It's Potty Time!

This one topic is worthy of its own blog post. No pictures, nothing fancy, just the proclamation that-- Avery is potty trained! Yay!! Stop reading if you don't want to know any more.

For nearly a year he has known what the toilet is for, always using it when I put him on it. It's been the telling me he has to go thing that's had him stumped. I never could understand how someone who has the ability to say things like, "Actually, I need another drink," and uses a large variety of four syllable words couldn't figure out how NOT to pee and poop in his own pants. I guess it's just a different skill set.

Anyway, I decided potty boot camp was in order now that camp is over and our routine has settled down, and he's about to be three next month. So we went strictly to plastic lined undies, which made pretty much no difference. I finally figured out it was just laziness, not a lack of understanding about what to do. So I instituted positive reinforcement for success (candy), and negative reinforcement for failure. Every book or magazine article you'll ever read says NOT to do that, so I've been not doing it, until I factored in Avery's laziness quotient and thought giving it a try couldn't hurt. If you don't believe in spanking or are a social worker, that's not what happened.

Anyway, it worked, and he's now wearing big boy undies and is staying dry. I didn't figure it would carry over into naps and overnights, but so far so good! Every time one of ours has potty trained it's been weird- one day they wear diapers and you change them and carry supplies everywhere you go, the next day they don't need any of that stuff. It's pure freedom, I tell ya! And I am rejoicing that that whole big box of size 5 diapers I just bought will collect dust until Elizabeth grows into them. Anybody want to join me for a party? I'm ready to throw one.