Prayer works

I feel the need to back up a few months and then fast forward to three weeks ago before I begin this post. We began potty training Cy in May. I began with a potty party. We trained a doll all morning then we flooded Cy's system with liquids and salty snacks in attempt to begin potty learning that afternoon. That day worked great but we found that Cy was very uninterested in the days that followed. So we took a break for a few months. Around three weeks ago we threw away all of Cy's pull ups, at least as far as he was concerned (except for the ones he uses at night). The short of it is, Cy developed the ability to hold his pee in all day...seriously there was a day that didn't go pee until we put him to bed at night. If he did sit down on the toilet he would sit there for what seemed forever before he couldn't hold it any longer and would go. We consulted the doctor and she told us that Cy is acting similar to children who hold in their bowel movements. This is called potty resistance and usually means that potty training has become a power struggle between parents and child. The way to help a potty resistant child (or strong-willed child if you will) learn to go potty is to transfer all power over him. You don't talk about it at all because he knows what to do but refuses to do it. If the child refuses to do it then the child has the power. Once the child has power then he chooses to be responsible for either his accidents or his potty successes. So this is what we did, but not without some serious determination since both Shane and I are pretty strong-willed ourselves. However, we did succeed at giving Cy all control over whether he has an accident or not. Needless to say these last three weeks have been very stressfull (notice the absence of any blog posts during that time frame). Last night during our small group time, I asked the small group to pray for Cy. The prayer list was divied up and Jenny prayed for Cy. I do have to confess though that as she was praying for him, I couldn't help but laugh to myself. I immediately felt a little like Sarah in the Bible when she laughs at the angel telling Abraham she would have a baby. That came immediately to mind and it still comes to mind now. Well you can go ahead and rename me Karah because Cy chose to sit down and pee twice today and did so in a matter of seconds. I call that an answer to prayer. So thank you Jenny and the rest of my small group for praying for Cy. Keep it up for long term success, I promise I will never laugh again. :)