Its My Potty and I'll Go When I Want To

Lincoln was basically potty trained before he was 18 months old. Well...at least we had a system. He would pull on his diaper and say "body body" and I would rip off his diaper as quickly as possible, hold him over the toilet and he would relieve himself. Then he learned the favorite word of two-year olds everywhere, "NO" and decided that it was more fun to control the flow so to speak and we have been diaper bound until about 3 weeks ago. Sure we tried to encourage the activity, but we didn't push it.

He is leading the way and is a joy to support. He has intertwined self guided weaning with the independent toileting so that cinches it. He may look like his Daddy, but with those multi-tasking skills he's definitely my kid! Plus he has my smile;)

He was apparently dealing with some big concepts coming into this process and he let me in when he said, "I want to potty in my diaper so I stay a baby and keep my mommy." I almost burst into tears. Instead I hugged him, held him close and said, "Oh Sweetie, you will always be Mommy's baby. Even when you are a big big boy, you will also be my baby. Even when you are a grown man, you will also be my baby. If you potty in your diaper or potty in the potty you are still my baby. Mommy will always be your Mommy and will always be here for you, even if we are not right by each other." He smiled and hugged me and said, "well, OK, i think so."

I acknowledged that he was doing so many things now that he couldn't do when he was a baby and together we came up with a list that included things like: dressing himself, putting on his own jacket, building train tracks all by himself, helping with laundry, helping in the yard, reading to himself, getting his own water and ice to drink in an open cup, and not nursing very often. He said, "yeah" with a sweet half southern half New York lilt and smiled.

From that moment on he's asked to wear underwear and there have been fewer and fewer requests to "Nay Nay" (nurse) and when he does ask, he literally takes one rather loud slurp from each side and says, "I'm all done" or "just one drip, yummy yummy for my tummy" and smiles.

What a beautiful process. I feel so blessed to share it with him and to watch him lead the way.