P.T.

There have been no major milestone moments for us in the potty training process. Just before Christmas I bought one of those small seats that fits over top the regular toilet, two cans of jelly bellies and about 20 pairs of underwear and decided to just go for it. Whenever we were home, Sawyer wore underwear. He got one jelly bean for a number one, two for a number two. He caught on to that fact pretty quickly. (My playgroup friend assured me that once going to the potty is second nature, the treats get moved to the kitchen and eventually they forget to ask for them.) He loved the underwear - Buzz, Nemo, Spiderman, Wall-E, Cars, if Disney sponsored it, he dug it. And we've had plenty of accidents. About three weeks ago I started sending him to school in underwear. He'd come home some days with two or three knotted grocery bags of clothes (the accidents) and recently he's been coming home in the underwear and pants he wore to school. Now he wants to sleep in underwear, but its hard to convince him that he can't drink a full cup of water before he goes to sleep if he wants to wear underwear - that's going to be a hard habit to break. On long road trips I still put a diaper on him, and he cries when he has to pee. I have a mom friend that travels with a porta-pot in the trunk for roadside emergencies, but I'm just not there yet. Which brings me to my final potty training note: I've decided it's not the kids who have to be trained, it's the parents. It's such a lifestyle adjustment, something that has to be remembered and maintained and until the parent is ready to be potty trained, the kid will never be.