Anyway, it's pretty crazy, mid March we were vacationing in Kauai and when we came back, everything changed overnight - sheltering in place was ordered, pretty much a lot of public places are closed and sadly a lot of people got infected with COVID19 aka corona virus. So I wanted to write today because despite of the bad news we hear and see - we have good news on the home front. We reached a very important milestone in Ethan's progress that perhaps shelter-in-place helped with. That is... drum roll please... Ethan is potty trained!!!! WOOHOO!!!!
Finally, after many years of potty training - working with the school and his behavioral therapy team, he finally did it! He's turning 9 this Fall and we were starting to think if he'd always be in a diaper, it's also not uncommon for kids with cerebral palsy to not be potty trained at this age. He's mastered #1 maybe a year or two ago, #2 was really a struggle for him and for me, he would come home from school with soiled underwear at times and it never bothered him. Taking him to the women's bathroom when we're out in public has also started to become very awkward.
So how was our potty training saga like? In the past how many years, we've been sending him in underwear probably since he was in kindergarten (he's currently in second grade) but we would go back and forth, underwear one day, Pull Ups the next day. I would put him in Pull Ups because didn't want to deal with the mess of cleaning him up, we threw away so many underwear and it was just so frustrating so I thought to myself, well, maybe Ethan is not ready yet. He's always had his own timeline achieving other milestones so I'll just work around his schedule - pick my battle kind of thing. It's not the end of the world if he's not potty trained.
So, my mother in law and I tagged team on this since he's home anyway, we basically told him he can use the computer (great motivator) if he goes #2 in the potty, we went with him to the potty numerous times when we see 'the signs' - whether he would go or not, we really just wanted him to sit on the potty for at least a minute. When he sits, I would give him a reward just for sitting. It was hit or miss (mostly miss ;) ) and we didn't pressure him but we constantly reminded him that if he goes, he gets computer time. We also committed not putting him in Pull Ups, maybe he was getting confused with the back and forth underwear one day, Pull Ups the next day. So we repeated this cycle a million times (I'm not kidding!) and just one day he said he needed to go #2 and the rest was history. :) The key thing that I learned is definitely consistency is key and not to stress about the process, it's difficult not to but with lots and lots of patience and positive attitude - it finally happened!
So finally more than a month of him consistently using the potty and no more diapers - I have officially declared that Ethan Jacob is potty trained, hooray! What amazes me was he would stop doing a preferred activity to use the potty which was a sign that he finally gets it! It's been a long journey but here we are, he met an important goal that he's been working on for over 6 years and despite of our unusual pandemic situation, this is something positive that came out of it. Our premature miracle baby boy can pee and poo all by himself. He's a big boy now.
So... thank YOU to his village of super duper awesome care team who has helped us with Ethan's progress! We could have not done it without you. And also, thank you Ethan for teaching us that anything can be accomplished with patience and reminding us to put things in perspective. We love you so much and we couldn't be more proud of your accomplishments. Like what we always say, Never ever give up because we never had and we never will.
This alone was worth sheltering in place in my opinion! ;)
He loves bow ties!
His well-deserved computer time! :)
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