We had a great day and when it came to today’s outing, we stretched it out over two hours and the first thing our potty training star did was map out the potty available and tried it out.

Yeah, he is awesome.

He didn’t have a single accident and was even applauding himself by the time we got home. He is a bit of show off. :–) I’m so proud of my big boy.

We have survived so far. Heck, it has been smooth sailing considering how hard and rough this journey could be. I love to stay home and frankly my toddler prefers to stay home unless we are going to visit his Nana or go to a park but we need to try going out. We needed a kiddie pool to survive the heat wave we were dealing with (and by we, I mean me). So I asked my mom to come with us, as I was too big of a baby to even consider going on this trip with my boys on my own.

We went to the store and though the toys were a distraction we some how made it out with my toddler dry and with only a few tears and a kiddie pool. We forced the pool in my van with the help of a kind gentleman that saw us struggling to put it in the vehicle. We got home and got the boys out of the car and then celebrated on our ‘dry run’ with our own little pool party.

I think we are doing well (and by we, I mean my toddler) is doing an awesome job. We got out of the house! :throws confetti:

I had been letting my toddler run around in underwear as clothes seemed to be such an huge challenge. I had so many things going for us so we tried clothes again. My toddler did fantastic.

We spent more time outside which meant that he had to trek into the house to use the potty. We were putting stickers on the chart, eating our candy treats, high fiving, doing dances. Life is good.

I’m now realizing that one day we will have to go out as a family, with my little boy in underwear. It has to happen. It will happen. I am afraid. This process has gotten smoother but we are about to add a new challenge.

I thought I had this process under control, well as under control as you can get. My toddler boy rarely had any accidents. He did a dance, we high fived with each success. I felt good until I started getting more and more attitude from my toddler.

Then I turned to the interwebs for advice. I went to a couple baby boards that I have been a part of for a while and discovered that I was doing almost everything right. Yay, I think. Then one of incredible ladies on one of the baby boards I frequented asked if I used a timer to alert my toddler it was time to check if he had to use the potty. Oh my goodness! Using this technique meant less attitude from my toddler as he felt more in control. It meant less time outs for my toddler as his hissy fits were massive and were terrible displays of disrespect for me. It meant we were back on the same page.

Thank goodness when I needed help I was not only given the key tip to make life better for all of us but I also was reassured that I was using the techniques needed. This meant that my mobile baby was also given more attention and we could focus more on learning and playing.

Yay for help.

Now day four was a good day minus the attitude. I’m not sure who’s attitude was worse my toddler’s or my own in response to his attitude but we both showed that we are very stubborn. He made it clear that he was busy playing or eating (slowest eater in the house here) and just couldn’t be bothered to check to see if he needed to use the potty while I kept checking with him and encouraging him to sit on the potty.

I then had flashes of what my future was going to be like when he is a teenager and I panicked. I did my best to keep my cool but these visions of him telling me he was too busy to clean his room and that the newest video game was much more important than bathing. Then having fights over why he couldn’t borrow the car after not doing his chores and being disrespectful. These are scary, scary thoughts.

We survived the day, we still liked each other, we still loved each other. I had a glimpse of my toddler becoming a big boy and I am happy we have a long way till we get there. He’s just a stubborn person like his mama.

Day three of the potty training process for toddler boy was no easy feat. We threw too many curve balls at the kid. We dressed him completely and moved the potty from the play room to the bathroom which is really far apart.

We then learned that toddler boy’s shirts are way too long to be able to pull down said shorts and underwear in a hurry. We also learned that the run from the sun room to the bathroom is really way too long to have to remember that you have to do more than simply sit on the potty and pee.

Clothes complicate things, a lot. I mean I know getting dressed for a date with my mister is a hard one to figure out. Where are we going? What are we doing? How much walking will I have to do? What if we change our plans? Will I look under or over dressed for said possible change? Clothes are the enemy, I mean, aren’t the clothes the ones that let us know if we are getting a little fluffy?

I get it and I totally agree little man, clothes are the enemy.

So yesterday was all excitement and squealing and today I realized that keeping both boys taken care of and potty training the eldest while keeping the baby, literally out of the potty is going to be a huge undertaking. My toddler still expects me to high five him every time he does anything potty training related and his little brother still needs to be included. Here I thought just taking care of the boys full time was going to be a HUGE challenge, it isn’t anything compared to potty training and caring for both boys.

It’s like the time my then boyfriend flaked on his plans with me to hang out with the boys. The reality hit that I was in a relationship and there will be bumps in the road. Oh and that cute thing when he stopped talking to me when a nice car drives by, becoming less cute.

My son is showing that he is self aware. I was eating breakfast and nursing his brother and then he came up to me squealing that he did it again. I thought this was simply a ploy to get more candy because quite frankly my toddler is smart enough to play on my sleep deprived memory to get a sugar fix. Nope. He used the potty on his own, he peed a little on a tile next to his potty but mostly made the potty without so much as a word from me.

