A Walk in the Park

Sources of Inspiration--or--Many Thanks to Jo!

Well I know some people have watched Supernanny on occasion, I have never been much of a viewer (you know how I feel about reality television). I did see in a promo that this week was "celebrity supernanny" and my interest was very piqued. So I thought well, I will tape this. The celebrity is Wendy (of wilson phillips--not the one who had the gastro bypass although she was in the episode). She has 3 and 4 year old boys and 6 week old twin boys and a nice husband. You could see how Jo wanted to help them as they were a nice family.

Anyways, Jo used her paci-fairy technique on the 3 year old boy who still had a paci at bedtime. I thought wow, this could work for Matthew and what we are trying to give up--pullups. So after changing his pullup today I announced that we should mail the rest of the pullups to the pullup fairy, who would then deliver the pullups to a baby who needed them from a big boy, yadda yadda yadda. We picked baby Quinn as the "recipient" since we had just seen him in Dec. We picked out a shoe box (plain white, from Caro's new tap shoes) and had Matthew place the pullups in it. Then we wrote on it, decorated it with stickers, included some fairy tokens like sequins, jewels and other treasures from Caro's craft box. Tied it up with a big fairy ribbon and left it by the mailbox. Then said, let's put on underwear. So he wore underwear all day, had many accidents, and never once peed in the potty. But, he was willing and this is a HUGE step for us. I had prayed for him to have the desire to wear underwear and I guess it worked.

I just got home from the gap where I found (after looking at 2 other stores) NINE different pairs of green underwear (yeah for potty training around St. Pat's! 3 shamrock pairs), which are what he requested (green underwear). And then we also said the pullup fairy would bring him a new train which we put in a huge envelope marked with his name in the mailbox. So I am out $20 for Iron Arry and Bert and--don't laugh--$40 for the cutest pairs of Gap underwear (which I just really hope hope hope he does not go #2 in), but in the long run I think it will work! I just have to remember any progress is good progress. Tomorrow's strategy is of course the green underwear as well as keeping a potty close to him at all times. Here's hoping! It's going to be a long road...hope your saturday was equally exciting.

And just an end note: Some may feel the paci/pullup fairy is a bit deceptive, but as Jo said, sometimes you need a little bit of magic. So we bought into it.

posted by Kathryn @ 5:01 PM