Leader of the Pack

I have to brag about my kid for a minute. Logan is the kind of kid who is very introspective. He likes to watch things and is very cautious to try new things. He is easily frightened by scary cartoons or movies and is quick to let us know. He is also very smart, of course, and last year around this time I bought an Elmo potty seat for him with some new Elmo undies. And there they sat in our tiny bathroom until he finally decided to bring the potty out into the living room and investigate it. He took the little pot out and filled it with his toy cars. Sometimes he would sit on it, but it would be another month or two before he thought about using it for its true purpose.

In May the weather turned around and it felt like summer. He was playing outside everyday for hours and at some point, he decided that outside was a great place to pee, especially since the dogs did their business outside. And that is how he started to potty train himself. I cannot even begin to describe how easy the entire process was for us. I feel so blessed because I was really expecting it to take forever with lots of tears, struggles and messes. I never wanted that to happen and thankfully, it did not.

By the middle of June he was in undies most of the time. I was still putting him in a pull up for outings and bed time and when he wasn't feeling well. Then, byt he end of the summer he was about 90% trained with little effort from us. He just started lasting longer and would tell us when he needed to go potty. The other 10% was doing his other business and night/nap times. Through the fall we really worked with him on doing his business on the big potty but for whatever reason, he was pretty hesitant and fearful of it. I'm not sure why, but he just wasn't ready and we did not want to push him. I was already quite pregnant and fighting over pooping in the potty was the last thing I wanted to do.

Sometime over Christmas he finally just started doing his business in the potty and would wake up more often than not with a dry pull up. One night we decided it was time to totally ditch the pull ups. We told him that we would leave the light on in his bathroom and that if he needed to go in the middle of the night that he could. And that was that. Sure, he still has an accident every now and then, more so when he is sick and paying less attention to his body. But now that he is over all the yuckies he has been amazing. I think it's been almost an entire month without an accident.

All this to say...he has been the only boy his age at his home daycare who has been totally potty trained pretty much since the end of the summer. There are 3 other boys his age (all have birthdays within weeks of each other) who have just not been ready yet. Or their parents were not ready, or both. Either way, his caregiver told me the other day that Logan helped motivate all the other little boys to go pee on the potty! That's right, he was setting the positive example that it wasn't scary, it was easy, and way more fun that wearing a pull up all the time. I am so proud of him! The best part is that he is so humble about it, just like his dad in many ways. I hope that he is always like that. That he is able to accept the praise and be proud of himself without being overly so (at least not in front of others). I hope that he was cheering those boys on and praising them for being big boys!

I am so proud of my big boy!