Be strong, mamma...

We have a deadline for getting X-man potty-trained. If I want him to start going to pre-school in September, he has to be potty-trained. And I do want him to start in that program because it is the natural progression from the children's day out program he's in right now. So, I have 8 months (or less) to get him going to the potty. He knows how to go, he does it every day, usually at night before bed, but often in the morning when we get dressed for the day.

We've tried some (unsuccessful) attempts at training in the past and this weekend I decided we were going to go drastic...but not like wicked witch drastic!

So, we bought some underwear (they are the cutest little tighty-whities!) and some special Disney/Pixar character ones. I'm not one to have lots of character items (we do have some Word World stuff), but I know that X-man loves Cars, Nemo and Toy Story so I wanted to get these as an incentive.

When X-man went to bed last night, TC and I took his diapers and changing pad and put them up. When he got up, he noticed it was all missing and started looking for his diapers. He even opened the closet where I keep the extra boxes to see if they were in there. Nope.

I told him he was going to wear big boy underwear and he would learn to use the potty. He wore the undies this morning without incident. And we put on special "going out" underwear (pull-ups) for our trip to the grocery store. Yes, he pee'd in those. Oh, well.

We changed back into his undies when we got home and he was fine. I set the alarm on my phone to go off every 30 minutes and let the phone say it was time to potty instead of me. He tried to go once, but after that, he didn't want to go. note: I must be stronger about the trying part!

Around 11:15, he looks at me with this pitiful face and says, "Mommie, take off my big boy unnawear!" Poor kid had wet his pants. No biggie. We just went to his room (he walked with this hilarious bow-leggedness and his palms were turned outward...too funny!) and took of the wets and started to change into dry clothes.

X-man said, "I wanna wear diaper! I don't wanna wear unnawear!" And tears insued.

Not wanting to traumatize the kid, we snuggled and I finally determined that he didn't like the underwear because it felt yucky when it got wet. Good! I explained the whole concept of the potty to him and that seemed to calm him down enough to get him dressed again.

He had another accident during lunch. And then when we were through, he said, "Mommie! I gotta potty!" So I unbuckled Buttercup (poor girl, had no idea what was happening...why are we getting up and down so many times during lunch? I just want my carrots!!) And X-man went right to the bathroom and took care of his business! The three of us had a little party right there in the bathroom!

Now, I have only had to deal with the wet issue up to now. The other is probably going to happen later today. I am not looking forward to that.

Hopefully this will all go smoothly and he'll be a pottying champ soon!