Start Your Engines

Each time the kids go to a well visit with the doctor, we leave with a few 'parent education' handouts. Sometimes I read them, sometimes they just find their way to the recycling bin. At the 18 month appointment, we received a little sheet on potty training. I didn't read it all, but I did catch the idea that the potty chair was supposed to sit out and that I was supposed to hype it as a really awesome, super duper, best thing ever kind of chair. So I promptly brought the potty seat upstairs and proceeded to show the kids that it was like the big potty.

E & N were not too impressed with it at first. I noticed that it was being used as a stool more than it was being used as a chair. I'd come in the kitchen and find the potty pushed up to the counter so that they could reach something. Whatever. I've had it in my head that the kids will use the potty whenever they are ready and there is no need to push the whole thing.

In the last couple of weeks though, the potty chair has gained a few popularity points in the mind of E & N. I'll find someone in the corner and ask if they want to use the potty...the answer is usually a resounding 'yes!' They want their pants off and then the trot off to the potty. Inevitably though, the little one that was not in the corner also wants to try to use the potty and so it is really common for me to find one kid on the potty and the other one, bare bottomed, backing up, trying to sit on their twin who is sitting on the potty. That is what is happening in the picture above. Noah was pretty ticked.

The kids still don't know how to get their pants and diapers off (which I read was another 'potty training readiness' item) so I was feeling pretty safe. That is, until yesterday. Matt was home with the kids during nap time and he heard Noah rustling around in his bed. Much to Matt's displeasure, he smelled something terrible as he approached the room. When he opened the door, Noah was standing in his pack 'n play with pants in one hand and his dirty diaper in the other, both arms above his head. He was exclaiming 'poo poo!' like he just won a medal.

Sweet. Let the potty training games begin?