Here's the deal...

I never expected potty training to be a four part process that spanned...a year.  Yes, you read that correctly...a year.

In July of 2013, we began potty training Ryan (he is no doubt going to hate me when he's a teenager if he ever reads this) because I wanted to get him good and trained before Tony and I left for China and came back with his little Chinese sister.  That potty party part one was great fun (sarcasm) and so we repeated it (part two) a few months after Ryan's relapse after our return from China.

One of my favorite videos is from potty party part one which can be seen here.

A few months ago, we re-potty trained for the third time and it looks like this one is sticking.  Within a couple of days, Ryan was peeing in the potty like nobody's business and a couple of days after that, he went to bed at night sans diaper.

Success!

Except I can't get this boy to poop in the potty.  Every day he says, "mommy, I want to go poo poo in a diaper" and so I put a diaper on him, he poops and then we revert back to his big boy underpants.  For some reason, my brave little boy is deathly afraid of pooping in the potty (and yes, I understand this is fairly common).

So the other day, I decided to bribe, wheel & deal, whatever it took to get him to poop in the potty. 

Me:  Ryan, here's the deal...if you go poo poo in the potty you can have ice cream, cookies, chocolate, whatever you want.  OK?

Ryan:  OK mommy...here's the deal...(holding up 1 finger)...one elephant and one giraffe.

Needless to say, he's still pooping in his diaper. 

potty training + A.D.D = ??

Warning:  In my opinion, there is no full frontal nudity in this video.  there is however, a pretty clear view of a baby bum.  Apologies if that offends you...I think it's pretty cute.

We haven't "officially" started the potty training, but we did go and buy a big-boy potty several weeks ago.  Auntie Patty doesn't think Ryan is quite ready so since we don't know any better, we're waiting for her to give us the green light.  And really, if the truth be known, I trust her motherly instincts more than mine.

But whatever motherly instincts I DO have, tell me he's close.  For example, he's no longer terrified of the regular potty whenever we flush it.  And once in a while he wants to give it a go.  Most of the time he just sits for a few seconds and declares "it's not working" and then he gets up.  But today, he kept telling me he had to go pee pee and so we ventured off to visit the frog (aka the big boy potty).  He sat forever and was really trying my patience because he wouldn't sit still - he wasn't peeing but he kept insisting on staying put while being as active as a little boy sitting on a toilet can be.

If this video is any indication, we might be in for the long haul whatever that means. 


post script:  by the time I had taken this video, we had been sitting in the bathroom for a VERY long time so my patience was worn THIN.  And the reason why I keep asking him what he's doing is because just a minute ago, he said in the cutest little boy voice:  I'm sitting on my big boy potty like a big boy!  So much for trying to recreate cuteness.