Using the toilet is a funny life skill. I feel like the whole world and their toddler has grasped this concept meanwhile we're struggling forward with it. Some days he'll run to his room, put on a pair of pants and then happily pee independently without me helping him in any way - this includes him pulling his pants on and off, getting to the potty and then standing up to use it. Then there are days like today.
Today he wanted nothing to do with the toilet or the potty but would loudly proclaim in the middle of us doing something (playing, putting away clothes and the like - always doing it together and nothing heavy so that we could drop everything and run to the bathroom if need be) that he needed to use the toilet for a pee pee. "Quick!" he'd tell me. "I need use toilet, I need to pee pee toilet!" so we'd run through to the bathroom and as soon as he began to climb the red stool he'd tell me he didn't need. Then he'd use the toilet, so long as he had a book, so I collected Peepo from his bedroom and he still didn't want to use the toilet.
When he wanted to take his book through to another room I told him it was just for the toilet, just for when he needed a pee. Heeding my rules he set it up on the stool, in the bathroom, and read from it there ;).
I keep telling myself through every wet pair of trousers and the many wet pairs of pants that I've washed that we'll 'get there' with the toilet usage...but sometimes I want to cry at how hard this whole thing is in comparison to everything else he's learned. I sometimes think to myself 'tomorrow will be different' and it gets worse or sometimes it's easier but it's never consistent. I don't use shame, fear, anger or discipline when it comes to toilet using and this makes it easier for me and for him, I'm sure of that. If he wets himself I simply say 'let's take you out of these wet clothes!' and once he's stripped? He runs to his room, for another pair of underpants. He's eager, he's showing that he's 'ready' according to all of the books but sometimes it's so much over whelming hard work that I want to hit fast forward three years and pass this phase. I know we'll 'get there' but the space in between now and getting there is tough and oh so draining.
