Sunday, March 29, 2009

My Three Year Old Thinks He's Howard Hughes

Bubbles is very independent. Forced by apraxia, and motivated by his marvelous personality, he will help himself before he asks for help, such as: bring a box of cereal to me if he wants some, and run back out of the room to get a bowl if he forgot one.

So far, we are a potty training FAIL. He refuses to use the potty, runs from the potty in horror, denies having pooped despite green vapors filling the room, refuses even gummy treats in exchange for a mere moment on the toilet.
Yesterday, he peed on his shoes. Well, through his pants (I told him he wasn't wearing a diaper!) and onto his shoes.
And I wiped off his shoes and put them in the sun to dry. Later, the shoes were nowhere to be found. Missing shoes.
"Where are your shoes?" We asked Bubbles.
"I gonna pay trains!" He would answer.
"Bubbles, go find your shoes!"
"I want a cookie!"

This went on all day. We would ask him for the shoes, and he would change the subject and look innocent. We searched the yard, the house, the garage, the bike baskets, everything we could think of, because Bubbles will only wear this pair of shoes or rainboots, and today was too hot for the latter.
No shoes.

Tonight, I put him in the bath and started cleaning up in the living room, adjacent to the bathroom. I heard him rummaging through his bath toy basket, and he began playing. Dh walked in the bathroom a moment later and found Bubbles with his leather shoes submerged, happily scrubbing away.
"Shoe bath!" He announced.


Oh my holy hell. The boy hid his shoes under the toys in the bath toy basket, waiting for a secret opportunity in which to wash them.


What does one make of a child who refuses to use a toilet, but is afraid that his parents will not properly wash the pee off of his shoes?

11 comments:

Anita said...

Cutest thing I've heard all day! Thanks for the chuckle. He sounds adorable.

Vodka Mom said...

omg that is adorable.

Sophie said...

Kids are so funny.

My little boy is finally toilet trained. Only happened in the last few weeks. It's bliss (sorry to brag). But still yeah, it's bliss. No more scrubbing poo out of his jocks and anything else he came into contact with.

For what it's worth it happened very quickly. One day he just got it. Something snapped and he realised that it was much simpler to poo on the toilet than in his undies.

I recently told my son that when he farts, it's his poo saying "let me out". This is what he tells me now when he goes off to the loo. Frigging hilarious.

I hope he gets it soon. :)

And that's so sweet that he was cleaning them. So adorable.

For the Long Haul said...

That is SO my boy. He peed in his "big boy pants" on Sunday after repeatedly telling me he wanted to use the toilet and get his lollipop. Even though I checked with him virtually every 5 minutes about if he had to use the potty and was told, "Not yet!"

And when I found out he had peed in the pants he said, "No Mommy. Dat not pee pee. Dat yellow water. I washa it out fo you" and proceeded to take his pants to the sink and drag over his stool to stand there and "rinse them."

Are our children related? :)

Jake Dillon said...

Can totally relate to this one. My son almost 5 still will not potty train. Hates to sit on the potty. Gets glum if you even ask. The peeing on the shoes is the upside of just putting big boy pants on. The #2 is whole nother ugh.

He has apraxia too. I have just decided to back off and wait for warm weather again and let him free range. What else is there to do?

*Monica said...

LOVE IT!

I haven't started training Jack yet, but I am already teaching him the signs for all that "stuff"

He nows asks me if I have to go potty. Thank God not many people know that sign.

surferhen said...

ROTFL from my belly
LOVE LOVE LOVE YOU GUYS!!!!
Bubbles ... I can just see him doing that. c'mon by later so I can play trains with Bubbles.
please...

I can't find my blog said...

Hey, at least he wanted clean shoes. My boy wouldn't even have touched them, much less cleaned them on his own. You've got one on me there!

Cindy said...

God, that is funny! Marvelous is the word.

Anonymous said...

he is brilliant, absolutely brilliant! Love you Bubbles, Supergirl and Gwendo!

Renee said...

Today my four year urinated into an empty water bottle. It was so clear, I'm glad he didn't put it into the refrigerator. When I dumped it out, he told me he wasn't done with it yet -- he planned to fill the whole thing. It totally reminded me of Howard Hughes.