Potty Training, Round 1

All I can say, is, don't look for Round 2 any time soon. Deep in my heart, I truly believe Sean just is not ready for potty training.  He sat up late, crawled late, walked late, got teeth late.  There's no reason for me to believe that he'll be early or even on-time with potty training. Plus, every site and pamphlet from the doctor says to look for the physical signs of readiness, and he has none of them - no way he can hold his pee for two hours, I think he pees every 20 minutes.  And the texture of his poo?  Well, let's just say it's not where they say it should be.  However, he turns two this week, and I've had enough prodding from various friends and family to at least see if there's interest on Sean's part.

So this week I set up the potty chair in the hall bathroom.  I figured I'd follow my mom's example and when I needed to go, I'd invite Sean in for a seat on his new throne.  So yesterday, he followed me into the bathroom and thought I'd give it a go!

First off, he was excited to see a new apparatus of some kind to play with.  He especially likes playing with the little boy pee-pee guard.  Ick.  So I'm sitting on my pot and I invited Sean to sit on his.  We pulled down his pants and took off his diaper, and sat him down.  Not as easy as it sounds, though.  With the pee-pee guard sticking up so I don't get any shooters in the eye, it was a bit confining for Sean when he had his jeans wrapped around his ankles.  So I thought it best to take off his pants, which meant taking off his shoes, which, as you may know, means a fit.  He wasn't happy about his shoes being gone, but once he was naked from the waist down and sitting on his new seat, he was smiling and laughing again.  We sat there for a few minutes, with me asking him if he needed to go pee-pee in the potty.  He started playing with the rubber ducky on the side of the tub, instead.  At this point, he stood up with his duck in hand...and peed on the floor.

I immediately screamed "No, No, No!" and sat him back down on his seat.  He looked at me with complete confusion, like "What just shot out of my pee-pee, momma?"  So while I'm grabbing toilet paper to wipe up the puddle, he stands up - and starts peeing some more!  And he also notices some pee running down his leg, to which he asks "What's this?"  

The kid had no clue what was going on.  I don't think he got that he was going pee, like mom was asking, and that mom's objective was for him to do that while sitting on the seat.  So we're 0-1 so far.

I will leave the seat in the bathroom, and let him sit on it if he wants.  But no pressure from me at all.  He's obviously not ready, and I see no sense in forcing the kid to figure it out this summer, only to have Baby Latta show up later this year, and potentially have it all backfire on me.  And in the meantime, I better keep a stack of clean-up towels close at hand in the bathroom!