books, and pulled out the wet-vac, meant to clean up messes from pets, to clean and disinfect the floor. It took 45 minutes to hand-wet-vac the 3′ X 3′ space and clean out the vacuum.

I thought why me? Why do I get this extra burden? Why can’t my husband ever experience this? Why can’t my son tell me when he needs help? Why can’t he understand it that poop belongs in the potty? Why can’t he get it there himself? Why am I so frustraited that I can’t even see straight?

This is what I realized…I am just not cut out for this job of potty-training. When my patience runs thin, I get angry, and I show it. Imparting stress on my little guy probably doesn’t make him want to cooperate. And, maybe we need two potties. He has pooped in the potty before when there were no clothes to wrestle down. I think he pooped on the floor because his potty was unavailable. I also have very high standards. Very high. And when they aren’t met, I am disappointed, frustrated, angry, negative…etc., etc. Potty training isn’t going to be a perfect thing and I can’t ever expect perfection from my son, or myself for that matter.

So, my husband and I decided to that the potty-training experience would be a daddy-son time. He has chosen to throw a potty party for our son and take an entirely different approach, which I think just might work.

At the moment, I am not even mentioning the potty, unless my son does. Now, he usually makes it to the bathroom, closes the door, and stands in the corner to poop in his diaper. He’s getting it slowly. Now we have to enable him to get up there by himself. I keep reminding myself, **just remember, he isn’t going to go to his prom in diapers.**

The upside of this, there is a Korean saying that if you dream of poop that you will come into money. Well, even though this wasn’t a dream, I have to say that this old adage was right. I found $200 in my basement last week, my husband made some money in the market, and we received a $5k reimbursement. Would have I foregone the money to have had a poop-free week…emphatically, YES.