It's in the can, man

Our special potty seat

Hazel and I have been hard at work lately learning to use the potty.


Hazel’s been using the toilet for a while now. She’s very enthusiastic about it but is not very consistent. When she goes, she gets an M&M. The first time she pooped, she was so excited, she told my teachers when they dropped me off at school.

I, on the other hand, have been very resistant to the idea of even sitting on the potty or wearing underwear for a long time.

Two weeks ago, we had a breakthrough. Dad was in California and I asked Mom if I could sleep in her bed. She said yes, if I peed in the potty. So I tried! I sat there for 10 minutes but nothing came out. Mom gave me an M&M for trying. After months of watching Hazel eat M&Ms, I was happy to finally get one myself.

The next morning, I really didn’t want to go to Leaps n Bounds, Hazel’s school, where I went a couple mornings each week this summer. Mom told me if I tried the potty and wore underwear, I could stay home with her. So I did!

The next six days, I wore my underwear and tried the potty but couldn’t make anything happen. It was kind of a mess. I was pretty anxious about doing it. Last Tuesday I started my new school (more in our next post) and my teachers started working with me on it.

I like the toilets there. They are little and low to the ground, so I can just stand there and go, and Wednesday I went for them there! My teacher let me play with her iPad and gave me some M&Ms. I asked her lots of questions about the toilet paper dispenser, including whether the handyman fixed it, whether he had tools, and if they were loud. She could tell I had a lot of experience working with contractors over the summer.

The next day I used the toilet again -- four times at school, then went when I came home by standing on a stool in front of the toilet.

In addition to M&Ms, my reward for all this has been trips to Yogurtland. We are keeping them in business, between the two of us (Hazel got a few trips for pooping in the potty). Mom says it's her new favorite place on Earth -- even better than Amy's Ice Cream -- so she is happy about it too.

Since then, I have been peeing in the toilet a lot. No poop yet, which is messy and sort of frustrating. Mom thinks I am anxious about it, the same way I was anxious about using the toilet to pee. I have lots of exciting presents waiting for me when I finally do it.

Since all this started, Hazel's been saying she also wants to stand up to pee.

The final frontier will be staying dry all night long. Hopefully Hazel and I will be out of diapers soon! It’ll probably be a while before Turner gets to this point.