Potty Training

We have had some strides in the potty training department. Up until now, I would not say that we were even working on it because the extent of it was "Liam, did you want to try and go potty on the potty?" and the answer was always a firm, "NO!" That was it. I never pushed him to sit on the toilet or baby potty and I was trying not to get too uptight about it. I was actually trying not to mention it much in the last few weeks to see if that would make him want to mention it to me instead and try it. I did buy 5 Thomas the Train cars (3 packs -- some have an engine and a freight car all together and so I count them as 5 different cars) and I put them up on top of the entertainment center about 3 weeks ago for everyone to see. I told Liam that when he started putting his potty in the toilet, he could pick one of the cars to add to his train set. They started collecting dust.

Ok, so fast forward to yesterday. The boys and I were doing some painting at the table and since the poster paints say "comes out of most fabrics" - I decided not to take a chance and so I made the boys strip down to their perspective undies and pull-up diaper. Liam's pull-up was so full of liquid that he decided to take it off and given that it has been 90 degrees here the last few days, I figured that would be fine and didn't push putting a new one on him. A while later he started jumping around saying "I have to go potty, I have to go potty!" and so we scurried into the bathroom and sure enough he went in the toilet. He picked Percy from the entertainment center display. A few minutes later he went in again and went some more and thought that he would immediately get a new train car --- I told him there was a limit of "one train car per day". He went a few more times (obviously he didn't let it all out that first time and so he kept going back to let more out!) This morning after taking off his diaper from the night, he also went in the potty to impress daddy and to get the Edward train car. He's done for the day as far as train cars are concerned.

The positive part of all of this is that he knows what to do now and now we all know that he knows! It took him until 3 yrs 2 1/2 weeks of age to get to that point (and of course Connell was totally in underwear with no accidents by 2 yrs 10 months and yet I try not to compare the boys) So now it will simply be a case of how motivated he is to go to preschool the first week of September. From Connell's first potty success to wearing undies out was a 4 month process, so I am hoping that Liam waited until he was older and then will pick up the pace in the whole process. We'll see I guess.