I don't give him enough credit...

I've joked, half sarcastically and half with terror, that I thought Joshua would be the only kid in his kindergarten class who wasn't potty trained. For me, the prospect of potty training was a daunting one. I have absolutely no clue what the heck I'm doing, and that's not how I usually approach things. But I refused every urge I had to "read up" on all things potty, talk to all the moms I knew about their techniques and tactics, and have a "game plan" before we had our very first potty day with Joshua on Friday.

I had planned to be off with him so that I could trade the day with Judy for our Saturday trip to PSU. In the last few weeks, Joshua has been showing some obvious signs of being ready to get serious about using the potty. When we're getting ready for his bath in the evenings and he's undressed, I realized that he'd tell me when he had to pee. He'd sit down on the potty and go without any struggle. After a few nights of this I started to put it together that he wasn't interested in peeing on the floor. And....if he wasn't going to pee on the floor, maybe, just maybe I could let him run around pants-less and work on some potty training with him when I was home with him for the day. So when we got up on Friday, that's what we did. I found him a long t-shirt and some socks and we went about our day with no pants (well, he did.....I still wore pants....just wanted to clarify).

Immediately after breakfast, he told me that he had to go...and he did. And time after time all day Friday, he told me in plenty of time before he had to use the potty. We had the froggy potty chair sitting in our living room for quick access, but had no accidents and no surprises. To say I was amazed was an understatement. For each successful attempt, he earned himself a jelly bean and a sticker to put on his special potty paper that we decorated in the morning. He was so proud of himself, and I was beside myself with excitement for him.

We repeated course on Saturday without pants. Grandma worked with him while we were at the Penn State game and reported similar success. No accidents and plenty of warning when he had to go. We decided to play outside on Saturday evening, so Jason and I took a walk on the wild side and put big boy underpants (Mickey Mouse, in case you were wondering) on him to play. I was sure this would be our first accident- since he's so enthralled with playing when we're outside. But much to my suprise, he announced that he had to go and ran inside to the potty before getting Mickey wet.

Sunday was much the same. We were travelling to Lewistown and he managed to keep a pull-up dry on our trip as well as all though church with my family. I put a diaper on him during the baby shower we attended, just to make sure we weren't asking for him to remember too much with all of the commotion going on. He was dry at the end of it and then proceeded to use his froggy potty like a champ at my parents' house all evening.

We're nowhere close to night trained, and I certianly wouldn't think he could be after 4 days of working on this, but we've made more progress than I ever dreamed possible when I dreamed up the concept of "potty day" in my own mind. Clearly, I don't think I gave Joshua enough credit. But the idea of waiting until they're ready and making it easy surely worked in this case. I'm not claiming total victory yet, but I'll tell you without reservation that we're light years ahead of where we were last week.

I just might get my dream of having only one child in diapers at a time after all. By the skin of our teeth!

Speaking of the littlest Dugan, I just had to take a picture of the finishing touch that was so graciously and generously made for the little lady by Shannon. Shannon has been my pregnancy partner during this whole experience. We found out that we were expecting within days of each other, and have been sharing emails about our experiences the whole way through. She and my cousin Cory are within a few short weeks of meeting their little bundle (it's a surprise!) just as we are. We're in a race to the finish...although I don't think that either of us really care who wins as long as we both have perfect, healthy babies in our arms sometime within the next couple of weeks.

Anyway, while at Shannon's baby shower on Sunday, she gave me this amazing gift THAT SHE MADE. PAINTED WITH HER OWN TWO HANDS. Seriously...I was blown away. There is one wall in the nursery that I've been searching for something to put up, and I just couldn't find what I wanted. That must have been because Shannon knew exactly what I was looking for. I almost cried. And I couldn't wait to get it hung up this evening. So, thank you Shannon...honestly, I absolutely love love love love love it!

Our biophysical profile is tomorrow at 2:00 with Dr. Miller. Hopefully things are looking good and we're fine to hold this birthday party off for a few more weeks. I guess we'll see.