I was on vacation from work beginning Christmas Eve through January 3rd so I decided to use the time to potty train Kaden since I would be home with him everyday. I almost decided to bag it after my Christmas Eve adventure, but ultimately I followed through.
I started on my birthday, December 29th. Happy Birthday to me! I got rid of all of the diapers, put him in training underwear, and hoped for the best. I gave him a potty watch for his birthday, which is basically a timer you can set for 30, 60, or 90 minutes. When the time is up the watch plays a song telling your little one it's time to go potty. The first 2 days I set the watch for every 30 minutes, the next two days to 60 minutes, then 90 minutes. I also made a sticker chart. He got one sticker for #1 and two stickers for #2. I told him when he filled up the chart we would go bowling. Within one week he was completely daytime trained (yes, both pee pee and poo poo) with no accidents - even at school! Also, by then he was telling me when he needed to go so we no longer needed the potty watch. Within a week from that he was using the bathroom by himself when he needed to go without asking for assistance. It was so easy it was almost scary. I guess God decided to have extra grace for me. It is so wonderful to not have to change diapers anymore. I still owe him bowling, however, but I've just been to poor to take him as of yet.
All I did was tell him to stand next to the potty. He did the pose all on his own.
The only downside to potty training is the curiosity that comes with everyone going potty and their potty parts. In particular Kaden and Annika since they are so close in age. Kristin and I have used proper terminology with both of them and now it's seemingly all the two of them talk about. On one hand you want to be honest with the names of their body parts, but then you run the risk of embarrassment by having them talk about them at inappropriate times and places. Like when Aunt Tina took Kaden to the grocery store and bought him a box of Honey Smacks cereal. When looking at the picture on the box Kaden pointed to it and said, "Look, Tina, it's a vulva." Lovely. I knew we shouldn't be buying him sugary cereal.
