Ditching Diaper Duty

Now that Zander is approaching the ripe old age of two, we've slowly been introducing him to the whole idea of using the potty, mostly through discussions, demonstrations (on Brian's part obviously), and "practicing" on the same little potty that we trained Charley on, where he sits down on the potty (fully dressed) and pretends to go. This has been going on for a couple months now.

Today Zander decided to remove the little portable potty from the bathroom, and brought it into the living room. Now even this little step is all new territory for us because we couldn't bribe Charley with enough sugary treats in the world in return for her to show us even a minuscule amount of interest in potty training at that age. In fact, she put up a pretty darned good fight. But I thought, hey, Zander could be different. I asked him if he wanted to take his shorts and diaper off and try the potty out, and in response he said, "Try it." So I removed all his clothing and told him to sit on the potty so that he could go "pee-pee" or "poo-poo." As soon as his little tush hit the seat, I tried to show him how to push his "peanut" (as we so appropriately call it) down so that pee doesn't spray everywhere. He gave it his best shot, but it quickly became apparent that we would need to work on this technique (any suggestions out there parents?). Then he jumped up and yelled, "Special treat! Special treat!" For the next ten minutes we tried to appease him by explaining that he needed to actually GO in the potty for a special treat, and after awhile he gave up this battle, at least for a little while anyway.

Since he seemed interested, we let him run around for another hour or so naked, which he amazingly did with no accidents. After dinner, I was running up and down the stairs working on something, and during this time he pushed his little potty back into the bathroom. On one of my trips downstairs he once again started yelling, "Special treat! Special treat!" So once again I had to say, "Buddy, you need to go pee or poop IN the potty if you want a special treat." I then ran back upstairs to finish what I was doing, and less than three minutes later I heard Brian frantically yelling my name (which is so unlike Brian), so I became worried and sprinted downstairs.

Apparently, just a couple minutes after I had returned upstairs, Zander approached Brian and yelled, "Special treat, special treat!" And Brian pulled him back towards the bathroom, reminding him that he had to go in the potty to get a treat. As soon as he got to the bathroom, Brian was shocked to find pee all over the tiny potty, as well as all over the floor right around the potty. It was obvious that Zander had sat down on the potty to go pee and couldn't or didn't push his little peanut down to make sure it all stayed in the potty. But how cool is that? Zander managed to pee in the potty on the very first day that we took his diaper off! I'm hoping that this isn't just beginner's luck, because Lord knows I would LOVE to be done with diapers as soon as possible. However, I also realize that he is not even two yet, so it might take us a little while to get there. But, no matter how long it takes, I have a feeling my little man will put up a lot less of a fight than his sister did. I can always hope anyway.