Today went very well. We went back to the all-naked-all-the-time approach with the hopes of trying out the big boy underwear again tomorrow. Liam went to the bathroom, unprompted, without accident or incident for the entire day. This even included two poop incidents (these were the real coup).
There was only one hitch…
Today I decided that Liam needed to learn to wash his own hands (unassisted) so that for now I can use that time to clean out the potty chair and later I can check one more thing off the list on the road to Liam being self-sufficient in his bathroom endeavors. The nuts and bolts of the hand washing went well. This was not a huge surprise because he loves playing in the sink (especially when we don’t want him to do so).
The problem is:Â Liam’s not dumb.
He quickly put two and two together and over the course of the next 30 minutes he “successfully” peed in his potty chair 5 times (by successfully I mean he squeezed out enough to show up in the bowl). This, of course, meant that he also got to wash his hands 5 times in 30 minutes (you gotta respect his logic). It also meant that the semi-painful contractions I was trying to stop by lying on my side continued on until Matt came home and I could lie down.
The positive spin to this is that he has enough control of his faculties to pee on command (only his command, mind you, but on command nonetheless). Plus, it’s impossible to get irritated with him when I round the corner amid cries of “I peed in the potty, Mama!” to see him beaming with pride from ear to ear.
Fingers crossed that the hand washing loses its allure by tomorrow morning…