Potty Time

It was, in all likelihood, a total fluke.

Last night my not-quite-two-year-old son, who barely speaks, went potty! On the toilet!

The Rock Star always goes potty before getting into the bathtub or the shower. It's just what he does. Well, about a week ago, after months and months of observing his brother doing this, The Little Buddy looked at me, patted the front of his diaper, and said, "Paw-E!"

Humoring him, I put him up on the toilet, facing backward. We have a little potty and Garrett learned how to go on it but Matthew has never seen anyone use that and he's been astutely watching everyone else using the big, white, one. There won't be any sadness on my part if Matthew never uses the tiny one because, in my experience with Garrett, I spent a lot more time cleaning up after a "hose" gone awry than actually potty training. Anyway. Facing backward on the toilet, Matthew strained his little muscles and I was starting to think he was actually going to go when all of the sudden he screamed, "NO!" and promptly climbed off.

The next time he was about to get in the tub I sat him on it. He strained his stomach muscles and, eventually, I said, "Okay, you don't need to go. Get in the tub." He climbed off the toilet and, with one leg in the tub and one leg out, promptly urinated all over the side.

We tried again. It ended in him yelling, "NO!" at me again.

We tried again last night. His diaper was dry. I plopped him on top of the seat and within five seconds he was making a watery deposit.

There was clapping and praising and smiling and whooping and, though he smiled, Matthew had the most confused look on his face. It was like, Um. We don't hoot and holler like this for anyone else and you all use this thing multiples times a day. Every day. But he did eventually start clapping for himself.

I'm not expecting it to happen again any time soon. This morning when I went to get him up I said, "Do you need to go potty?"

"Go paw-E!" He replied happily. So I stripped him down and tried to lift him onto the toilet. He screamed, "NO!" And then promptly fought me so hard that one of his feet ended up in the toilet instead.

So, either he really didn't need to go potty and knew it or we traumatized him with our excessive celebration.

I'm certainly hoping for the former.