Potty Dance.

I was going to wait until I was through potty training Cub before I wrote a post about it, but then I decided that it might be more useful to kind of write it as I go, so y'all can follow me as I try to figure out what in the world I'm doing!

So!

This is what I am doing!

Cub informed me this morning that he would like to wear big boy underwear. I was thrilled, but then realized I had no clue where to go from there. I had read a book (Potty Training 1-2-3), but wasn't sure where to start. So, naturally, I called one of my veteran Mom friends and asked for some advice. She had potty wisdom a'plenty and graciously allowed me to tap into her knowledgable reserves. So, it is with her guidance that I'm beginning this very intimidating journey with Cub.

The Method: He firstly saw Mr. Lion "go potty". I put Mr. Lion in a pair of Cub's big boy underwear and walked through the routine: I pretended like he was drinking from a sippy, then I asked him if he was dry, then I put him on the potty, poured some water in (yay! Nigh-Nigh went potty!) and then I wiped his tooshie and, of course, gave him an M&M.

Cub was in awe.

The timer on my phone is set to go off every fifteen minutes. When it buzzes, I take Cub to his potty chair (I carry it around the house with us) and ask him to tell me if he is wet or dry (he is wearing big boy underwear). If he correctly answers dry, he gets an M&M. He then sits on the potty chair for two minutes. If nothing happens, then we pull up his britches and go about our business. If he potties, we act as though we've just won the lottery, with lots of cheering, jumping, hugging, and, of course, more M&Ms. I realize that some people might cringe at the thought of all of that sugar. Go ahead and cringe. Then cringe some more.

Then cheer when you see the pee pee in the potty and realize M&Ms are AWESOME MOTIVATION.

Then cringe some more and leave me a comment on the horrors of sugar. Then have an M&M. It will make you feel better.

He then gets a sticker on his potty chart. Ta-da!

As we are now in the thick of the first day, I realized that I came into this thinking that the goal was to have no accidents. But, as the day has progressed, I realized that accidents are a functional part of training--if he's never wet, he won't necessarily understand the full meaning of dry. So, we've had more successes than accidents, and I think he's getting it.

And I'm exhausted.

And very, very proud.

Naps (and bedtime tonight) will still be in diapers, as I'm fairly sure that night-training is an entirely different animal. We'll move on to pull-ups during sleepy times next.

So! Day One. The timer is about to go off again, so I need to hurry to the kitchen. I'm not crazy about posting pictures on the Internet of my child half-nude on the potty, so I will leave you with this:

The timer went off in the middle of this picture uploading and yay! Cub did it again! Phew. This has been a long day!!