Potty Training?

It seems that Luke has decided it is time to be potty trained. We struggled for about a month or two with him pooping in his bed and on the floor, and then a few days ago he brought me his Queen(Lightning McQueen) and Melmo(Elmo) underwear and demanded to wear them. The first day I thought, fine this is going to be a pain in the butt for me because he is going to keep peeing in them, but it actually went really well. I diapered him up at naptime and bedtime but otherwise it was Melmo undies all day. I didn't think that he would ask for a repeat but as soon as he woke up he wanted Queen undies so we did it again.

We made going to the grocery store a family outing yesterday and Luke wore his undies. Big Step! He fell asleep in the car on the way home so Pete put him straight to bed from the car and the whole time---no accidents! Crazy. There have been a couple accidents, so it isn't perfect, but for a mom who wasn't planning on potty training him for another year this has gone amazingly well.

We are having one slight hangup and it is poop. You would think that a kid who has no problem flinging feces around his room would welcome pooping on the potty, but I guess not. He knows when he has to go because he will say it, go to the bathroom, come over to me, say it again, and sit on the potty. He wants to be read to while he sits, so I read to him, and he will sit there for about 15 minutes before he decides it is time to get up. Then about 20 minutes later we go through the whole process again. So day 1 and day 2 he didn't poop at all. I was a bit concerned because both days he really had to, but no matter how many times he sat on the toilet looking at books, he just couldn't do it. So I tried something that worked on Jack: I read for a few minutes then said I had to go do something but would be back in a few minutes to read again. This worked for Jack, he pooped while I was gone because he needed to be left alone. This did not work for Squeezy. Though I may try again.

So today (day 3) I was just going to diaper him up because I wanted him to poop, and really if he isn't ready to be potty-trained it isn't a big deal to me. However, as soon as I reached for a diaper, he ran to get race car undies. This afternoon he began to say he needed to poop again so I said fine let's put on the diaper. He got so upset. He cried, said no, ran into the bathroom, said he wanted to sit on the potty, and refused to let me put a diaper on him. I put it on him anyway and he took it off, cried, and ran into the bathroom. So into the bathroom I went, loaded with books and the diaper. I read him two or three picture books and by the time I was half-way through with the third book he was asking for the diaper to be put on. So I put it on. This child really wants to be potty-trained and he is also really stubborn. He sort of went but not all the way, and again demanded to sit on the potty to try to finish his business. He did not succeed but did ask for a few hugs while he was sitting there. I guess he wanted some reassurance and comfort.

I am still not 100% sure that we are potty-training for real, but I'll keep going as long as he keeps asking. Plus what kid doesn't love an excuse not to wear pants all day.(ps. did you notice that he can talk now!!!)

Since we are talking about using the potty- here is a rule that we adhere to in our house