Potty Training Success

If you've been reading my blog for any extended period of time, you know we've been potty-training at the Davis house for awhile. It may seem that I've been blogging about potty-training for over a year now. That, of course, would be inaccurate. We've only been potty-training for eleven months.

We finally seem to be accident-free at our house, and I contribute this success to bad parenting.

It all started on Saturday. I had been puppy-sitting for our neighbors for three days. The puppy had adorable floppy ears, big brown eyes, waddled around on its over-sized paws, and most importantly, was the spawn of the devil. I had spent most of my time for three days alternating between cleaning puppy messes out of my carpet and retrieving my flip-flops from the drooling devil's mouth.

My sanity was hanging by a thread.

I had just cleaned up my one millionth puppy "present" from the carpet, when I heard Parker announce, "Deacon's pooped everywhere."

I will spare you the details, but Parker's statement was accurate.

I wanted to scream, swear, or spank, but I pulled it together. Besides I had a worse punishment up my sleeve.

Shampoo.

Deacon hates having his hair washed. I hate washing his hair, because it usually involves me holding him in the tub with one hand, while attempting to wash his hair with the other, all with a lot of tears, screaming, and flailing of limbs. So I don't do it that often. And by often I mean I would be embarrassed to admit how frequently his hair actually gets washed. (Wet hair is as good as clean hair, right?)

Since my patience was gone, I threw Deacon into the tub and proceeded to shampoo his hair.

"Not the scary part!" he screamed, as I lathered up his hair.

"Yes, the scary part!" I answered. "From now on, every time you poop in your underwear, I am going to wash your hair!"

"NO! I'm sorry, mom! Don't wash my hair!"

After the threat of cleanliness, we have not had a single accident. Shampooing did the trick.

Today after Deacon used the bathroom, he turned to me and said, "You won't wash my hair, because I pooped in the potty, right?"

"Right, kiddo. I'm so proud of you."