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Adding to the list of parenting experiences of which I am fearful of we have one quickly approaching.

Potty Training.

I can’t quite pin down why I am afraid of this because I know it will free up a lot of our lives and budget. Fuller will be able to take care of this bodily function and we can start saving our pennies for the next time we buy diapers for a little one.

I have been trying to get advice on the subject and everyone keeps pointing me to various books. While I don’t mind reading books, it just takes me a little while to get my act together to actually get the book in my hands. Which is probably why I tend to get so dependent on the internet for its advice.

So far, from my journeys into the internet archives, I have read about potty training readiness. This is usually where I get worried because I keep wondering, “Is he really ready?” I know I am ready to stop changing his dirty diapers. I know I am ready to stop traveling to the other side of the city to go to Sam’s to buy the bulk diapers we really like.

A few months back I tried to take the About: Pediatrics Potty Training Readiness Quiz. I thought the quiz was really long for an online quiz (I’m so used to those online quizzes that tell me while color I am or what character of Harry Potter I am) and I quit before finishing. I also think I lied on some of the answers because I figured if I answered “No” the quiz would tell me Fuller wasn’t ready. I think in reality I wasn’t ready.

Apparently some signs of readiness are:

Fuller doesn’t do two of those things. Does that mean he still isn’t ready? Probably.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep mentally preparing myself. Babycenter has a plethora of articles on Toilet Training Awareness. Again, like the previously mentioned quiz, it is a bit overwhelming. But I never got a chance to lie on any quizzes, I just went straight to the “What Doesn’t Work” article so I could tell myself what not to do.

In the “More clinical than I wanted to know” category, Potty Training Concepts has an article explaining the physiological concepts behind learning to use the toilet. Words like sphincter, elimination, bladder & bowel control, and motor skills are used in ways that would have made me giggle in middle school. Now that I am a parent I read them without flinching and wonder if this is the key to keeping Fuller in Spider-Man under-roos.

But, (no pun intended) the article is a good one to make me think more about who is more ready for this experience? Me or Fuller?

Maybe the key to readiness in found in the animation cells of this popular Japanese Toilet Training Video:

I hate to say it, but we may have to wait just a little bit longer. I wouldn’t want to push him and have it take longer.

potty training, toilet training, potty training readiness