Potty Training

My two and a half year old is finally potty training! I never ever thought I would get so excited about pee... but oh my word, I am just smitten with pride for my little boy! I've read blogs about how to potty train your child in one day (HA). I've read forums about how parents should be patient--children will let you know when they're ready. I've reminded myself over and over again that kids learn at their own pace and that he would eventually want to be a big boy and then I would be sad. I secretly started planning how I would handle having a 10 year old in diapers because I really thought it might happen.

But friends, let me just say, a switch finally went off and he is officially learning how to pee pee in the potty! This has been a long time coming. Last Christmas is when we bought him his first potty chair thinking that having his own potty would make him want to stop using diapers. HA. His favorite thing to do with it was wear the pee bowl as a hat.

So we started putting him on the big potty for hours at a time until he'd go. He hated it and we made him do it anyway. Yeah, not one of my proud parenting moments! Don't ever force your kid to potty train. He'll just scream and cry and then you'll end up feeling like a bad mom--and in the end he won't understand what the point was anyway. Totally stupid.

So how'd we do it? It was a total fluke, I'll admit. He'd wet his diaper and so I was changing him when I saw a pair of underwear in his diaper bag. I thought, "What the heck, might as well just go for it." So instead of putting him in a diaper I put him in underwear. I told him not to pee in them or his pants would get wet... I informed him that big boys who wear underwear pee pee in the potty. It was a pep talk that I honestly didn't think he understood even though he shook his head and yelled, "OK MOMMY!"

Let me add here that we were in public, not at home where most people recommend you to start potty training. Public. With people all around and numerous opportunities for him to pee at any given moment. I would also like to add that I swore from day 1 that I would never offer him candy as a reward for peeing because he is not a dog and I really hate when people do that. Well...

Every 10 minutes after I put him in underwear I would ask if he needed to go. Every half hour, regardless of what he said, I would take him to the bathroom. Being desperate as I was and not wanting him to pee all over his pants, I told him, "If you pee pee in the potty I will give you some candy." I didn't really think he'd do it. He said OK and then BOOM, peed in the potty. I was stunned... and I didn't really have any candy. Luckily Papa was there and came to the rescue--he had his pockets stocked full of Starburst.

From that point on, after he did it the first time, he went over and over and over again in the potty. The first day he had two accidents. The second day he had two more, which is about 900 less than what I expected. Today is day three and he's still doing great, even at daycare! No accidents so far and he pees every time they take him to the bathroom. Yay!

I just pray he keeps this up. I wouldn't mind being the mommy of a POTTY TRAINED 2 YEAR OLD!