Adventures in Potty Training: Part Two

Tony and Enzo

Today, we bring you the second installment in our potty training series, and at the rate Tony is moving, this thing might go on for quite some time.

Our second round of potty training is taking place in Ocean City, where Tony is spending the summer with his mother, brother Enzo and Nonna. 

Tony asked to wear big boy underwear on Thursday morning and Nonna obliged, going with Tony to his room to help him pick a pair. He willingly wore underwear for more than an hour, but refused to use his Elmo potty.

Tony kept telling Nonna, mommy and daddy that he had to pee. When he said he had to pee, someone would take him to Nonna’s bathroom, where his Elmo potty is stashed. 

Tony would pull down his shorts and underwear and then plop down on the Elmo potty. He either talked to one of us or watched a show on the iPad while sitting there, but he refused to let anything come out of him. 

Tony would then get up off the potty, pull up his underwear and shorts and return to the family room to play with his toys or chase the dogs. He did not have an accident in his big boy underwear during the hour-plus he was wearing it because he simply held it in as long as possible. 

After about an hour and a half, Tony started crying to me, saying that his back hurt and he wanted to wear a diaper. At this point, Mommy and Nonna left to go grocery shopping so it was just Daddy and the boys at home. 

Tony had a deal with Nonna that he could put a diaper on again once he went pee pee in the Elmo potty. Even though Tony never reached this goal, I let him put a diaper on because I could tell he was in pain due to holding in his pee. 

Despite Tony not actually using the Elmo potty, I feel that Thursday was a small victory in a much larger battle with potty training a toddler. We made a step forward because Tony did not fight us to wear big boy underwear and did not scream and cry when told to sit on the potty. 

Hopefully, Tony is no longer scared of actually sitting on the potty, or of wearing big boy underwear. Now, if we can just get him to convert while sitting on the potty, all would be right in Tony’s world.

Jim is the creator and editor of Life with Tony and Enzo, Cinn City News, At the Dish and owner of Vassallo Marketing. He coached baseball for five years; three at his former high school (Holy Cross in Delran, NJ) and two at prominent Division III program Rowan University in Glassboro, NJ as an assistant coach and recruiting coordinator. He has worked for the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, NJ; Metro Networks in Bala Cynwyd, PA; and was the play-by-play announcer for the Camden Riversharks of the Independent Atlantic League of Professional Baseball for two seasons (2007-2008) on Rowan Radio 89.7 WGLS-FM, the student-run radio station at Rowan University. Jim earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Communications and minor in Journalism from Rowan University in 2008. While in school he was the Assistant Sports Director at WGLS for two years and the Sports Director for one year. He also covered the football, baseball, softball and both basketball teams for the school newspaper, 'The Whit.' Jim lives in Cinnaminson, New Jersey, with his wife Nicole, sons Tony and Enzo and dog Thelma. He can be reached at jim@vassallomarketing.com.

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