Potty Boy

Now, anyone who knows me knows I absolutely despise, cannot stand, and can actually say that it's the one thing I HATE about motherhood is..... potty-training.

MAKING your child use the toilet is impossible. You just cannot make them do it. Fact of life. I learned this very early on with my first child. And I basically ruined her. She had accidents for years. Literally years, people. After meetings with my pediatrician, medications, and special training, I decided to learn from that giant mistake early on. I decided that from then on, I would never force my child to be potty-trained again. I would just wait for them to do it on their own when they decided they were ready for it. As long as they were out of diapers in time for 4 year old preschool, I would be perfectly fine wiping their big, giant bums and buying big, giant diapers up until that point. You see, from my point of view, it is much better to have the mess contained, easily wipe it off, and replace the diaper and throw the mess away. Much better than say... having the mess all over the floor.... couch.... 20 billion pairs of underwear.... and doing 10 loads of laundry daily. Not to mention being out and about running errands and having your child say,"Mom?.... I just pee'd my pants." Why make more work for yourself when you don't have to?! Soooo not worth it.

Baron had been asking for a few weeks to have underwear and use the potty. I wasn't ready (mostly because I really just hate it that much!) so I kept putting it off. Finally, we were at Target one day and he begged for Cars underwear. So, I got him some. We went home and we put them on. He had his first accident a little later and I explained to him that when he felt that pee coming out, he needed to run to the potty. I guess it clicked after that and he has had very few accidents since then. (I also may or may not have threatened that I would be putting him back in diapers if he had too many accidents.... ;) His accidents usually happen when he is busy playing and just forgets to go potty. In fact, he has even woken up dry a few times! I am thrilled (if you remember my night-training post HERE, you'll know why.... hopefully that means he didn't get the Collette wet-the-bed-until-you're-8 genes :)

He is so funny too. Every time he goes potty, and comes out of the bathroom he yells "Oh Yeah!" just like this guy does in Despicable Me:Hilarious. And then he says "Gimme 5 mom!" to which I slap his big, giant, outstretched hand (seriously, the kid's hand is almost as big as mine) and then its, "Down low!... Up high!... Poke your eye!" and then he pretends to poke me in the eye and laughs hysterically and runs away.

Oh boy, I sure do love that kid. And I sure do love the fact that he potty-trained himself. It was definitely worth the wait.