Better late than never

(Warning: This is a potty-training post. I tried not to be too graphic, but you know... it's a post about potty training.)

Jack has a lot of friends, some who are even younger than he is, who have been potty trained for months. But it's never been something that I wanted to push with him. As I think this blog pretty well documents, Jack is an incredibly strong-willed child, and I knew that rushing him into something when he wasn't ready would just be an exercise in frustration for us all.

Besides, I've seen my friends with potty-trained children. Although it's nice to be done with diapers, it's not exactly convenient to always have to be on the lookout for the nearest bathroom, and public bathrooms aren't always the most pristine. And, I rationalized, if I have to pull down Jack's pants, wipe him, and pull up his pants anyway, I might as well have the convenience and portability of the diaper.

However, now he's a little older, and he'd been showing signs that he's ready to use the potty. He would pee on the potty but always refused to do anything more. I figured after the holidays that we would force the issue and start going diaper-free.

Yesterday was our first diaper-free day, and it turned out to be a great day to start potty training. We had been talking about only wearing big boy underpants once we got back home from Ammah's and Appah's, so Jack knew it was coming. He seemed agreeable to piddling on the potty, but he kept saying that he didn't want to poop on it. But when the day came all it took was the promise of some candy to motivate him to try. And then boy, did he ever!

I had forgotten the day before that Jack had stuffed himself with blueberries and nuts at my mom's house. So he had a very, uh, productive day to say the least. Which was good, because it got him used to the sensation of having to go and then going. And we saved ourselves EIGHT diaper changes!

He had one little accident yesterday evening and so far one tiny accident today before lunch. The one today was mostly my fault, though, so I'm not really counting it. We had gone out to see a friend, and I had put the potty seat in the car to have with us. Before we left their house to go home, I had asked Jack if he needed to go to the bathroom and he said no. But once we got back to our house, he said he did have to go. So I had to run back to the car and get the potty. He sat down on it and peed a lot.

As I was helping him pull his underwear and pants back up, he said, "Fudge! I peed!"

(Fudge???)

"I know you peed," I said. "You just peed on the potty. Good job!"

"No," he said, "I peed on my underpants."

And he had, but it was because I hadn't been able to get the potty to him in time. It was only a little bit and not enough to soak through to his outer pants, so I'm not really counting that as an accident. :)

Anyway, so that's our potty training journey thus far. It's going a lot easier than I expected - KNOCK WOOD. I hope it's not all beginner's luck. And thankfully, he's not demanding candy every time he goes. So far, his favorite treats are those freeze dried fruit packs from Costco, which I can totally get behind giving him.

I'm so proud of my big boy.