Finally!!!

This is a gross post but it is such a momentous occasion in all of our lives I had to write about it.

So it has been an off and on 2 year struggle to get Kade to poo in the potty.  We have tried everything.  The latest things we tried are sticker charts, 10 squares for Lagoon and 25 for Raging Waters.  I tried cutting a hole in a pull-up and having him wear it on the potty but he just stared at me like I was crazy and said, “Mom you don’t wear underwear on the potty.”  I took away his new transformer.  I told him we would go to McDonalds for dinner.  We got him new transformer underwear.  I tried being sugar sweet and also horribly mean and nothing was working.  If we would catch him going and try to put him on the potty he would not go.  If he felt it coming he would start to scream and freak out that his peeps were coming.  He would hold it for days and days and days and finally just scream in pain when he would finally go because he was so backed up.  One bright spot in this whole mess was that if he was wearing big boy underwear he would not go in them.  He would ask us to get him a pull up.  So not such a mess for mom. 

I finally decided to go with laxatives.  He was getting so backed up and I read about cases on the internet about having to go to the ER because they get impacted so I thought it would help.  I also thought that if it just came out he would see it wasn’t scary and just go.  I had 3 days off in a row and decided that this was it.  Preschool is starting soon and he just turned four.  Yes my four year old has learned to read before he can poo on the potty.  I told him that the laxative would make his poo easier so he took it with out a fuss.  We spent 3 full days on the potty.  I wish I was exaggerating when I say every ten minutes he told me he had to go and we went in and tried.  He would get up there and say, “Oh I’ll try again in a minute” and get right back down.  Sometimes I got him to push but mostly he would just sit there and jerk it back up until he didn’t have to go anymore.  Then ten minutes later, “Mom I have to go poo”.  The most frustrating 3 days of my entire life. 

He kept freaking out about his peeps coming whenever he felt his poops coming so I tried getting him to hold a tissue there but he didn’t like that idea, we already tried pull-ups on the potty, and he has a little seat that we put on the regular seat that has a guard but his peeps didn’t fit in it.  We tried just sitting on the regular seat but he just didn’t feel comfortable there.  He was much to worried about falling in and couldn’t concentrate on going.  We decided to head to Walmart and get a bigger seat for him to sit on.  We found a soft one (he told me it had to be soft) that has handles on the sides.  I taught him to hold himself up on the handles so that his peeps was pointing in the potty. 

He still was struggling.  He would sit up there and push so hard that he “ran out of breath”  he would look at me with tears in his eyes and say, “help me mom help me”.  It was heartbreaking.  He would tell me that he needed more medicine (laxatives) to make it easier so I read the bottle and it said he could have 2 a day so I gave him more.  The stubborn little stink held it in for three days while taking laxatives. He told me he had a stomach ache and I told him it would make him sick if he didn’t get it out.  I told him he was going to have to go to the doctor to get it out.  He still kept freaking out about his peeps coming so I told him that poops like it when peeps come out.  I said that if you go peeps it makes it easier for the poops.  I hoped that he had the connection of the medicine making it easier so he would also connect the peeps making it easier. 

As soon as Kris would get home he got the privilege of sitting in the bathroom every ten minutes the rest of the night.  I couldn’t take it anymore.  On the third night they were in there and Kade just couldn’t hold it in anymore.  It fell out and luckily he was using the handles and his peeps  that came with it went in the potty.  He was completely shocked that he had done it.  We made a huge deal I was seriously jumping up and down.  He got to put his sticker on the chart and he got his transformer back.  He was so happy he was saying, my stomach isn’t going to get sick, I’m not going to have to go to the doctor, I pushed really hard and my peeps went in the potty.  I made sure he really understood that if he pointed his peeps down it wouldn’t make a mess and that it was ok to pee along with it.  He was so happy but not as happy as mom.  He had to call his Grandma’s and tell them. 

So the real test, would he do it again the next day.  He went 5 times the next day.  He wouldn’t quite finish and have to keep going back.  Kris said that he was exploiting the sticker chart but I said after 2 years I didn’t care.  The day after that he went five times again so in two days he filled up his Lagoon chart.  I stopped giving him the laxatives cold turkey and he has done just fine.  Not one accident since the first time he went on August 14th.

Here are his charts.  They are pictures of him on his favorite rides.  He only has seven squares left to fill up on Raging Waters.

That is his transformer Star Scream that he got back.

He eventually remembered I promised he could go to McDonalds.