Ground Hogs Day

After Aubrey was born, I remember thinking, "ok....she's gonna have some delays....but what does that mean?  How long will it take her to do things?"

I had accepted her diagnosis.  I had accepted the fact that her life would be full of delays.  But what I was curious about was, WHEN.  I came across a list similar to this one that laid it out for us.

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The ranges were HUGE!  But our therapists focused us on progress, and that is where we have mostly stayed.  I remember laughing out loud about the bowel control being anywhere between two and SEVEN years old....not laughing any more.

We have been "potty training" since she was about three.  Here she is just shy of her third birthday, reading in the bathroom.  We had her sitting on the potty at regular times of the day, but she lacked all the other skills to make it happen including toughing the floor while sitting on a portable potty seat.

Her preschool teach finally pushed us to jump forward with underwear this past MARCH.  The first day, she came home with all 7 of her extra outfits....wet.  By Friday, just one!  She does fairly well at school, with only accidents once in awhile, but I would say she is more "teacher trained" than potty trained.  She has all the abilities to TELL us that she has to go.  She knows the difference between wet, dirty and dry.  She CAN stay dry.  But 7 long months later, she still isn't able to put it all together.  Even if she is wet or dirty and we ask her...she says "no".

Her afternoons and evenings are hit or miss.  We have come to understand her schedule a little better, and if I make her go at those times, she usually does, but she doesn't tell us or ask to go.

Setbacks.  This past summer she was sick and in the hospital for a week.  Potty training is hard with a healthy kid, but forget about it when your kid is hooked up to all kinds of cords!  It was THEN that she kept telling me she had to go potty and we just couldn't keep unplugging her to go with such unpredictability.  So a whole week of NOT wearing undies, meant we had to start all the way at the beginning again.  I finally gave up after three weeks of her just not even getting close and just let her wear diapers.  We just can't be frustrated all day, every day.  The teacher gave her a week of pull ups at the start of school and then back to undies.  She did well, but again, she is "teacher"/"schedule" trained.

It's like day two of "typical' potty training, every day.  You know that movie "Ground Hogs Day"?  That would be potty training and us.  It is an extremely S-L-O-W process.  Every day is almost exactly the same as the one before.  It's exhausting and frustrating and hard work.  

You know that first week of potty training, when you don't go anywhere or do anything but focus on potty training?  We're stuck there, except we aren't really.  Time moves on and we have to go places and do things.  Last week we went to Disney....4 accidents right away meant she spent the rest of the trip in diapers/pull ups.  Setback.  Went back to undies today...not pretty.  4 accidents in 1 hour at the doctors office:(  

Hoping that getting back into school tomorrow will help get her back on track.  Hoping that something clicks for her soon.  Hoping that these days of frustration and exhaustion and hard work are over soon and we can move on to new challenges!

Is it a step in the right direction?  ABSOLUTELY!  Are we close to the end yet?  NO.  Will she get there?  YES....eventually!