Potty Days

For the past two days we have been traveling uncharted waters as we navigate our way thru the world of potty training.  In our house, we call them "Potty Days"  and they go something like this:

We wake up on a cloudy, cold Monday morning and strip Brody down to his birthday suit.  Ok, I do let him wear a long sleeve t-shirt b/c as I said, it's cold!  Then I proceed to plop him on the potty and tell him to go.  He does.  Yay!  His reward is a skittle and a sticker.  Only five more stickers to go, and he'll earn a prize.  (He chose four prizes on Sunday afternoon during a shopping spree at Toys R Us.)  Then I set the timer for twenty minutes and we head downstairs to eat breakfast.  When the timer goes off, I take him back to the potty and we repeat the whole process.  He is totally into it! Loving the skittles and the stickers and making Mommy happy.  It takes him all of two hours to earn his first prize--a Batman truck.  He plays with it all morning as the cycle continues.  Buzzer, business, wash, repeat, buzzer, business, wash, repeat.  After a whole day of doing this, Brody has peed and pooped on the potty between 12 and 15 times with only two teeny puddles on the floor.  After a bath, pj's and a pull-up, I consider Day One a success!

Brody with his fabulous new Batman Truck--he picked it out all by himself and was SO excited to get it!

Tuesday morning the weather looks to be more of the same.  Good, since we are stuck in the house during Potty Days.  Brody wakes up and says, "No diapers or pull-ups for me!"  We start the process over and continue throughout the day.  He wins his second prize at 9 am and his third at 5:30 pm.  Today we practice washing our hands as long as it takes to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star."  There are a few more fights today when he doesn't want to stop what he is doing to go.  BUT, one time during the day he actually goes in the bathroom all by himself without any reminders from me!  At the end of the day, two accidents to report--and yes, one did include a smelly little gift on my wood floors, but thankfully it was on the wood floors and not the rug! (And totally my fault as he did it right after lunch while I was busy emailing someone on my IPod.  I KNOW he always has to go right after lunch!!  What was I thinking?) Day Two--we are still rockin' the potty!

So tomorrow is Day Three.  I am really hoping that I can keep this up.  It has been easier than I thought to stay in the house all day, but I have a feeling that if the weather gets nicer I am going to want to get out.  I am hopeful that Brody is going to get this.  I am also hopeful that we can start to try wearing big boy underwear in the next day or so.  I have tried them before, but he always peed in them within five minutes.  Maybe with the timer and the treats and all of that, he can do it.  Potty training is hard.  I wish I could outsource this task to someone else.  Did I sign up for this when I said I wanted to be a mommy?