potty party

holding joey on the potty party tractor


pretzel treats


his sticker chart

so we have ventured into potty training - wow! what an adventure and one of the most exhausting days of parenting yet. tiring but good, that feeling like you've spent yourself all day and it actually made a difference, and i'm not talking about malachi. so we had a potty party day on wednesday, cars was our theme, he is obessed with them. i went into the day with the thought, its one day, if it works great and if not we'll just keep on keeping on. my friend martha was my inspiration having trained 2 little boys using the potty part day method. we taught malachi's "new" doll (aka: murphy, ryan's cabage patch kid from growing up) Joey to go potty. by lunch malachi was putting him on the potty and telling him he had to practice longer. then malachi took his long nap which left us with little time to practice himself. but he went a few times and had accidents, he doesn't care to much about having accidents. fast forward to the next day and we spent the morning at a friends house. he would go on the potty and then have an accident 10 minutes later - so i thought to myself, it was worth a try and this is not working. well friday rolled around and we kept up with the treats, encouragement and potty party dances - he was dry the whole day! we are still working on moving beyond peeing in the potty - he seems to use his pull up at nap time to do this number. but amazingly we are moving forward, there is light at the end of the tunnel. i am so proud of him and myself for that matter. i learned that it isn't just about the kid being ready, but also the mom who now needs to know where bathrooms are and be prepared at all times to make a mad dash for the nearest potty.