Go away so I can poo. I will read Curious George.

For a few weeks now the small boy has been throwing me out of the bathroom so he can wipe his own bum in private. (He's not very good at it, though, so unless it's immediately before bathtime I still have to do one wipe.) Today he threw me out before he was done (but after two stories and a great deal of action in the pot). For the past few weeks we've been encouraging him to do things "all by himself" (because he's in that phase now with everything) and walking him through the steps. "Take your shoes off, then take your shorts and undies off, then get your step stool..." It was quite lovely to sit on the couch and listen to him read Curious George out loud, even if it did just last two minutes.

I don't like to poo at school

"Here Mommy, I don't want these french fries. I don't feel well. My tummy hurts. I want to go home and poo poo. I don't like to poo poo at school."

I suppose it wasn't too surprising, given that he's been holding it in all day for nearly a year now. This past week he has been saying he needs to poo and getting up and heading to the bathroom all by himself, as well as throwing me out at the end and wiping his bum himself. He still holds onto his wee until you take him, though. It's just a matter of time, though; probably when he finally has all his teeth.

Look no pants! (Or puddles...)

I took the plunge last night and sent the wee man to bed without a pull-up on. He woke up twice to wee on the potty, and several more times to visit the booby bar (strep throat being nasty and all) and then woke up nice and dry and made a big wee in the toilet. Hurray!

Figuring out the nights

The small boy had his second birthday last week, and with a new year comes a new beginning. Two nights in a row, at his first waking his dad went in and he was dry initially, but wet by the time I got my bum in there. Last night daddy decided to try him peeing on the toilet, which actually worked, but there was a bit of crying involved. The small boy just doesn't like bright lights and cold toilets after the comfort of mommy's Tempur-Pedic knock-off bed.

Tonight I substituted the potty for the toilet, which had fewer tears and a quicker return to happy sleep for the small boy. It was quite a fantastic wee, too. No wonder he wakes up crying. He has typically been dry after this first wee until morning, but I'm not ditching the pull-ups any time soon. (Because it's no fun having wee in your bed.)

All by himself

A few weeks ago I heard a din in the bathroom and went to have a look and Johnny had his trousers and undies on the floor, his toilet seat on the toilet, and was climbing up. Twice this past weekend I walked in on him with his step stool up against the toilet, seat up, on step stool, trying to get trousers down to have a wee. He's been out of nappies in the day for about 6 months now, and will be 2 in three weeks time.

Update

Things are going really well. We got a $5 step stool and since then it has been much easier. Having to undress him from the waist down for a wee was really getting annoying (just dropping his drawers meant his penis pointed upwards and I got an unwelcome spraying) and success on the home front has translated into an overnight success at nursery.

When the experienced teachers left, suddenly my potty trained at home and previously at nursery son was having up to three accidents a day. They keep a time record of toilet breaks on the daily sheet, and when I noticed a pattern of accidents being 20 min after a toilet break I had it sussed that he wasn't weeing when being sat on the toilet. They protested that he was and it was "just Johnny" to have an accident 20 min later, but after agreeing to do standing up toilet breaks for him, he instantly stopped having accidents. (Well, there was one last week, half an hour after waking up for his nap, three hours after his pre-nap toilet break, which you can't really fault the little guy for!)

Poos are much quicker now, too. He asks to sit down when he needs to poo and just gets on with the job. This may be because I took all the toys and books out of the bathroom so we'll take one or two books or toys in with us, and that's it. He's definitely a home toilet kind of guy, and it took a lot of coaxing on day four(!) to get him to poo at my cousin's house. Since then he has gone at his Grandpa's (though we discovered the hard way with a less mild case ourselves that he had rotavirus at the time!) and his friend's house.

In the past week he has been taking his own trousers and undies off, as well as putting them on (two legs in one hole or backwards stylee) and finally succeeding in putting his shoes on. He hasn't dropped his drawers in connection with going to the loo except yesterday at his friend's house, when we turned around to find him naked from the waist down with a big puddle on the kitchen floor. It was quite bizarre and totally out of character. I hotfooted it over when I caught him later in the living room with his pants around his ankles. (Thank God as it's carpetted and that was when he made a poo!)

Time to wee like a man

I'm getting increasingly frustrated with the half hour toilet sessions, especially the ones that don't end with a poo. The puzzles are going out of vogue, and books are definitely in now that he's learning the (entire) alphabet and starting to recognise words. (By "words" I mean, "cow" and "moo" which he sometimes confuses.) When the reason for the half hour toilet breaks began to look more like "Mommy will read to me for half an hour" than "Oh boy I'm having a hard time making this poo" enough was enough. It also helps that he can now mostly distinguish between "I need to wee" and "I need to poo." Another motivator is that he's in jeans now instead of shorts, and so toilet breaks mean removing shoes, trousers, undies, etc. and it's getting to be quite a faff, especially on-the-go.

He has been weeing standing up outside from just about the get-go, and has been weeing sitting backwards on adult toilets when out and about, so the natural progression was to meld the two at gymnastics last week when they conveniently had a step stool in the bathroom. We now do these at home, too, when I'm just Frankly Not In The Mood to sit for half an hour on the cold metal bathtub which is uninsulated and exposed to the elements in the crawlspace under our house.