potty time - 2.5 days in....

well, i thought i'd finally had enough.... two kids on the diaper train was starting to be a bit much. dug out the potty training book aunt michelle had given us before boden was even born, and read it in a couple of sittings. they gave things to look for with a child's readiness. we thought we had enough of them to give it a whirl. eric and i were almost giddy with excitement, full knowing it could be a disaster. a couple of days before we were to start (cinco de mayo and my dad's bday), boden and i made a special trip to the store to stock up on supplies. we decided to get a potty chair even though we had the potty seat that you put on the big toilet. boden immediately picked out the froggy potty chair ('word world' anyone?). smart kid, as it was also the cheapest potty chair they had :) we also stocked up on 'big boy underware'. they had all the big hitters - elmo, thomas, and cars. boden played with his underware for nearly the entire morning before the big day :) we also got lots of goodies for bribes, uh, i mean, rewards.... (m&m's, car fruit snacks, and chocolate milk - which he somewhat surprisingly doesn't seem to care for. he pretty much is a white milk and water kid).

the first day we spent what felt like the entire morning on the potty... reading books, singing, playing with cars.... waiting....

he has gotten quite a bit better at the going part. it seems like if he is going to go, it will be almost as soon as he sits down. have also found that he goes better in privacy. if i set him all up and then leave the room, he does the job. he has also gotten a lot better at 'directing the stream'.... at first he was all over the place, but got the hang of that part of peeing pretty quickly :)

so far we have only had two accidents a day, with today just one... so far.... BUT we have successfully gone both the numbers in the potty at least 6 times or so a day as well.

so, overall i would say we are gaining ground. i must admit though that there have been times that i have been oh so tempted to just put a diaper back on him. trying to do this potty thing around feeding times, nap times, and other heidi demands has proved to be exhausting for me....

the novelness has begun to wear off, for all of us :) he seems to have gotten the 'going' part when we put him on when he has to go. but the telling us he has to go before he has an accident doesn't seem to be coming quite as easily. which, we pretty much figured might be the case. love the kid to death, but he has a will of his own. we may have to find a new attack for getting him to tell us when he has to go.... maybe a few more times of wet pants will do the trick. he doesn't like the feeling... the first time he truely soaked himself, he was quite upset.... kept saying something like 'i'm ok, i'm ok...' all scared like.... mabye he is getting closer to the mark as this afternoon he told me it was 'potty time' immediatally after he wet himself and the playroom rug.... :)

oh, an interesting little side that has come with the training.... he has shown great self control with not taking the 'treats' when i leave them laying out. one time in particular we were both really proud of him. i had laid a couple car fruit treats out on the counter and told him that if his pants were dry and clean when i came back downstairs from putting heidi down for a nap, he could have them. he had done this before and it had worked well. this time though, when i came down the stairs, i found him with his pants soaked, all nosed up to the treats on the counter just willing himself not to take them.... so super cute. i wanted to give them to him just for the honesty and self restraint.... but alas....

if anyone has any potty training tricks or words of wisdom, please share!

below are a couple pics of our underware clad wonder and his training partner elmo....