The Day I Realized Joshua Was All-Male

We started potty training Joshua just before he turned 2. He picked up on it fairly quickly and did well for the most part. When we moved to out apartment at the end of September, he started reverting back to accidents in his pants (accidents of the poopy kind). I attribute some of it to the move, some of it to the major digestive troubles he has had recently.

I had to come up with something to motivate him. We were in the progress of taking sugar out of his diet, so the mini-M&M's that he got as a reward were no longer an option. And quite frankly, when you get m&m's as a reward the bar is already set high... So, I thought MAYBE I can teach Joshua patience along with potty training. So I designed the chart pictured above, got multi-colored star-shaped stickers and we began our new phase of training.

I explained the new system to Joshua and told him when he filled up the chart, he would get to go to the store and pick out ANY toy he wanted (granted, I did not reveal that the store was the Dollar Tree, and all the toys were $1.00). So we began and it went really well. So well, in fact, that I decided to reward him after the first 8 stickers. He was quite excited and picked out a smiley face balloon as his "toy".

We continued on and while things took a little longer (due to some of Joshua's recent health problems) he finally finished his chart yesterday! :)

I knew he has been wanting a Francesco (character from Cars 2) so I decided instead of the Dollar Tree, I would take him to Target to get this car that he wanted. In addition to Francesco, he also got a Monster Jam truck too (one of his favorite things to watch is Youtube videos of former Monster Jams). He was very excited.

Here's where the title of this post fits in: This morning, we put a new potty chart up (to continue with training). And Joshua walked out of the bathroom and said to me, "Mom, I know what I want when I fill up my next potty chart, I want a tv and a remote for my room"

I laughed at him and he cracked up too (He MUST have realized how absurd that request was). :)