Life does not stop when you’re traveling and kids are a great reminder of that. When we left New York six months ago J and M were a head shorter (Jude’s knee length shorts now barely cover his thighs and some of Myla’s dresses can now be mistaken for shirts), and Sage had just started walking and now, on the eve of her 2nd birthday, runs around, refusing to go in her stroller, jumps, dances, speaks in full paragraphs and no longer wears diapers.
How did that happen? Well, since traveling around the world with 1 suitcase and 3 small kids is a piece of cake, we decided to spice it up a little by potty-training while traveling.
It all started while we were in Singapore. Sage started announcing her bowl movements and telling everyone within earshot that “when I am two I am going to make poop on the toilet, but now I am only one thirty.” We ignored her ambitious plans at first. After all, our other 2 kids, living in stable housing in New York, were wearing diapers until they were at least two thirty. But we could not ignore her for too long and a couple of days after arriving in Sydney we headed to Target and bought a $5 potty.
Sage was extremely excited, but at the same time intimidated and confused. We used the full proof method of promising cookies and a big hooray whenever some pee or poop would land in the white potty but none did the first day…
The next morning, in the middle of breakfast, she announced she had to “make peep”…we rushed to the bathroom, sat down on the potty and a few seconds later we heard the dribble sound and her first success was rewarded with an all natural, gluten free, healthy granola treat (AKA in our house as a “cookie”). It was the highlight of the day!
#2 was a tougher task: she would announce that she needs to make poop only to follow that 2 seconds later with a very somber “I made poop in my underwear”…it was disappointing and frightening, but we were up to the challenge. For the next couple of days we were on full on poop alert. With any hint of flatulence, a grimace, or the utterance of the letter p, she would be airlifted to the potty and held down until eventually it finally succeeded and a party with a “cookie” ensued.
Feeling all proud in our parenting skills we let our guard down and didn’t realize that once the seal is broken there may be aftershocks. A little while after declaring Mission Accomplished, Sage was playing quietly in the living room, diaper-less of course, and what non super parents call “an accident” ensued. Trying to airlift her up to the potty only made the situation worse as it landed all over the floor and walls.
We knew that we need to stay calm so as not to cause a traumatic experience and shock our daughter into a life of Pampers and Depends, but I (E) was freaking out that we are in an Airbnb apartment and need to clear out any evidence of our mission. V, the experienced veteran supermom, AKA “The Cleaner” swooped in and saved our Airbnb super rating.
All in all, in under 3 days, during which we took the potty with us everywhere (neatly fitting under the stroller, the streets, parks, playgrounds and farmers’ markets all became our toilet) Sage was fully potty trained.
Sage grew attached to that white Target potty and it came along with us to our first stop in New Zealand, where it stayed as Sage finally fully graduated into a full time toilet user. And now that she’s turning two she proudly announces to everyone “I am a big girl. No more diapers for Sagey”
