Potty Party

We had an extraordinarily busy week with the second issue of our little mag hitting mailboxes. My inbox has been flooded with encouraging e-mails-- most of which are from people I have never even had the pleasure of meeting! How nice! And the response to our two giveaways has been overwhelmingly positive so far. Yea! Two lucky ladies are sure going to be in for a treat. :-)

So, after our busy week, Hunk and I decided that a nice quiet Sunday was in order. Unfortunately, Bug did not receive the memo on this one, as evidenced by how he greeted us when we went to get him out of his crib. He was sitting there with his footy pjs half off, his diaper completely off, and two fists full of the contents of his diaper. (Let's just say it wasn't pee.)

"That's it!" said I. "We're doing it! Today! It's time for the big boy potty."

Hunk looked at me incredulously for a fleeting moment, made some comment like, "Shouldn't we read a book about this, first?" and then, thinking better of arguing with a woman scrubbing poop from the spindles of a crib, obligingly trekked to the garage to retrieve the training potty I purchased a couple weeks ago (but had been procrastinating about bringing inside the house).

We announced to Bug that we were going to have a Potty Party. He was all ears. First, we put together the potty. Then, he got to pick out which pair of big boy pants he wanted to wear (it was a close call between Thomas the Train and a green brontosaurus, but Thomas won out). Then we broke out the apple juice (a rare occurrence in these parts).

Bug drank to his heart's content, promptly peed all over Thomas, plunked down on his potty, announced he didn't have to pee pee, got off his potty, put on brontosaurus, climbed on the couch, and promptly peed all over brontosaurus (and the couch).

So we abandoned the big boy pants in favor of going buff. Which worked! After one more accident, Bug caught on to the goal and began fervently broadcasting (about every 15 minutes), "B make pee pee!" He would then run to his potty and make good on his proclamation, to the jubilant glee of Mom and Dad, who showered him with kisses, praise and M&Ms.

By the end of the day, Bug only had one more accident (in his high chair during dinner--that was fun to clean up), but about 10 more successful trips to the potty! We're so proud of him!

And to celebrate his success and cap off our Potty Party, we had cake. Which Hunk declared to be more for the parents than for the kids. Let's just say we all needed a little sugar buzz after today.


Amendment, posted on Day Two:
Only one accident today (in the high chair, again-- but it was Mom's fault. I had the dog in the utility sink in the laundry room, washing off his muddy paws, and didn't hear Bug asking to get out of his high chair to go pee pee...until it was too late). And- no pee pee on Thomas, today. Go, Bug, go.