Potty "Train"ing

Since I was so serious on Friday and gave you much to think about (or to ignore...you choose).  I'd thought I'd be a little bit goofy this morning and talk about what all mothers of toddlers/preschoolers talk about...the toilet.

Josiah's been pretty well potty trained since October.  That's a given...but with the crazyness of the pregnancy during the first trimester adding in a stomach bug and another stomach bug...we've had a bit of a regression in the potty training area.  Not a big deal...we're just taking it in stride.  A couple of weeks ago, once I realize the ummm, "bug" was starting to dissipate from his system, we took him out of pull ups during the day and back into undies.  He was pumped but still having a little trouble remembering to go (and he still does some times).  So for motivation, we got M&Ms.  One for #1 in the potty and two for #2 in the potty.  Simple.  That works but it doesn't work great when he doesn't go potty in the potty and doesn't get them often.  However, he came up with an even better way to potty train himself.

Last Sunday, I took him to potty after a little "incident" in his pants.  I was telling him, once again (but calmly), how he needed to use the potty and not his pants.  He said:

"Thomas not happy.  Thomas got poopy on his face."

Aha!  We hit on what works for Josiah.  So, I started talking to him about keeping Thomas (or superman or monster trucks or whatever undies he has on) happy.

Now, every time he goes to the bathroom he tells me whether Thomas is happy or sad.  Then we talk about why Thomas is happy or sad.  It's too cute and too funny.

I told his teacher about it Wednesday night.  She asked him if Thomas was happy.  He stopped for a minute and thought about it...then smiled and said yes and then started to show her how happy Thomas was!


And one last Josiah and undies funny.

Josiah is in training pants at night.  Usually, first thing in the morning as he's starting to wake up, he goes in his pants.  He also doesn't like being wet on the bottom.  After he gets out of the pool he waddles around.

One morning he came waddling into the kitchen from bedtime.  I asked him if he had pooped and he said he had.  So we waddled off to the bathroom.  I told him to let me check and see what it looked like before he took his clothes off. I pulled back his pants to discover he was commando.  No training pants in sight.  He'd slept all night with no undies on!  Oh, and he hadn't pooped either (thank goodness)...he was just wet.

I called Mark to ask him about it and tell him that Josiah was commando.  He said, "Well, I didn't get him dressed last night."  I told him I didn't get him dressed either.  So, that left Josiah to blame!  He had dressed himself and forgotten the training pants!