I've lost it

Ok, that's it. I've really lost it. It's been 4 weeks - 4 long weeks of cleaning poop out of underwear. (and I don't even have to do it most of the time!)

The boy doesn't care. It doesn't bother him. Nothing makes any difference to him. Last weekend we realized that the whole train thing didn't end up really making any difference to him, so we did away with the trains. We just took away the whole train set and told him he could have it all back after he learned how to use the potty.

It had become a game to him. He knew that if he pooped in his pants, he had to give up a train. So he would go poop in his pants and immediately tell you which train he wanted to give up. Occasionally, we would be able to catch him in the act and bribe him with the idea of getting a train in order to get him to go poop on the potty. Most of the time, though, he just really didn't care. So, we gave up on that idea.

But, ever since we did that, he hasn't pooped on the potty once.

And this whole thing has become a totally stressful thing for him. Anytime we ask him anything, he immediately gets defensive and starts talking about how he knows he's supposed to go poop in the potty.

We could ask him, "What do you want to eat?"
He replies, (IF he replies at all) "I go poop on the potty."
???

That's the other thing - he has become completely unresponsive. He ignores pretty much everything we say to him. And he's begun to ignore everyone else, too. He won't answer anyone these days, he just pretends like he doesn't hear anything.

But then later, I'll hear him saying something like, "You know better than that." and I know that he's heard every single word I've said to him.

For the last couple of weeks, I thought that he was just interested in getting attention. And he's been getting a lot of attention for pooping his pants constantly - why should he make any effort to go poop on the toilet?

So, this week whenever he has pooped his pants, we don't tell him that we're disappointed in him, or act like we're upset, we just take him by the hand and say, "Let's go clean it up."

And so the new thing for him to do now over the last couple of days is, "Ew, let me see it. Yuck, yuck, yuck!" and he laughs and giddily jumps up and down.

OK, I know the answer from many people will be that he's just not ready and we shouldn't torture ourselves anymore. I would gladly do that. However, we have paid for him to attend preschool this fall. And I know he would LOVE going to school. The problem is that if he's not potty-trained, he can't go to this school.

So, I'm at my wit's end. I don't know what to do with him and at this point, I'm so disappointed and depressed about the situation that I can't stand to be around him. Tonight I told him that I don't talk to little boys who poop their pants and I left the room without telling him good night. Nice mother, eh?

What the heck are we supposed to do?