Potty Training At Last -- Complete With Dino Tattoos!

So I mentioned over on Facebook that Atticus is doing awesome with potty training. Let me back up a bit.

We've tried potty training several times with little to no success. There seemed to be two problems. First, Atticus didn't really care if he peed on the floor somewhere. It just didn't bother him. Second, if there was a reward for going pee in the potty he would just sit there and sit there, refusing to budge, until he finally decided he wasn't interested at all. So frustrating!

Then a few days ago we realized we were running out of diapers and we just could not think of a way to get more without putting it on the credit card, which I adamantly oppose. I decided we were just going to bite the bullet and potty train whether he was ready or not. Now I'm totally glad I decided to do this because it seems to be working really well. First, I told him that if he peed or pooped anywhere other than the potty I would take away his trains¹. Second, when he sat down on the potty but obviously had no pee to pee out I told him we could go drink some water, which would then go through his body² and come out as pee, but he would have to be patient. This clicked for him! So whenever he goes pee in the potty he gets to pick a treat³, whenever he poops in the potty he gets a little bag of chips, and whenever he pees or poops somewhere else he loses his trains (or something else if those are already gone). Here he is with a dino tat on his forehead. He has more on his arms.

Yesterday he went pee in the potty four times and poop on the carpet once. I felt like I had a dog all of a sudden. So he lost his trains but took it pretty well. Today he's gone in the potty about a million times and pooped in the potty once⁴. He also pooped a little in his underwear, but whatever. We're making progress here. I was mostly just trying out the underwear because we have to go visit family tomorrow and Justin says they won't want him running around naked⁵. He passed the test as far as pee went, but poop was another story. At least it was only a little and then he told me. It could have been so much worse. Now we can all just cross our fingers for tomorrow.

In other news, I'm now officially losing my pregnancy hair. All over the place. It's driving me crazy.

1His absolute favorite toy lately.

2Insert lots of hand gestures here.

3We have a box with little raisin boxes, cheese and crackers, and dinosaur tattoos in it for him to choose something out of.

4I thought of taking a picture to put up here with this post, but I thought you probably wouldn't be as excited about it as I was.

5Some people are so uptight. Just kidding. To be honest, neither do I. This will already be uncomfortable enough.