Monday, March 12, 2007

Two Great Things

A couple of weeks ago I totally started feeling peace about potty training Grady. I had never liked the idea of it...turns out I think that just meant that it wasn't time since I didn't have a peace about it. It would've been horrible anyhow with as much moving and transition (new baby, etc.) as we've had the last few months. We're still not done moving obviously, but as far as we know we have a couple of months here in Saline still, so it seemed like a good time. In fact, I not only had a peace, but I got excited about it. I bought the book "Toilet Training in Less Than a Day" off Amazon, we got all the things that we needed out of storage (we bought a potty and underwear and all that last spring), and we set it up that Hadley would go to her Granny's for the day last Friday.

After Hadley left, we spent ALL morning with Grady talking only about the potty, taking him to the potty, showing him how Johnny goes to the potty (his doll), drawing pictures of the potty, singing about the potty, praising him and overexaggerating with him about his super cool big boy underwear...and the list goes on and on. By the afternoon, he definitely knew exactly what was expected of him and how to do it all.

He had a couple of accidents Friday, just getting the hang of it. Saturday and Sunday he had no accidents at all, even during naptime (and we were at church and someone else's house all day yesterday too). Last night was really funny. We had an "eatin' meetin'" as we refer to them last night after church in the fellowship hall. At one point Joel asked Grady if he needed to go pee pee. He said that he already had. I asked him about it later and he explained it to me in great detail...

Me: "Grady, did you go pee pee."
Grady: "I already did." (apparently thinking I was asking him if he needed to go)
Me: "You did? Did someone go with you?"
Grady: "No, I go by myself."
Me: "How did you do it?" (there's no potty chair in there or anything)
Grady: "I went to the potty, pulled down my pants, pulled down my underwear, and peed in the potty."
Me: "Did you sit on the potty?"
Grady: "No, I can't sit down (meaning I 'didn't' sit down). I stand up."

So funny...he said it all in a very matter-of-fact tone...kind of like, "what's the big deal...why are you asking me all these questions and acting surprised when you taught me how to do all of this already." Funny thing though is that we didn't teach him how to do that. :)

So, he totally went all by himself and didn't mess up (he tried going outside once by himself and peed all over the outside of his pants). It cracked me up that he had gone all by himself though.

Today he had a little accident...was playing outside and apparently didn't want to stop to come in and tinkle. But, I think he's done dang good...and we are very glad that we didn't potty train before now. Let me just say, I think I'll wait until they are all 3 years old to potty train. :) Of course that might not work...Friday night Hadley was going after Grady every time, but after Friday night she forgot about it. :) I do highly recommend that book though..."Toilet Training in Less Than a Day" by Nathan Azrin and Richard Foxx.

The other great thing that has happened in the last 4 days is that Asa is now totally sleeping through the night...that is 10:30-6 or so. She's done that before for a night or 2 at a time, but nothing that lasted. But, this time I think it's here to stay. Good times.

2 comments:

Michawn said...

Um, yeah...totally wrong. Grady is 42 inches, not 54. Joel corrected me. Thanks Amanda.

Anonymous said...

Michawn, I had a book about potty training wih a title similar to yours. I threw it out.It just didn't work and was a waste of the space it took up. Just maybe it was because I started when "they said" (My Brazilian friends) a child should be trained instead of waiting till there were signs of readiness (or 3 years). It's a delight it was such a positive one day experience! That's wonderful!
Pam