Just One Big Potty Party

We started potty training Charlie at the end of May, and he has been pretty much "trained" for quite a while now.  We started out with a "fun," weekend-long potty party, complete with gifts of Thomas the Train and Spider Man undies (Charlie had requested these and I was so amazed and grateful when I walked into Target and found big packs of BOTH of them sitting right there--thank you Target!), and it went so much more smoothly than I expected.  Although we had our fair share of accidents at first, they are getting farther and farther between.  It really took Charlie only about a day to get pee-pee down, and by day 2 was running to the potty and loudly announcing that he needed to go.  Poo-poo took a bit longer.  Charlie went very nicely in the potty a few times at first, and then starting getting nervous about it.  He was very scared that it was going to hurt, and was driving himself crazy trying to avoid it.  I tried to encourage him along by letting him watch Thomas on his little potty while he tried and offering some small prizes, but that wasn't working.  So finally, taking a page out of my cousin Addie's playbook, I just took his underwear away and made him run around naked.  This drove him crazy and I felt very guilty when he was begging for "something on my bottom."  But I felt more confident in my decision when I asked him why he wanted his underwear back and he replied, "because I don't want to poo-poo on the floor!"  Ha!  No underwear for you buddy!  After dancing around a bit, he finally broke down and ran toward the potty and pooped.  I loved hearing that happy little "that didn't hurt a bit!" from him while he was sitting on the potty. :)  After a couple no-underwear mornings (and lots of candy rewards), he had it down.  After that, his only hurdle has been remembering to go potty when he's out having fun (the guy has always hated to leave a party, even if it's only for a minute).  But I've really been talking up going potty while we're out (so much so that now when I ask him what he's going to do if he needs to go potty while we're out somewhere, he always answers, word for word, "I will tell you and then you'll take me to that FUN potty here") and letting him watch a show every once in a while if he stays clean and dry during a big outing, and we have stayed accident-free much more consistently.  I am so proud of my big boy, and he is so proud of himself.  He is obsessed with his big boy undies and I think everyone in a 25-mile radius has gotten an eyeful of them. :)

Charlie has now gotten pretty independent with his potty business at home.  Most of the time, he doesn't need help, but he certainly alerts us all anyway.  He loves to dash to the bathroom yelling, "I've got to go poo-poo!"

Here's an idea of what our first few mornings looked like.  This did not work well for Charlie--he tended to sit on the potty for the duration of the show and then poop in his underwear later. :(

In case Charlie begins to regress, we have these amazing books from my mom to return to.  Even Firefighters Go To the Potty is seriously one of the funniest books I have ever seen.  I never wanted to see a construction worker (or a fireman) sitting on a potty, but unfortunately, we all have now!

Although potty training can be stressful at times, it has not been without its share of funny moments.  

The first came when Charlie, proudly telling Aunt Meggie about going pee pee in the potty during a Face Time session, pointed the phone downward and showed her a certain part of his anatomy, pulled right through the hole in the front of his undies.  Later, after I thought that problem had been resolved, Clint came home while we were all sitting around the dinner table.  He sat down with us and immediately started laughing and called me over.  Charlie was sitting spread-eagle in his chair with the aforementioned part of his anatomy just hanging out of the hole in the front of his underwear!  I made Clint have a talk with him after that. :)

Another evening, we were having dinner with Sam and Audra at the new Cane Rosso, on their big patio.  It was quite crowded, and Charlie was running around playing with a couple of other kids while we waited for our food.  We weren't really paying attention to him (unfortunately) until he came over to our table, completely naked from the waist down, and loudly announced, "I need new underwear!"  (He was carrying his wet undies and shorts :).  I have never seen Clint grab him up and run out of a restaurant so fast!

Charlie, thanks for making this another funny adventure!  Good work, buddy!