Potty time

Lots of potty talk here. Feel free to skip it as I'm documenting the down and dirty for posterity. :)

A week ago Monday (so almost two weeks now) Ryan called to me from the bathroom saying, "Go potty, Mama!" I went in and helped him take off his diaper, and sure enough he sat down and went pee. He's been using the potty off and on when the whim hits him or when we change his diaper and suggest he tries sitting on the potty for a minute, and almost every time he's sat on the potty he has been able to pee. But this was the first time he requested it with his diaper on and actually obviously needed to pee. I left his diaper off and in the next half hour he ran into the bathroom saying "I'm poopin'!" and sat on the potty 3 or 4 times before he actually did go poo. In the potty.

I started potty training Rachel too early and it felt like we were potty training FOREVER. But she was pretty well potty trained by the time she was 22 months. With Annie I vowed to wait longer. And I did, but when she turned 2 she had already had two different episodes of a full week where I didn't have to change any poopy diapers because she would come tell me beforehand that she had to poo, then she'd sit on the potty and do her business. I had planned on waiting until Christmas break when Jake would be home to help with Ryan while I focused on potty training Annie. But after the second week of no poopy diapers to change I thought I'd better at least try it just so I could feel good about waiting another couple months. We started Monday and by Wednesday she was doing pretty darn good, and by the end of the week she was mostly potty trained. At 24 months old.

I had heard that boys generally potty trained later than girls and were harder, so I wasn't in any rush. I thought I'd wait until we were settled in with the new baby, then take care of potty training when Ryan was 2 1/2 or older. Until that fateful Monday. I figured that the signs were there and I might as well try, but our week was pretty full, so I waited until Friday when we could be home the whole day to have our official potty day. During the week I let Ryan go diaper-less for a few hours at a time when we were home and he was really good at not having accidents, especially when he was bare-bottomed. Then Friday we watched potty movies, drank lots of juice and used the potty a lot with one nakey accident, and one accident with undies on. Not bad. He of course still sleeps in his "sleep diaper" but for the last week he's only had a handful of accidents and is really pretty amazing. The girls had to have really loose shorts or skirts with no undies on for them to remember to pee for the first month or two, but Ryan wears his undies all the time now and rarely has accidents--like less than one a day.

There are a couple of bonuses to this potty training business. Ryan makes me laugh every time he has to pee. He gasps then yells "I'm poopin'!" So I tell him to hurry to the potty and he says "Okaaaay!" with a big smile on his face and runs to the bathroom. He doesn't quite get the difference between pee and poo. Jake mentioned the other day that this probably will lead to a great sacrament meeting story for us one of these weeks. Can't wait. I'm not sure anything can top Annie's yelling right during the quiet part of the sacrament, "No, I can't wait! I have to go diarrhea NOW!" But I look forward to having Ryan announce for everyone to hear, "I'm poopin'!"

The other thing I'm loving is seeing his cute little bum waddling around in his undies. It's just really cute. I've lost count of how many times I've had to grab some shorts and run after him down the sidewalk as he runs away from me in his undies. He thinks he's hilarious. And he is. I just commented yesterday how lucky I am that at least he has his undies on and isn't streaking in front of our neighbors. Then I came outside today when we were unloading the car from the Father/Son campout they went on last night to find Ryan with his pants and undies around his ankles as he looked at me and proudly announced, "I go pee!" Right in our driveway for the whole world to see. :) Maybe I shouldn't have taught him that it was okay to pee on the rocks at the park the other day when there was no bathroom nearby....