Big boy underwear!

We've been introducing Garrison to the potty for a pretty good while now. I'm trying to remember when we first pulled the little potty out of the attic... it was a few months before his 2nd birthday, so it's been almost a year! We had been encouraging Garrison to have some "potty time" everyday, mostly right after waking up in the morning and before going to bed at night. He did really well with this until Caroline was born, and then our potty routine fell apart. It took us a while to get back on the wagon without him getting really upset about it. Somewhere after Caroline's birth it became scary to sit on the potty. Go figure. So since he didn't want to sit on it, but we were pretty much insisting that he have some potty time, he decided on his own that he would stand in front of the potty. Even better! After getting comfortable with that, we started putting him in underwear after dinner every night. After several evenings of accidents (which he didn't like) he finally told me that he needed to potty!

[The picture above was taken just moments before the triumphant moment. It's a cowboy hat, but the combination of the hat and his body language makes me want to shout, "Ole'!"]

So he went into the living room (where his potty was), stood in front of it, pulled his underwear down, and did his thing! It was like he had been doing it for months already! We were shocked and SOOOOO crazy proud. Of course, he got a cookie for his big victory. He had been waiting for a celebratory cookie for a while and was very excited. Here he is, cookie in hand, trying not to smile. But he's very proud of himself!


We're still working on getting the other (ahem) bodily function down. We've had some success with this in the last few days. I purchased a little trainer potty seat to go on top of the big potty a few weeks ago, and he's much more comfortable sitting on that than he was his little potty. In fact, the little potty has been moved to the van. [We had an instance a few weeks ago where he needed to potty while in a parking garage and I wasn't sure what to do... so I let him pee under the van and hoped no one was looking! Yes, that was a confession to all of you reading. I let my son do that! *gasp*]

He now wears underwear all day with the exception of nap time and, of course, at night. He did great while traveling (more about that later). We put him in a Pull-Up while in his carseat in case he fell asleep (which didn't happen...) and he still alerted us: "Mama, my pee-pee needs to come out." So cute. :-) He lets us know if he needs to go when we're out in public and loves exploring the potties at any store. He gets especially excited when the potty is lower to the ground and I don't have to pick him up. He says, "Mama, look! That potty is just my size!" It's quite the adventure!