He’s doing it without me!!! I squealed and clapped. I cleaned up the mess then took my little troop to the bathroom to flush what was in the potty in the big toilet. We celebrated as my toddler flushed the toilet. Then we all washed our hands. We marched back to the living room with a clean potty chair and put a sticker on the chart. My big boy got the candy he wanted and put the potty chair back together in the play room. We are getting there! :–)

Potty training is an ongoing conversation in my household, it only make sense as I have three year old in diapers. I talk to my mom about potty training. I talk to my husband about potty training. Hell, I have talked to my toddler about potty training daily if not during every time I go to the bathroom. Yes, it’s true you have kids and stay home with them and you have company every time you use the toilet.

So this week my son came up to me asking to use his personal potty. I was elated! I squealed and jumped up and down and when he asked for his big boy underwear I clapped and screamed! My son was excited to get so much attention and for the rest of the day was in big boy underwear, like daddy. We talked about stickers and I gave him candy.

It was like the beginning of a relationship where my son screaming, “I have to poop!” when he actually had to pee and did outside was adorable. I was just happy he was learning when he should be on the potty.

It’s kind of like how I thought it was adorable when my husband, then crush, paused conversations to figure out what was making that fantastic diesel sound. Or would be giving me an adoring gaze which was interrupted by the Cobra replica that we saw at the intersection we were stopped at. Then the conversation was no longer about what our life may be if we got married but the money it cost to build a Cobra and if he could fit in it. I was infatuated with how passionate he was. You get the point.

Day one was all about the infatuation with the idea of my toddler being potty trained, and my son feeling like he was a big boy like his daddy.

When I was little livin’ on the edge has changed so much over the years. When I was a child, living on the edge meant walking on the highest point of a swing set and climbing to scary heights of a giant tree. It meant playing in a vacant apartment to escape the heat, because I knew I would be in huge trouble taking my baby sister to the pool without my parent’s permission.

When I was a teen it meant talking back to my mom, staying out late, and that one time I drove my friend’s car with her trying to cheer me on before I got my license. It was when I tried to see just how long I could function well with little to no sleep, oh college days. Yeah, I was that awesome culinary student that worked in a bakery, so there were days I would be up at 3:30am and wouldn’t get to bed the following day till 1pm due to work, school and my dreamy boyfriend.

When I was in my twenties it meant having crazy make out sessions with my husband everywhere, yeah I’m a wild child, crazy newlywed me and yeah we grossed out our sisters on numerous occasions. Or the fantastic time we went to a wine festival and followed up that afternoon of drinking with going home and drinking more wine and eating of fine cheeses and fruit. Wild and crazy I tell ya!!

Now as a mother, living on the edge is a whole new world. When I had one child, living on the edge was coming home late for his evening nursing session or letting him run around naked for more than half an hour. Now living on the edge is changing my toddler on the floor and spacing on closing the gate to keep my baby away from the dirty diaper I have removed. It’s also when I hear an pause in the constant chatter from both boys and don’t immediately jump up and check on what mischief they may be getting into with each other, you know like tearing apart their play room to the point beyond recognition. Like right now, I’m so living on the edge as I have not followed my baby crawling to the office where my dreamy, adorable, and thank goodness patient husband is busy working. How things have changed.

Let’s talk about how often moms ‘get’ to talk about poop. First we talk about poop all of the time when we are pregnant, or the lack there of due to all the iron we are taking. Then as we get closer to delivery then we are amazed with the amount of ‘cleansing’ our body does.

When we have our beautiful baby then we are very concerned about the number of wet and dirty diapers. You even beg your child when jaundiced to just poop a few more times that particular day. You even proudly show the chart you’ve been using to record all the naps and wet and dirty diapers the first time you go and see the pediatrician.

Then there are the conversations about poop, wet diapers, and frequency that you have with other moms. When you child starts to eat solids, you start to panic due to the length of time between poopy diapers. Then you conversation includes, what foods help your nearly toothless wonder to poop. How about what foods to avoid when you are still having to change poopy diapers. I also love the hysterical moments that I’ve dealt with and didn’t warn my husband about the effect the blue rice crispy treat had on my toddler’s dirty diaper.

I would have never thought that I would have long in depth conversations about my sons bowel movements. I do now have those conversations with more people than I ever dreamed of. Heck, now that I’m trying to convince my eldest son to potty train, we talk about pee and poop every single diaper change. Heck, now my son brings up the topic of poop to me on a daily basis. I have a feeling I will continue to talk about poop for the rest of my life, personally I blame Dr. Oz. He started it. I mean who else but he encouraged us to look in to toilet after we pooped. Yep, I blame him. :-P