Complacent

The lovely Dr. S. warned me not to do a lot of research on Olivia's syndrome. When she gave that warning, I'm pretty sure she was trying to prevent any unnecessary worrying on my part. The research is very out-dated.

What I don't think Dr. S. anticipated is that upon doing the research and finding other parents of 5p- kids (thank you Facebook!) I might become complacent in my parenting of Olivia.

See...I read that kids with universal low muscle tone tend to not potty train very easily. I found during my non-heeding of advice research that 5p- kids typicall started potty training around seven years old.

Now, I'll be honest, I think Olivia has already proven herself to be ahead of the curve that most 5p- kids are riding. I hope that doesn't come across as braggy or even condescending to other 5p- kids, but she's speaking more than most her age, she's physically at or above the curve.

Oh whatever. I'm her mother. I think she's amazing and the very best 5p- kid EVER. So there.

But yeah, braggy mom aside, whenever I thought about potty training, I figured we had another year or so before we should even make the attempt.

My mom is Olivia's babysitter and the thought of changing diapers for another year or so did not sit well with her.

I tried to warn her that it probably wasn't going to happen, but Gram knows best, right?

Well, in this case, she did. A month or so ago, she started working with Olivia, taking her to the bathroom every half hour or so and just getting her familiar with peeing and pooping on the toilet. She also lavished Olivia with praise when she managed to hold the pee until it was time to go on the toilet.

Olivia LOVES praise. She loves being adored and I think the praise was what did it. She started staying dry and only peeing on the toilet. Then she started telling us when she had to go. And this weekend, wonder of wonders, she told me she had to poop, BEFORE she started going in her underwear.

Well then. It looks like we have an almost potty trained girl on our hands. I only say almost because she can't pull her own pants down, get on the toilet herself, pull her pants back up and wash her hands herself.

But we can to to Walmart for over an hour and she either stays dry or will tell me she has to go and will actually go in the public restroom.

I underestimated Olivia. I'm sorry for that. I shouldn't have let the research influence me. I haven't let it do that for any other part of her development. I've let her show us what she can do and gone from there.

Of course, I didn't underestimate the amount of work it takes to have a semi-potty trained child in the house. When she tells me she has to go, I have to be willing/able to drop everything I might want to do and take right that minute because she's still at that stage/age where she has to RIGHT NOW when she actually says she has to go.

I hope this is a lesson to me. If this is the only area I underestimate this child, we'll be ahead of the game.