He Poops...He Scores

Many months after our first attempt to send the Bean down the road towards diaper independence was met with an untimely end, we find him back on the trail. Unbeknownst to us, he re-started his journey because one of his pre-school teachers, who was most likely as over changing his diapers as we are, put him in underwear one afternoon. Of course, she neglected to tell us so it was discovered after the boy accidentally watered the family room floor. The Bean didn’t let this damp setback derail him this time. Pretty soon, the Bean had mastered “pishy”, but had absolutely no interest in the final potty frontier…the dreaded number two.

Since my son is my clone, you can set a watch to his bowel movements. Ten minutes after breakfast, he will ask to be put back in diaper and flee to the front room of the house, where he “hides” behind his train table and noisily does his thing. Anyone attempting to enter the room is met with a stern, “I need privacy!” I always offer up the potty and he always politely rejects me. That was until a few days ago when, surprisingly, he said, “yes.” A few minutes later, the Bean’s success was rewarded with a few chocolate chips.

Potty training seems to have stuck this time, because for the past few days he’s been like that dude who walked across the Twin Towers on a tightrope, without a net and accident free. But our ingenious reward system has backfired on us because the kid now uses the potty four to five times a day. I think he’s actually rationing his poop so that he can get more chocolate.

I’d like to be mad, but not only is he clever, he’s showing an amazing amount of control.