Embarrassed, Ashamed and In Need of a Good Cry

I feel like I should be at a support group meeting.

For mothers who fail at potty training.

Hi, my name is Kristy. My son will turn 4 in a week and he poops in his pants.

"Hi, Kristy."

See, he can poop in the potty. He has! Many times! On his own! Without me telling him to go!

But. More often than not, he poops in his night time pull up or his nap pull up. Or even his underwear. My mother in law was here last week and witnessed a very unfortunate event. We were at Monkey Joes, escaping the house in the midst of the remodel and the boys were having a blast. I got the camera out of the car to try to capture the fun. I took four blurred picture of Kolby and then got a whiff. It was not a good whiff. It resulted in Kolby and I going out to the van and changing him into an overnight pull up which had been purchased that morning, driving across the street to Marshalls and doing the walk of shame through the store in a pull up.

Did I mention it was 40 degrees and raining?

That incident was the icing on the cake. The straw that broke the camels back.

She, my mother in law, who is a pediatric triage nurse, said that the doctors in her office would say to put him back in a pull up. He'll poop on the potty when he is ready.

So he is back in a pull up. Kind of embarrassing for a big kid who is about to turn 4.

But, he's not embarrassed at all.

His mom is mortified. A pull up screams failure to all who see it peeking out of his size 4 or 5 pants.

Yes, we've tried the naked time. He poops on the floor. He may or may not tell us. He leans heavily toward the may not.

I'm looking for support here. Not advice.

I know, I know, someday, I won't have to buy him pull ups. He could possibly be in college, except that preschool only takes kids who are fully potty trained. And he is supposed to start preschool in September. I fully expect to lose that $250 deposit and pull him out because he still poops in his pants. I guess homeschooling might be our only option.

We've promised the world. A fishing pole. A trip to Disney World (only a slight joke).

I'm at the end of my rope. And it wasn't a long rope. I thought no child could be harder than Sage who took a month exactly of pooping in his underwear every other day. It's been a year since we started potty training.

I think I just heard God chuckle.

And oh, yes, he needs to read this when he is older. His future wife needs to know the potty training heritage of which he comes.