Potty Training....What do I do

One of the things I learned fast as a first time mom was to trust my instinct. It has served me well and kept my stress levels somewhat low. Well there comes a time in life when you run into a wall or stumbling block. Basically something that challenges the world as you understand it. My latest wall has been potty training. What the heck am I supposed to do to get this kid that absolutely loves running around in his stinky diaper to realize and learn that he must now go to a potty. Oh and when I say loves to run around in his stinky diaper I mean just that. My son for whatever reason hates diaper changes. We have to fight with him and chase him down to change his diaper. So this potty training thing. Where do you start? When do you start? How do you start? I had absolutely no clue. I asked around and read a few items here and there. Every one is doing and saying something different. It's like each person has her own scientific experiment going as to how to potty train. Shall I share some of the advice I've gotten....

1. Take off his diaper and let him run around naked. He'll go to the potty because he won't just use it anywhere. 

WRONG. I was told similar advise for house training the dog that they won't go in their crate. WRONG AGAIN. It must be me because with the dog and with the cub they both did exactly what I was told they wouldn't.

 2. Get him a potty and familiarize him with it, let him play with it and understand that it is specifically for him.

Sounds OK right. Well in my case the potty turned into the cub's lounge chair. I kid you not. He took the potty and dragged it into the living room and plopped it in front of the TV. End result-we had to get him to understand that the potty is not that kind of chair.

3. Take him to the potty whenever you go. He will learn from you.

This I felt I can do so every time I went to the potty I would say "Tony, mommy is going to use the pot pot. Do you want to come and use your pot pot too?" Of course he did and I would sit him on his potty then I would proceed to the grown up potty. End result-the cub now tries to wipe mommy and wants to assist ME in pottying.  

Now none of these are weird or bad advice....well maybe the naked thing. That one was weird. Other than that though I think my experiences have just been comical. We have only been "officially" potty training for a little while now and have had some success.
1. The cub no longer thinks the pot pot is a lounge chair and actually attempts to potty.2. The cub has used his pot pot several times now. Not on his own of course. We have been managing to catch him when he actually had to go.

I'm begining to see that this is a definitely a process. I expected it to take time but truly other than that I didn't know what to expect. I still don't honestly. Oh how I wish my instinct would kick in and I come up with some miraculous solution.

OK so it has been an eternity since I've written about the precious cub. I keep saying that I will do an update post but truly life is very busy right now. First things first....the cub. I recall sharing our adventure with the good ole temper tantrum. Well, those suckers have gotten WORSE. I don't even know if I can call the ones at 15 months tantrums. The new and improved ones definitely challenge my patience as a parent and it doesn't help that he has them daily. More and more he is like the sour patch kids....naughty then sweet. Oh and now that he is speaking all I can say is help me.

The funniest thing that has come out of the past few months is the relationship between the cub and the dog. Now I have heard the saying a boy and his dog but I never really understood until now. Not only that but I didn't expect a true relationship to blossom between those two until the cub was like four. Boy was I wrong. Those two act like siblings. They argue over toys, the window, the couch, and daddy time. As usual no one cares about mommy time, everything is about the daddy. The cub is usually the instigator in the baby puppy wars. He doesn't seem to understand that like him Pancho has his own set of toys. So...anytime Pancho plays with his squeaky ball the cub gets excited and takes the ball to throw it. Well...Pancho doesn't feel like playing fetch so he interprets this as the cub taking his toy and he just sits there upset. Then...the cub gets upset because the dog didn't chase and fetch the ball. It's hilarious as I write it but in action this is a full on sibling rivalry happening in my house. The window. Both the cub and the dog like standing up in the over sized chair by the living room window and looking at the cars and people passing by. Well....when Pancho does this he usually barks at everything that passes our window. Due to the fact that Pancho rarely barks the cub is always frightened when he does. Add the close proximity to the dog and you have a completely freaked out toddler. Toddler starts to cry which in turn freaks out the dog. The only time this doesn't happen is when the cub comes and evicts the dog from the chair. He has learned that the word "down" commands Pancho to get down from the couch or any piece of furniture. So...the cub now yells down to Pancho quite often but especially when he wants the over sized chair and window all to himself. How do I teach the two of them to share? The cub calls Pancho two things, dog and woof woof. Whenever I come home from work and ask the cub about his the words dog and woof woof are repeated several times during his rant. He is apparently telling on Pancho for doing something.

The cub has also began defining our roles. It was always clear that daddy's role was playtime. This is even more evident now that the cub is running a talking more. He and daddy sword fight. Now the cub doesn't actually have any swords so this game is usually played with his toy golf clubs or the tool pieces to the vacuum cleaner. We don't know where he learned this game but it's one he loves to play. Mommy's role is obviously to kiss scrapes, remove boogies, and watch movies. We always read a book with the cub at bedtime. The tradition was to alternate readers each night. Well....the cub only likes for daddy to read Brown Bear Brown Bear. Apparently, he likes the animal noises the daddy make better than the mommy. So...no more alternating. The cub usually picks the book then picks which parent he wants to read it. Toddlers are hilarious. There is just no other word for it other than hilarious. Anyways, stay tuned for more updates ;) and enjoy the little video clip. I trimmed it down from a longer video just so you can see the cub terrorize the dog then the beginning of a tantrum because he wants the dog's toy.