Serious Progress

Warning: this post is entirely about bodily functions that are not good dinner conversation. So, for months now when people ask me if Cayden is potty-trained, I look them in the eye and say, "He's not wearing diapers?". Which is a fancy way of saying no. He picked up peeing on the potty pretty readily, and honestly we probably transitioned him out of diapers a little too soon. But, if you cloth diaper there is not much difference between washing four pairs of pants a day and 8 diapers a day, and his teachers are on board with experiential learning. Cayden had a good learning curve because his teachers would have him change his own pants and underwear (to the best of his ability), and that started ti cut into his play time. He has been paying more and more attention to his body, and honestly only has an accident once or twice a week at school now (more on the weekends because we sometimes forget to remind him to go). Pooping on the potty has been a little bit of a different story. It is really hard for him because there is such random reward. Your average 2 year old will always have at least a little pee to put in the potty, but you can't really summon a poop on command. So, we kind of backed off that front because he was getting really frustrated. We settled for having him tell us when he had a poop accident, and told him that acknowledging a poop as soon as it started would help him learn when it was going to happen. And it looks like this may *gasp* have actually worked. For two poops in a row, Cayden has announced that he is going to poop on the potty, gone to his potty, and done the deed! Granted he has made the announcement about 10 times, and only two resulted in a poop, but he is consistently trying instead of getting sad and frustrated when "it won't come out!". It is a little weird to be proud of him for this, but learning this skill has required Cayden to work on some emotional maturity and patience that he just didn't have 4 months ago. I think that we may actually be able to retire the diaper laundry bin by this summer, an event that will be accompanied by an entire bottle of champagne on my part.

Had it coming...

C: runs into kitchen crying
J: What's wrong Cayden?
C: Toku hit me!
J: Were you poking Toku?
C: NO!
T: What were you doing when Toku kit you?
C: I was tickling him. Just a little bit. I am going to go tell Toku no hitting.
C: runs into living room Toku! No hitting! ROAR!!!