Its a Potty in here!

Oh boy, here we go! A few weeks ago on a trip to Walmart for baking supplies I spotted the McQueen potty chair. Well, as you know my son is a walking advertisement for Cars, so I pushed the buggy up and asked, 'do you think we need a potty?' One glance up at the box with Cars on it, Xander was sold. Yep! We put it into our buggy and picked out some Cars underwear and pull-ups. There was no turning back!

I sat the potty out for awhile, and we talked about it, read some books. Ariel was eager for Xander to learn and one night brought him downstairs and got him to pee on it! Whoa, that surprised me, but of course he wasn't going to do it for me. Bah!

My weeks were filled with orders and little time to devote to training properly. I remember with Ariel how I picked a week, and we stayed home and just did hardcore learning! It worked great with her and I figured I needed to do the same with him. So when the calendar showed my week break between orders, I jumped at the opportunity to finally do this. With him being closer to 3 I did worry since he started to have that 'defiant' attitude that seems to show up with that age. Terrible 2's have nothing on 3! Haha, at least with my kids.

Saturday morning it was raining and we were all home for a change. I pulled out a pile of underwear, filled Xander's Cars bottle with juice and we started... sort of. Like all first days, it was awful. I remember being the same way with Ariel. Pee everywhere, going through underpants like crazy. I also was painting the bathroom so Ken was watching him and having not gone through training Ariel, he was a bit in the dark on how things go with things like this... although it was funny hearing him yell. UGH, no Xander, not the couch! Ack, Ariel get the papertowel! Ok, its not that funny but he missed out on training Ariel so its only fair right? Hee.

I came down afterward and took charge, drink, play, sit, pee, yay, repeat! All evening we kept doing the same thing, drink some juice, run around and play for 10 minutes, sit on the potty and wait, pee comes, happy dance (Xander's favorite part) and do it again. Repetition is the key for us, no treats, charts or rewards. It never worked for Ariel, and I tried them all, but the happy dance they LOVE.

There was one set back that evening that led us to using pull ups during the training process for now at least... he had a diarrhea attack from eating something that didn't agree with him... while wearing only underwear... sitting on Ariel's bed... while we were skyping with Ken's mom. UGH!!!!!!! Ken could smell it first, then saw it, then I saw it and then poor Ariel saw it.... XANDER!!!!!!! My BED!!!!!!!!!!!! She was fighting back tears and I quickly stripped the bed into the washing machine (Thank you Lord for our own washing machine and drier!) I scooped up the stuffies that were hit, only 3 thank heavens and washed them in the sink while Ken dealt with Mr Poopy. Lets just say Ariel got to stay up a tad later reading since we had to wait on her bedding.

Sunday morning came and Xander had dry pants, big success! So we went to church, came home and started the process again. He now seemed to be more willing for me to sit him on the potty to wait as long as he had something to keep him busy.

Monday morning and day 3, again dry morning pants! With everyone gone it was just us 2 and that was great. He sat when I told him to and peed, and then surprised me at lunch while I was in the kitchen as he jumped off the couch and did it himself without being prompted! WOOHOO! I called Ken thrilled, its a big moment, trust me!

Tuesday morning, dry again, the day went well and he even got out of bed after I tucked him in to find his potty to pee (note to self, bring potty to his room for nights). He gets a huge grin whenever he pees, and is so proud of himself.

Now we are on day 5, and we are wearing pants today, working on pulling them down along with the pull up. I am going to be testing the underwear again this weekend, to see how it goes while at home. For it only being a less than a week into this, I am pleased! Xander has been doing great, he is such a special little guy who wants to do his best. I am proud of you big boy in your big boy pants!