Potty Training - Day 1

Well, we decided to test the waters with the whole potty training thing...see where Grady might be with the whole thing if introduced to it. Here's how it's gone so far:

We bought the potty last night on our outing to Wal-Mart after we got back into Longview from Saline (pictures of our week in Saline to come by the way). We showed Grady the potty in the box and talked about pottying in a potty. He was fascinated and excited. We assembled it last night at the dining room table (that's appropriate, right?) after the kids went to sleep. This morning when we came down and were having breakfast, the potty was sitting right there and we showed it to Grady and asked him if he wanted to start to pee pee in the potty today. He said yes and immediately wanted to get down and sit on it right then. After breakfast we put it in the bathroom and took him in there. I showed him a pull-up and he wasn't interested in putting it on at all. I asked him if he wanted to sit on the potty and he didn't want to do that at all either.

So, we said ok and let him go play. No big deal. I decided that I would just leave the potty out though, for the next week or so, and see if in the week's time he became interested. If not, we would put it up and try later. I even remarked to Joel that we just might have 3 in diapers for a while after all. Well, not long after I said that, Grady came to me and said that he wanted to use the potty. I took him in there and he sat right down. I showed him a pull-up again and he gladly put it on. He was determined to pee in the potty and sat there for 20-30 minutes just hanging out. He finally did it and it was very exciting...but, he wasn't satisfied. He wanted to stay on the potty until he did it again. He obviously doesn't have a grasp of the urinary system and how it works. He did pee though and I tried to explain to him that we would come back later and do it all again when he needed to again.

Here's the deal: There are many signs that he is ready, such as asking to go to the potty (even before today), asking for a diaper change after he's gone in his diaper, being interested in bathroom activity, telling me when he's going poo, etc. But, at the same time, he doesn't seem to understand it all...all day long since his initial potty usage he's been telling us that he wants to go potty...he just basically wants to stay there until he goes again. Like I said, he doesn't understand that he will feel a need to go and then he needs to tell us. Does that mean he's not ready yet or does that mean that we just need to teach him and train him in that? And, if it just means that we need to teach him/train him, how do you do that exactly...how do you explain that?

This is an area that I am very inexperienced in. There are many areas in child training and raising that I've been fortunate enough to witness firsthand and learn from before having children of my own. But, in this area I either was just never around or never really paid attention to the details of it. I am about to go to the library and gather any and all information I can on the subject and hopefully also get a children's video if they have one for Grady on the subject to just kind of introduce him more to the subject. But, all of you who read this and have potty trained children of your own, or have been around when someone else did it and you have information you can share too...please do. Tell me your experiences.

Obviously I could just wait until he gets older to do this and will of course do that if he's just not ready at all. But, if it's just a matter of a little more effort on my part and he is in fact ready enough for this, then I would like to do it now. Looking at our lives and the next year, this would be the ideal time. "Ideal times" don't always pan out and I know this, but if this is an occasion where it will pan out, then that would be great. Let me know what you think.