The Potty

Hope.

Reverse psychology is wonderful thing. Thank you to my co worker Amy for suggesting that I use it for getting Harrison to do things we WANT him to do, that bring us to the potty.

During bath time Friday evening I took a look at Harrison and took a look at the potty (collecting dust) and thought, "tonight, I am not taking "no" for answer when I ask him to use the potty." At first I made it a game... I pretended to sit on it and told him that "it's my potty." You see to Harrison, in his eyes EVERYTHING is his. "Mine" is his favorite word. So in saying this too him, this prompted him to get me off his potty and he sat down on it. I about died. For the past 5 months Harrison wouldn't even sit on the potty, barely touch it---I had to reevaluate the situation and convince myself that this really happened. And no, he didn't actually go to the bathroom, but he sat down, a HUGE accomplishment. We are using lots of positive reinforcement, LOTS of high fives. Harrison just eats up these praises, hopefully this isn't short lived.

From Friday on, he has done WONDERFUL with sitting down. I think he has been on it a good 8-9 times. Only once since Friday has he been a little hesitant and that was this morning (and I think it's because he was still tired). He has yet to actually make pee or poo on chair, but once he gets more familiar with awareness, that will come. And for Doug and I, we need to work on better timing, in 2.5 days it's hard to learn his signs and when to actually take him. As Harrison speech improves, this should improve as well. Tonight he walked in to the kitchen and looked at me and said, "I pooped," and then he walked away. I guess thank you for the announcement?

Tomorrow begins "sitting" at daycare. I am trying to be optimistic that he will cooperate the same for them as he does for us. What actually causes me some anxiety about this whole potty training process is public outings. So many of the toilets these days flush automatically, which can scare the heck out of a child (heck, depending on where we are, it can surprise me too).

Hopefully this is a beautiful beginning to a diaper-free household.