potty training adventures

I know most of you won't care, but I'm stoked and I want to write about my child's accomplishments. Plus, nobody made you click the link to read this! So about a month ago Conner started to show extreme interest in the potty. He would follow us in there, hand us toilet paper, flush the toilet and tell us to wash our hands. I went to WalMart and got him a potty seat. I broke it out and put it in the living room where most people told me to and left him naked, again like most people told me to. He was on and off the potty all day but would not go in it. He was holding it in and it was hurting him. So we gave in a put a diaper in because I didn't want to make him afraid of the potty. After a few days of that, I was ready to give up. 

One night just when we were about to give in and put another diaper on, I told Christ to take Conner in the bathroom and convert the potty seat into a step stool and see if he will go standing up, like daddy does. Sure enough, he did it. But, only that time. We would try to get him to do it more by asking if he needed to go and he always said no. Then he'd do a little 'I have to pee so bad, so I'm crossing my legs but refuse to go' dance and we had to put a diaper on him. He was going just once a day, every other day. The rest of the time, he'd flat out refuse and we'd just put the diaper on him. 

Everyone is on leave right now so Chris is working half days. I told him that I wanted to seriously start working with Conner and get this potty training thing down. Just yesterday I was complaining to some friends how this is the hardest thing so far I've done as a parent and that I HATE IT! Today, he completely shocked us! This morning he would not go on the potty. However, when Chris got home from work, he was still dry. So I took it off but kept his shirt on. Chris kept taking him in there every 15-20 minutes and told him he had to rather than asking him if he had to. Finally he peed! Then he did again. Wooo! Two stickers on the chart in one day.

This afternoon, Chris was making a phone call about a piece he needs for his car and I was reading a book. Conner came out of the bathroom and said he pooped. You could tell he attempted to get up on the big potty, but he couldn't sit up there by himself, so he pooped on the floor next to it. At first I was bummed that he didn't tell us before so we could help, but now I see that it's a sign of independence for him. He wants to do most of it on his own. I was just impressed that he has finally associated the bathroom with peeing and pooping. So we cleaned it up and told him to tell us next time before he did. 

We went about the night and got done eating dinner. Chris started cleaning part of the kitchen where I had stopped and I started to read again. I heard what sounded like water. I asked Conner what he was doing and he came running out of the bathroom and said 'pee pee mommy!' and ran back in there. I walked in there, and sure enough, he got his step stool over there and was peeing all by himself! We make a big deal out of it after he flushes. High fives and 'yay's and he got to put a THIRD sticker on his chart for today! This is a big deal! He's finally getting it! 

Right now he gets a pull up at night and is naked on the bottom for the day unless we have to go somewhere, then we put him in a diaper. We don't have to go anywhere for the next few days, so if he shows the same improvement that he did today during the next few, I'm going to do a trial run of big boy underwear and go on an outing with him. I'm so excited that he's finally getting it. :)