A few weeks before Christmas, I told Silas that there was only one thing I really wanted for Christmas, which was for him to be 100% potty trained. He’s been at around 90-95% for at least a year (I remember one trip when he was nine months old, and he wet two diapers in four days!), and being that close for so long was driving me nuts. Once I explained that it didn’t have anything to do with trains, he pretty much lost interest in the concept…or so I thought.
When we were in WV, Silas had a six day stretch when he was 100% dry. When we came back, there was a week with lots of accidents and now…he’ll prove me wrong tomorrow, but I’m cautiously optimistic that we might have finally ridden that potty train to its final destination!
He’s 28 months old. Someone is going to point out that this is not especially early, and we might have expected to be done earlier because of elimination communication. Dr Google tells me that the average boy is fully trained at about 38 months. I’ll take being done ten months early. EC had a lot of other benefits for my family as well, which I’ve discussed previously.
Most of Silas’ Twelfth Night gifts were little things–thrift store finds, stickers, a new toothbrush, etc. One gift, though, was truly special: a seven-pack of Sesame Street underpants. He was so excited, it was kind of unreal.
Many parenting books recommend that you give your child choices. This does not apply to my child. He hates choosing. When we get home from the library with a bag of new books, he wants to read all of them at once. Want to create a morning disaster? Ask him if he wants cereal or toast. Given this information, you can imagine the disaster that loomed when he discovered all seven pairs of Sesame Street underpants, neatly folded in the laundry basket. Should he wear Big Bird underpants? The Count? He wanted to wear them all at once.
Thinking fast, I suggested that his lamb might want to wear some underpants. It was a wild gambit, but he took it. Underpants on stuffed animals saved the day (and the pictures are great).
That photo of the finale is just too good.
[…] to find some way to motivate her, kind of push her over the edge. She’s very excited about Silas’ Sesame Street underpants. So I said, “If you get very good at using the potty, then we can get you some Sesame Street […]