Such a Big Boy

My baby is so big! As so many of you know, my 18 month old son does not love to wear a diaper. A little while back, I figured that since he was so good at removing his diaper himself, I might as well get a little potty and see what happened. I just grabbed the basic plastic potty chair from Babies R Us. He could sit in the chair, or we could remove the seat and attach it to the big toilet. Although I bought it shortly before Christmas, it sat in my trunk until early this week. We tried it out, and Miles was terrified. I really thought that he would love it. He has a couple of little chairs, and he loves sitting in them. Apparently, the hole in the middle of the seat of this one made a big difference. Ben can attest to our child's pure terror. We tried both the chair and the toilet seat, but neither seemed to agree with little Miles. Well, it was a nice attempt.

While at the bank on yesterday, I decided to swing by the baby aisle (our Chase is inside of Walmart--really most of Tooele is inside of Walmart--very unfortunate) and see if I could come up with any brilliant ideas. I thought that maybe pull-ups would help for a while. Miles is used to undoing the tabs on his diaper, and since these don't have tabs, maybe it would fool him...for a little while anyway. So, I grabbed a package. Coincidentally, not all brands of toddler pants are tabless, including the ones I got. Unfortunately, they were the only brand that went as low as a size 2T. Also, pull-ups are not a good replacement for diapers. If your child pees in a pull-up, you better change it immediately or you will be cleaning up much more than your baby's bottom. Back to the point though. In the aisle, I noticed the cutest little toilet seat attachment that was a football. It was super cushy, and it occurred to me that maybe the other seat was just really uncomfortable since it had no cushion. Why not? It was only $15. It couldn't hurt anything.

We got home and tried it out. Low and behold, Miles thought it was the coolest thing ever. His favorite part were the little handles on either side. He was so proud balancing himself, holding onto the handles, sitting on the big boy potty. He loved it, but no real results. The problem is that my child is only a year and a half and either doesn't recognize when he needs to go to the bathroom, doesn't know how to communicate when he needs to go, or (most likely) doesn't care to communicate when he needs to go. So, we just keep trying. After he woke up from his much appreciated nap, I decided to put him back on the potty. Sure enough, as soon as he got situated, he started to pee. Good, good boy! I was such a proud mommy. He was so cute and smart too. As soon as he finished, he grabbed a little piece (little because I stopped him) of toilet paper and wiped his little pee pee. Unfortunately, he continued to also try to wipe his arm and face with the same piece of tissue. We'll work on that one. I was about to get him down, when he started grunting a little, so I thought I'd better leave him. After a second, he did a little toot, then happily said, "all done".

I was so pleased that I took my big boy to get a big boy Happy Meal (a big boy Happy Meal includes a messy cheeseburger as opposed to a baby Happy Meal that has clean chicken nuggets) and run some errands. After eating his entire (minus one apple wedge (plus the caramel sauce that I conveniently never showed him) and two bites of cheeseburger) Happy Meal, I decided to try again before I put him to bed. So, back on the potty he went. He knows what he's supposed to do. He pushed out a little more potty......and another toot. I can't believe that my baby used the big boy twice in one day! I couldn't be happier.

Obviously, this doesn't mean too much since he's still too young to really express his bathroom needs. Hopefully, that comes with not too much time. I mean, how awesome would it be if I did not have to worry about (or pay for) his diapers when number two (no pun intended) gets here this summer. Now I suppose I have to start working on weaning him off of the 3 or 4 bottles he goes through during the middle of the night. We're going to have a hard time getting rid of diapers if we don't first get rid of all the bedtime drinking.