good bye, diapers!

have i mentioned we're potty training over here? we startedlast saturday so that we'd have two full days of training with two adults before going down to just me on monday. if you're like my dad and can't believe how often we talk about pee and poop...you may want to just skip this post.

back story: the potty entered our bathroom when ben was about 18 months. we've mostly used it as a stool but at 18 - 20 months, ben understood what it was and would sit on it fully clothed making peeing sounds. then around 2 years, he started telling us when he needed to pee during bath time. we were so excited that when he did, we'd give him a treat - a few chocolate chips or M&Ms. we discovered how obsessed he was with getting treats during our five minute potty training fail back in november. after being so annoyed with his desperation for treats, this time we set up a sticker chart - 8 stickers for #1 and 1 sticker for #2. (had to make that poop worth doing on the potty)

a friend of mine had told me that when she started, she would set the timer for 20 minutes and every 20 minutes, they put their son on the potty. sounded like a good idea to me. so i made up a chart, got out some new stickers, had M&Ms on hand and then next morning we started. i described to him what we were going to do. i showed him the sticker chart and mustered all the excitement i could about stickers verses treats. i set the timer but all ben wanted to do was sit on the potty. we had the potty in the kitchen so it was close-by for these learning days. so ben sat and sat. when the tiniest amount of pee would trickle out, he'd stand up and ask for a treat. "treeeeeeat!!!" "nope, sticker!", i'd reply. i was trying to fill him up with juice, water, and milk but the stickers seemed far and few between for the amount of time spent sitting on the potty. i was starting to feel a little badly about the new system because he was working hard. so after a couple times of getting a partial pee in his pants but getting to the potty to finish the pee, when he finally got to the potty BEFORE peeing at all, tim suggested he get two stickers. that helped get us closer to the treat and he'd gotten a couple by the end of the day.

one week later, ben has done really well - very few accidents and no pooping in his underwear! amazing! he filled up his entire chart of stickers and got his toy. he helped me make a new chart for the next toy - 56 pees (aka. 8 a day) and 8 poops. whoa...that seems a long ways away. but there are treats in there along the way to make the wait worthwhile. i already have lots of funny potty training stories from the week and am trying to pick just one for Project Life. i'm sure there will be many more to come.