Potty training

We've taken the plunge... The messy, no fun, plunge into potty training! Mr. Parker is absolutely not ready and could care less but we've got a busy summer of camp, vacation and lots of lake hours ahead of us that does not need to include diapers so I'm forcing him rather unwillingly to pee in the darn potty.

At first I followed the advice of my pediatrician which was basically the show him the potty and leave him alone method. If he has an accident, make him clean it up and do his own laundry. The idea is that he would see its quicker to pee in the potty than it is to clean it up off the floor. The problem with this method is I like my house, my flooring and furniture. That and.... He could care less to sit in his own pee. Delightful. Method 1= failure and frustration

So method 2. He woke up dry so in a daze I ran him to the toilet. He peed 3 feet into the air, not a drop landed in the toilet and Avery was soaking wet with urine. Poor thing got a bath at 8am. Let's just say princess has had 3 baths today thanks to a really erratically peeing Parker. I put him on the toilet every 15 minutes. Holy cow is that exhausting. It frustrated us both. So method 2= not a total failure but just not for us.

At 5pm, I started method 3. The potty was moved to the kitchen so he could play in the kitchen and den and have easy access the toilet. I turned on toy story and stayed in eyes view. When he started to dance on his toes, I told him to go to the potty and he did! 3 times! He even pooped! Granted, he was totally going to poop on my kitchen floor until I moved him to the potty but regardless, we made it! I'm learning his cues and I think we may have a good method that works for us. We started with him wearing underwear but he was having a hard time pulling them down do now he's going bottomless. He's also welcome to pee off the patio. I need to teach him to pee outside for convenience with our active, outside lifestyle so I figure what's the harm in letting him pee off the patio?

He got rewarded this morning with the allusive Mario that has been beckoning to him from above the fridge. I got the funniest picture of him trying to climb the fridge to get it. Have I mentioned Parker's new Mario brothers obsession? So random! We don't even own that game!

We've been rewarding him with stickers, m&ms and small toys. He got Mario for the 1st time he peed and luigi for his 1st poop. He gets a sticker for each pee and gets to pick out an egg. I put candy in Easter eggs and put them in a basket. That reward seems to work best for us.

Miss Avery is now walking and has been a bit challenging to keep out of Parker's potty so I've sanitized that darn potty 12 times today.

Overall, I was frustrated and tired by noon. We powered through it and at about 5, it seemed to have clicked. He was excited by the end of the day at his accomplishment. We have company this weekend and plans on Easter so while it's not ideal to not be able to sit at home and only focus on potty training for the next 2 days, we're still going to stick to it with hopes of being pee potty trained by the time he goes back to school from spring break. Fingers crossed!