Intensive potty-training - Day 1

Today marks the beginning of the New World Order in our house. Angel triplet is learning to go potty. TODAY. It's Midwinter Break so we have 2 days off from school. Tripped Up Daddy is in charge of Princess and Sunshine triplets today. I've hired a babysitter to watch the other two triplets tomorrow and Tuesday so Angel triplet and I can live in the bathroom.

We're following a regimen indicated by her ABA supervisor, and it normally works after about 2 to 3 days.

It's insane. It's programmed potty times with only 10 minute breaks in between. That's 15 minutes of sitting on the potty, then a break, and then back to the potty. We've done 4 cycles already, had one accident, and only a little balking. She can play with anything she wants while she's on the potty, and if she goes two amazing things happen: 1) SHE GETS CANDY! 2) We get to wait 45 minutes until the next scheduled potty time!

So far the best potty time activities are her Barbie B Bright computer toy and My Pal Violet. Oh and Mommy's reading electronic potty books whenever there's a lull in interest.

Tripped Up Daddy and the others went to church leaving me alone in the insanity. Actually, I think I could do this if it were just her and me. Of course, nothing, absolutely nothing else, will be accomplished today.

Wish me luck. If it works we'll be down to just 1 triplet still in pull-ups

It's no secret we're behind on this daily living skill (the girls are 5, after all), but that's not unusual when you're dealing with autism or other developmental delays. If you've followed along with us in the past you're used to reading about the potty training dilemma, if not, you can catch up pretty quickly by looking at the earlier posts (linked in this paragraph).

Two inches of success

Sometimes it's really hard to do life. I mean, sometimes you realize that every single place you look in your home there is another obvious example of a task left undone or, in my house, more like 10 tasks left undone stacked up on one another. At those moments everything feels overwhelming and it's scary to even try to look at a task list because the priorities are too confusing.

Today is one of those days where the mountains of undone tasks, disorganization, strewn toys, unfolded laundry, dirty dishes, leaking shower, broken van (and I could go on and on) all grew far higher than my normal tolerance level. Overwhelming, paralyzing, hopeless.

Me whining to Tripped Up Daddy: There's isn't even 2" in this house that doesn't remind me of something left undone or some other way that I'm failing.

Sunshine triplet at the very moment I said the word "failing": Mommy, look at my picture I drew! See it's me and you and Daddy. See the pink bubbles and the sun and all the tall grass?

Me to Sunshine triplet: This is awesome, honey. I love it.

Sunshine triplet: I love you Mommy! and she bounces off to her next activity

Tripped Up Daddy to me: I think you just got a whole lot more than 2 inches of proof that nothing you're doing could be called failure.

I don't think the interchange made it any easier to address my lack of organization and mountains of undone tasks, but it did remind me that my success/failure measuring device might need some recalibrating.