Update on CootieGirl

**WARNING – THIS POST DOES GET INTO POTTY-TRAINING ISSUES – YOU ARE FOREWARNED**

I’ve had a few emails from people asking about CootieGirl. Well, she got up and got ready with nary a protest this morning. Of course, I’m not foolish enough to think my lecturing finally took hold. No, it’s the lure of a class field trip today to Monkey Joe’s that enabled her to wake up refreshed and ready to face the day.

In other news, around 3 p.m. yesterday I got a call that CG had had two potty accidents during the day and that they needed more clothes. I prepared to leave the office when I got a quick call saying they had located more of her clothes and I didn’t need to come after all.

I emailed Denis and warned him about what had happened, and asked that he NOT yell/punish her at all about it because I wanted to try something else. I got home and she was upstairs playing with her brother. I called her into her room and immediately could smell something. “CG, did you go in your pants again?” She hesitated, then nodded.

In the past I’ve begun yelling, but this time I just quietly took her into my bathroom where I got her cleaned up as I gently explained that she needed to be a big girl and use the potty. She started giving me the old party line again about WHY she deliberately avoided the potty, but I told her those excuses were no longer acceptable. I then told her I’d be asking her a series of questions and NONE of them had a right or wrong answer. She nodded, so I started asking questions.

“Do you like your school?”
“Do you have a favorite teacher?”
“What has been your favorite field trip?”
“Is there anyone in particular who is mean to you?”
“Is the food good?”
“How did your art project go?”
“Is there anything you don’t like about school?”

As you can see, I couched the two important questions among nonsense questions in an attempt to get some honesty out of her. She admitted that there are four children (she named them by name) who tease her and call her names. She said they are older children (remember, she’s now in a class of kids that range from 5 years old to 10 years old – she’s one of the youngest children in this room now), and they call her a crybaby and stinky. I told her the “stinky” moniker would disappear if she’d use the potty correctly. I asked her why she cries, and she just kind of hemmed and huhhed and never really answered.

I ended the Q&A there and told her that if she stayed clean between now and tomorrow evening when I get home from work that I’d take her for ice cream.

An hour later she had gone in her pants. Again. This time I put her on the potty and gave her a healthy dose of MiraLax. Denis and I realized that she has been deliberately HOLDING IT IN and the reason why she keeps messing up her pants is that at some point her body just gets rid of it whether she wants it to or not. So the MiraLax won’t give her a choice – it’s gonna come out.

This morning I put CG in a pull-up for the field trip she’s going on in case the MiraLax works faster than it says it will, and also had a talk with her teacher when I dropped her off (and told her about the MiraLax dose). The teacher is very much on board with trying to end this problem, and said she’d ask CG once an hour about going potty AND would keep reminding her about the reward if she stays clean all day. So we’ll see what happens.